Dudes and dudettes...I have to tell you...I am quickly becoming a convert of the late odds drop shrill chickens.

WTF with this :3: at Mahoning in the 4th race just now? (I know, I know, a $16,000 win pool is tiny)

Horse was 3-1 when I bet him right before they go in the gate....drops to 2-1 when the race STARTS....he's literally going backwards for much of the race and I think this horse is SO done....then starts coming on all of a sudden around the turn and wins for fun...

And ends up at 8/5...

Anyway, if anything, this proves people can't bet after the bell...unless they can bet midway into the race...because if you watched this :3: for the first half of the race, you not only wouldn't have bet on him, you'd be cancelling all your bets as fast as you could.

But DAMN...when I saw 8/5 I almost crapped myself

PA,

If this was caused by past-posting...

What people forget is that if you see the odds change just as a horse takes the lead, that would mean the tote system was so quick to react that somebody could punch a bet in and SUDDENLY it appears everywhere.

We KNOW that the tote system is far slower than that.

In fact, we all WISH it was that fast. LOL


Dave

Can't you get that with just about every ADW? even if they only show probables, with pool total you can figure what was bet.

Or are you saying that the source updates more often, rather than every 30 seconds or minute?

That was the point I was trying to make. There isn't anything extra to get.

The only difference is...

Let's assume that currently you are getting your data from an ADW tote board site.

Let's say that the your view of that ADW page refreshes at exactly 0:00 (minutes & seconds) to post.

Your next refresh is at 0:15 (i.e. 15 seconds after listed post).

If you had been hitting "refresh" in your browser every 5 seconds, you might have had a new update at 0:10.

The guy with the more direct (and very expensive) connection might have had that same update at 0:02.

In other words, the gain is not as great as people would think. Frankly, it would do absolutely nothing for me.

Dave

Should be made a federal crime for some market participants to have access to pool information prior to others?

Being able to measure, assess and respond to pool inefficiencies is how you win in this game. It's not about just knowing when your right, it's about knowing when others are wrong, too what extent or degree, and then how quickly you can assess and react to that with a wager. That can only be ensured by having same time access to pool totals. Everyone should get the pool totals pushed out at the same time. I didn't say top secret ones or mysterious ones, just regular old pool totals. Certain groups or individuals shouldn't see pool totals for a minute before others get access, its real simple. What measures and audits exist to ensure that the signal distribution is timely to all participants? What are the penalties for providing a more timely signal to one individual than another?

I find it interesting after my post in this thread the other night I received a landline call from Bloodstock Research yesterday asking me if I will be wagering next month and if so suggesting that I should sign up for some bonus offer on my wagers. This is totally out of the blue bizarre to get a call from them. I've had that Twinspires account for at least a half dozen years now and never received a single call from them about anything before. Anyway...

To be clear I'm not suggesting there's past posting going on, my concern is more with the late odds changes in the win pools and those may not even involve past posting. My opinion is generally they don't but it has happened before. One thing should be obvious though if there's actual past posting going on, (i.e. if the system has been hacked) then the data available in web scrapes etc will uncover some smoke signals. For example in the tote data I've scraped I'm seeing TUP leads all tracks in the percentage of race winners whose odds drop after 0 MTP. They're also topping the charts in the percentage of horses who make the lead at the first call with odds drops after 0 MTP. Now this is a small sample of 318 races but they're more than 40% higher on these same metrics than WO. Granted it could be random variation but if past posting is going on then it would show in a metric like this and so a closer look at TUP may be warranted by the authorities who may have more information at hand.

Exchange wagering would be the solution to the late odds changes and also wipe away concerns about the tote system / security etc. At that point we would still have the drug issue to worry about (in the US) but with all of these issues in play right now I don't see how it's viable. My personal bottom line shows for me it's not viable. I'm still likely more than a decade from retirement, by then hopefully things have straightened out with US racing because I'd like to play the game again someday.

