Past posting
 

I've been watching this happen for three weeks. The latest was Early Mischief in the 6th at Keeneland today. The horse was 10-1 when the gate opened, 10-1 entering the stretch on the lead, and 10-1 as the horses crossed the wire.

Then it dropped to 5-1. That in a win pool of $239,233. That isn't the only one, either. All major tracks: NYRA, Woodbine, Gulfstream, SoCal, Keeneland. All got one stepped after betting closed. 8-1 down to 3-1. 4-1 down to 9/5. 5-1 down to 5/2. 8/5 down to 2/5. Even a 14-1 down to 9/2 at a smaller track. No intermediate flash. One stepped in the odds. It gets really old. It isn't a one off thing. I've seen it at least 20 times in three weeks. It probably happened a lot more.


Oh, and all but two won. the ones that lost did it by a nose. Looks like the cheater has to do it before the win photos are posted.



United or whoever better fix this, because I can't be the only one who's seeing this happen.



Here's an Amwager screen shot of the win table betting odds. Post time was 2:52, winner was #3.

I've also seen ones where the price collapsed and they finish up the track.
The ones that do win or run close tend to stick in the mind, I'd like to see some hard data on this which would include the all the late bet downs.

My own view is that its just smart money mopping up the inefficiencies in the pools. It is annoying though.

You're late to the party. It's been going on for years.

And it's not past-posting. I know you're not going to believe that...but that's ok. Plenty of people walk around all their lives believing in myths.

Myth or nor, the perception is bad.
And the game is not doing much of anything to correct it.

BUT, they DID finally get those colored saddle cloths for most tracks. :headbanger::headbanger:

Can you imagine ordering a stake dinner for $30 in a restaurant, and when the bill comes, it is $45?

It would take somewhere around 14000 bet on the winner to drop it from 10/1 to 5/1 with the pool size you indicated. About the same amount bet on the horse to win in the pool bet again in the last second before the window closes.



Who can make that kind of bet without setting off some kind of red flag?


If they are past posting I would like to know how they are doing it.


Are these big odds drops always on the winners?

This sums it up in a nutshell from a long time, well respected horseplayer:

If the tote board updates at 30-second intervals...how can the odds change during the horses' gallop-out?

One of the reasons I quit, for sure.

That and the crappy races being written to favor certain trainers

Abyss
 

into a Fountain :p Money

Not sure about other tracks but the mutuel department at Keeneland can track the source of any wager that they handle, on track or otherwise.

imo, HANA, or a similar bettor integrity type organization, should have someone with the authority of being able to contact the mutuel manager of any N.A. race track and get the context of the wagers made on these races where significant fluctuations in the odds occur. Probably wouldn't take more than a few minutes if it was an on track wager, a bit longer for a wager from another track or OTB, and longest if it was through a ADW site. It can be done though, especially since the wagers causing the late odds changes should logically show at the top of the report.

It's one issue in this game where more transparency really shouldn't be that hard to provided.

Isn't this really being exaggerated because no bettors are on track these days and and even higher percentage of money is coming in from very late, and particularly from CRW teams?

me too, so frustrating.

Absolutely a Myth!
As you probably know I follow the minute-to-minute betting action at most tracks around the country and in Hong Kong. That's because I use tote board information and money flow exclusively to play this game. I've been doing it for years!

I say "minute-by-minute" only because the majority of tote board flashes (updates) generally occur every 60 seconds at the majority of race tracks and ADWs.
Now for you folks out there with Math issues I realize its hard for you to understand. However, just try to put 2 & 2 together and think for a moment about how long does it actually take to run a 6F race?

Okay lets agree that on average its about 1 minute & 12 seconds (1:12). Are you with me?
So if the last tote update occurs lets say 60 seconds after the gate opens, how far have the horses already run in that 6F race? (Or perhaps 7F or 1m race, etc)

You see most people that bring this topic up always seem to be betting on the horse where the odds have dropped (which don't necessarily win). In the meantime, have you heard anyone complain that because of that odds drop on some other entry that their betting interest (who may have won) went up in odds? Of course not!

That's because the overwhelming majority of players are losing on a consistent basis. Granted the game has changed a lot in terms of popularity and handle, but there's something about it that gives people hopes of winning and still keeps many involved.

I think that makes sense.

