I would be willing to go out on a limb and say that perhaps 3/4's of the handle is that of the whales.

We all know this is happening.

Many of us still play.

And we are still bitching. :cool:

You better hope that limb is sturdy. You are way off. Nowhere near that high a %.

Should be interesting what comes of the investigation into the late P4 and P5 payoffs at SA today.

I've posted this many time before over the years but here goes again.

There is no money bet after the bell, other than the occasional issue of a track/pool not closing. I say occasional in that it happens less than 10 or 20 times a year that I've seen and that's with all the races being run in North America.

The phenomenon you see is related to the fact that guest site wagers (simulcast outlets, OTBs, ADWs, etc.) are NOT streamed continuously, they are batched and sent. How often that happens is dependent upon the host track, the host track's toe company, available bandwidth, etc. If you looked at the time stamp of wagers that hit a host pool at the off (and I have) you'd see bets that were made at the guest sites 60-90 seconds before that in many instances. This has gotten better over the years but the NYSE it ain't.

As far as the type of horses that get bet down the most, of course it's the logical contenders. The CAW models are very, very good at predicting the most like winners in each race and typically those are the kind of horses experiencing late odds drops. I don't know how many times someone has told me "I made that horse at MNR, DEL, TuP, etc 3/5 and he was 6/5 at post time so I bet him and he won and paid $3. If YOU can identify him as the most likely winner don't you think the sharps can too?

I'm not saying there's not a lot of problems with the game that needs fixing, but money being wagered after the gate opens isn't one of them.

I have thought for many years that the vulnerabilities in the scan bets (exploited in the BC Fix Six) have not been completed patched. That is my opinion, and however educated it may be, I do not know that for a fact.

What was suspicious about the will pays on the late pick 4/pick 5 at Santa Anita? Most pick 5's were paying about 8 to 11 times what most pick 4's were playing. I must be missing something, but sure not seeing it.

Sooo... Stronach is going to investigate their own?

WTF am I missing here?

Ok what's your guess.?
Is it your contention that the handle is driven by the $2.00 to $50 per race bettors?

They were way too low. It almost assuredly had to do with the late scratch in the last race after the P4/P5 pools were closed.

I won't say publicly what I think it is.

I am a consultant to both ADWs and large teams so I have a pretty good idea what's a realistic guess (because no one can say with 100% certainty) but there's no benefit to me discussing it publicly, other than to say 75% is much too high. It's significantly less than 50%.

That's all I'm going to say about it.

I blame it on TFUS who came a 1/2 length short of sweeping the late pick 4..:)

Whats the big secret?
See, its this kind of opaqueness in this business that helps create the perception that there is always something to hide.
Now, this is not personal. Take it as you wish.
I cannot understand why anyone with knowledge of a particular subject would quickly respond with "you're wrong, but due to ( fill in the blank) I cannot divulge. Just believe what I tell you".
That does not butter the toast.
Either provide the WHOLE answer, or let it go and don't respond.
Using pure logic here. There are large volume players and wagering syndicates that have been mentioned on this very website that wager millions of dollars per year.
Also, I pay close attention to tote board numbers.
A perfect example of where I get my perception of the whales driving the handle is this.
I'm at a track in NY. Typically the WPS handle DOUBLES or even TRIPLES within one minute to post time. And because many of the large volume players prefer to "hide" their wagers from the public, they are wagering at the last moment of the betting period. "Betting the bell".
So, if the everyday joe is making the handle larger, then why are the lines at the windows not 12 miles long? Or since the number of smaller bets coming in from off site venues required to create such significant numbers are being placed virtually simultaneously, would this not create a significant lag in the collection of data or even crash servers?
I must ask these questions because of the rather cryptic nature of your explanation.

That doesn't surprise me. There are plenty of "regular horseplayers" who bet a decent amount but are not whales. Some post on this board.

If it was all whales, online bet shops like tvg and xpressbet wouldn't be successful, because whales go to rebate shops.

1. Others have paid me for those type of insights. It would be unfair to give away that research for free.

2. I never said it is the $2 bettor that is driving handle. It's no secret that it's not. Many causal fans have been driven out of the game. That's a problem now and will be a bigger problem going forward. I do believe that the change related to W2Gs is or should be a big positive influence to the casual player.

3. I'm not disputing a large % of CAW handle is made very late in the wagering cycle. It's not all of it though, despite what you may have heard. I also believe it's very important to differentiate wagers made late but before the gates open and those wagers that are past-posted. There are more than a few on this board (and others) that do not make that distinction and claim that there is a great deal of handle being past-posted. That is simply not the case.

4. As far as lines at the windows, 90% of handle now comes in from off-site. That's across all tracks. When you factor in higher on-track handle at SAR, KEE, DMR,etc it's probably like 91-92% for other tracks. Hence, no long lines at the windows. That time has come and gone.

5. I rarely post these days. Typically when I do it's to correct egregious misinformation. This game has enough problems. There's no reason for people to distort the truth to make it seem worse than it is. Again that's nothing personal. I'm sure you believe CAW handle is 3/4 of the total. Maybe you've read that here or elsewhere in cyberspace. I just didn't want anyone else seeing that figure and believing it too, or worse yet spreading that. CAW teams are not betting $7 billion a year. If there were a dozen large teams they'd each be betting on average $600 million a year. Is that what people really think? I can tell you there are zero teams betting $600mm a year into our pools let alone a dozen of them.