Gotta say I find this really interesting after years of observations.

i am losing about 20% before rebate over the last 6 years. 30 years ago i used to make 3% without a rebate and without playing the break. when i played the break i printed money.

some of the factors that have changed are conditional wagering where the money comes in with 0 minutes to post and it seems like everyone else is on the same overlayed horse prior to the late betting. then you have the guys that are the last to see the data and have great models that will eat up most overlay's. throw in what i believe has to be some after the bell betting and you can't win if you are playing on the square.

personally, i tried to make sure that i was on the horses that were going up in price if indeed there was after the bell activity and it worked for about a year and a half. now nothing works for me. i am going to play the 2 year old races in the spring, summer and fall and not play the winter races or any other race that does not have first time starters involved in them.

You know what? After taking a lot of the winter off from wagering, and coming back recently to play, I have to say, I am going to backtrack on a lot of what I've said lately about late odds drops.

THEY ARE INSANE and getting WAY OUT OF ****ING HAND.

Tired of this bullshit. I really am.

I'm starting to think that a lot of the people labeled as "whiners" about this are 100% correct. It's going to drive whoever isn't betting 100,000,000 a year right out of this game.

I think that there are 3 main issues in this sport that have been around for a very long time, that the industry as a whole, has ignored.

1. Drugs

2. Distance and timing issues

3. Late odds changes.

The trainers know what drugs are going to be tested for. I think it is amazing that we still have horses that do not pass a drug test.

Just look at turf races at Fairgrounds, they have "about" every distance.

Is it really that complicated to time a race from when the gate opens?

The only thing a guy can do any more, is just say "my odds are going to drop, how much"?

Are these problems really that hard to fix? Can a track say "Wow, we have never heard of these issues"?

IMO, no. Tracks could, in the very least, address the issues. But to my knowledge, that has never happened. Tracks do not want to change these things. Why? Is it money? They seem to be able to raise purses. They would rather have the masses betting with limited, and for the most part, inaccurate information. Why? Because, I think, a large portion of that last money into the pool is inside money. If the 7 at Sunland, with those published great works, was really good, he would have been 9/5, not 4-1. The track gets the handle, and the horsemen get the purses and are able to cash a bet. Now why would you want to change, if you were on that side of the fence. The good news is that they are not perfect, in the 9th at GP today, large amounts of money was dumped on the 2, who finished last.

reason 3.....

the only way you can fix odd changes after the race starts, is to shut betting off a minute or two before the scheduled off.
if betting is allowed until the jump then it is always going to be a race in progress when the final updates come through.

the people that bet all the money wil always attempt to be the last bets where possible i think, as it enables them to see what their money will do to the odds, and let them see hom much they can bet on whatever.
their limits are only dictated by pool size.

half of those that shorten dramatically will most probably be because they perceived them to be way over expectation, and thus they are just correcting the general publics mistakes.

the problem these days is that most will lose more than they ever had, or lose when once they could profit.
the reason will be simple.
the overrounds are too high, and when those big guys are involved it's a defacto increase in an already too high rake.

your other points are the same problems we have over here, except that there is no run up.

i tried to like your post, but i have alrerady given you some love, and it would not let me!!!

I'm glad you've finally seen the light.

All these late odds changes are happening because a few big syndicates were gifted massive unfair advantages years ago. These unfair advantages have meant that these syndicates have survived much better than their opposition who have dropped out of the pools at a faster rate. Now the big syndicates are taking up a bigger proportion of the pools so their action is becoming more visible

Take away the unfair advantages and make the pools fair and this problem will go away overnight. Although the pools will drop sharply once this return to fairness takes place

is it not already happening?
the pari mutuel pools over here are in freefall.
i thought that's probably because there is too many of them, and they are cannibalising each other.
it's a bit hard when your opponents are at the same level with the same advantages.

The winner of the Sundland Derby was 7-1 at the start of the race and 7/2 at the wire.