I was never one of the people who believed in past posting, or extremely late posting, or whatever you want to call it. However, anyone who can watch races for a day and say that the odds don't drop during the race more often on the winners than the losers---even longshots like that Del Mar---has to be willfully ignoring it. It even happens in bizarre ways like at Delaware the other day where 9-5 shots would go to 1-5 during the race and win. I've been recording gate loading odds for 25 years because it's something I do, looking for patterns. Did it OCCASIONALLY happen in years gone by. Sure. Did it happen three races in a row like on Monday with all three winning? No.

If it's all on the up and up, I guess a lot of us are just imagining things. We're gamblers and naturally skeptical....but that's a lot of coincidences, that we all just happened to notice the same fictional thing happening over and over.

This is absolutely a misrepresentation. You are indeed correct that he dropped from 10 to 5/1 in the last flash, but watching live on TVG the horse's odds were already displayed as 5/1 on the backstretch about 1/8th of a mile into the race.


I saw in the first race the eventual 3/2 favorite was 7/2 just before they popped the gate (he lost), so there was some crazy late money there today.

If you are worried about the price you are likely to get, just look at the Will Pays. That's what everyone does now. That helps a lot in predicting the last flash price swings.

The bigger problem is one of perception.

Clearly, a scientific study needs to be done on Will Pays, last flashes, final odds, and winners. You want to pay special attention to the "winners" to see that they are following the Will Pays in the same exact way as the losers. Do the "winners" rise in price if the Will Pays suggest they should as often as fall?

Absent that study, even less cynical minds are going to be suspicious of past posting.

Past posting is not a fable.

It was going on all the time in harness racing decades ago.

We know about the hacking case into the Breeders Cup Pick 6 in 2002.

We know there are incredibly sophisticated computer criminals out there.

It shouldn't be that hard for the industry to actually study the data, produce a report, and demonstrate that nothing illegal is going on.

From Keeneland press release:

"In Keeneland’s 6thrace on Friday, there was a significant late odds shift on the winner, Early Mischief (3). Upon request from Keeneland, the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau analyzed the wagering records. During the last cycle, 26% of the win pool was received ($61,000). Of this amount, $16,000 was wagered on the 3 horse, dropping his odds from 10-1 to 5-1.

Upon examination, several large win wagers were placed on the 3 horse just prior to post and those were reflected as the horses left the gate. Keeneland refreshes win odds every 10 seconds to give the customer as accurate a picture as possible.

All wagers were time stamped properly and were placed prior to the start of the race."


So basically what they are saying is that of the $16K bet on Early Mischief during the last "betting cycle" most all of it was within the last 10 seconds before the race was off and wagering was closed. Otherwise we would have seen odds more reflective of closing at 5-1 instead of 10-1.

Who bets that kind of money at the very last second when you obviously like a horse????

I do. No matter how good my horse looks on paper they have to look good on the track, load into the gate well and be the proper price before I pull out my money.

Sharp post :ThmbUp:

You touch on the major problem within the industry.
It's disjointed, and few in positions of power care about the big picture.

The really smart money that is kicking our asses on a daily basis.

There are people out there who have figured out the game as it presently stands. They do things you can't do. Because you don't have their resources (resources include things like capital and brain power).

They are taking advantage of every possible edge (including rebates). That includes betting at the last possible second (it's not that hard to do, especially when you have a number of people working for you). THEY are balancing out the pools...THEY are making the pools more efficient. THEY are betting multiple horses in the race in whatever pool offers an EDGE to them.

THEY are pounding obviously under-bet horses at post time.

YES...they have this ability...they have the smarts...they have the technology to get it done...efficiently...day after day....just like a CASINO.

They have FIGURED IT OUT.

And they will continue to do this until the game changes...or the powers that be make it harder for them to do this on this kind of scale.

Period.

End of story.

Except you don't need to past post to make gobs of money at this game.

I do not disagree with anything you posted. I know that tracks cater to the big bettors and syndicates, and give them everything at their disposal to succeed as long as they are putting the amount of money that they do into the pools.

My question is how they are doing it? Well, I kind of know how they are but it would be nice if statements like the one Keeneland released had more context. Have them show us the origin of these wagers, where and how all the late money in this instance came in within the last 10 seconds of wagering and was still accepted. They say all wagers are time stamped, well let's see them. Let's see the exact time, and from what source, the late win money on the 3 horse hit the pool.

Most all that post here know that most tracks allow and accept batch wagering from the syndicates. My guess though is that syndicates do not have to hit or click a "send" button for their wagers to be accepted. Rather for every race the syndicates wager on they have a batch, or betting queue, that is automatically sent from to the track as soon as someone in the corresponding track mutuel department flips a switch to stop accept wagering. It allows them to add wagers to, or remove wagers from, the betting queue based on what is happening during the loading process.

The queue contains every wager that the syndicate places on a particular race. Every pool they are wagering in. Every wps wager.....every horizontal wager....every vertical wager......they get every single bet in at the very last second. They never get shut out.

When I worked at DRF, I was in a meeting with some MIT guys that had a technology that was looking at racing and betting pool data and automatically creating and submitting bets at a national level with no human handicapping and almost no human intervention at all. It was also self learning. As it accumulated more data it learned and adjusted its own algorithms. The team said they had an edge at both small and large tracks. The amounts they were putting through the windows sounded staggering. This wasn't even a team of handicappers using their insights and technology to create better odds lines and then submitting bets. This is was a team that flipped the on switch in the morning and then went to the beach. :lol: How do you compete with that?

what are the reasons the tote system could/would not shift to a system where you get the odds at time of betting, not the final posted odds?

I very much doubt they have someone in the mutuels department submitting their wagers for them prior to hitting the close switch when the race starts.

They don't even need that. Also, it wouldn't be anywhere near as efficient enough for them.

These wagers are calculated at the very last possible moment...how they gonna get that info to their "mutuels mole" in time?

No...what happens is this, most likely (or some variant thereof):

These really smart people have either people working for them who watch the racing feeds or maybe they even have computers monitoring the feeds somehow...who knows at this point how advanced they've gotten...

They know exactly at what point they have enough time left to compute which horses to bet, which pools to bet, and how much to bet, create the batch file or whatever and submit the bets into whatever ADW they are using (probably their own private ADW...again I don't know for sure the exact mechanisms they are using, but it doesn't really matter).

The point is, they have everything figured out. The most basic of all of this is when to push the button to figure out the bets and have them submitted at the last second.

It's not too hard to figure out that you have X seconds remaining after X many of horses are loaded into the gate.

Do they ever get shut out? I'm guessing they probably do...nothing is perfect.

But this is as close as you're gonna get.

the only place you can win today is where the computers don't do any good.

i am beating the game since the corona for the first time in many years without consuls, beyer numbers or racing forms. when things get back to normal and the tracks get filled up again, i will probably go back to losing.

Interesting points are made. But there HAVE been documented instances of past-posting: the whole blowup at Sam Houston and Fair Grounds that led TS to close betting 1 minute to post for a while, the guy who got caught doing it in North Dakota, the people who manipulated the simulcast machines (at Belmont if I remember), the BC P6 scandal (which may have been related to the Belmont problems), the ones from South Africa who forged time stamps, etc. I seriously doubt that the tote hubs have a perfect system that is hack-proof. Somebody who can find a way in and who isn't greedy could make a lot of money with just one encroachment per week into a large betting pool. I'm not convinced that past posting doesn't exist.

I am very convinced that the computer dudes and synidcate boys have ruined the game with their balancing of every pool that displays, at every track probably on the planet, every day. That's bad enough, but at least it's legal. Past posting isn't, and I would hope that the tote hubs and related parties are doing what they can to track it down and put an end to it.

everyone always thinks that the guy from North Dakota past posted the Derby with MANARCHOS. he didn't, he got them in the Florida Derby.

the reason why somebody thinks there is some past posting going on now is because some of the tracks that can't have people are bringing their signals over to restaurants where people can bet on the horses without going to the track. if there is any time left after the load, someone could pump into the pool or take out of the pool.

Apparently you don't follow the racing in Hong Kong! Syndicates there are the norm and they certainly haven't hurt the HK product one bit. Their betting makes the Stateside syndicate betting pale by comparison in terms of volume.
The HK Jockey Club provides complete transparency in all aspects of the game they offer as their TOP priority. You won't find the nonsense you're referring to even on a limited scale.

And why not? The proof is in the pudding!
After all, the total combined HK handle for only 765 races (from only 2 tracks operating once a week) during a single race meet is greater than ALL the combined betting that takes place at EVERY track in North & South America for an ENTIRE YEAR!

Just lock the betting 2 minutes to post and all of this goes away.

No it won't. It will be exactly the same...except it will be much easier for them to get bets in at the last second.

If you were aware about the huge network of simulcast coders and decoders that are overburdened the last 2 minutes at most tracks (like the old ticker tape on the stock market) you would know that these fairly tales are mostly just that.

Racing, IMHO will never have any credibility as long it allows that kind of betting. Should be able to bet ONLY one bet at a time, on track or ADW.

And I understand all the mechanics of it., but no one will ever convince me betting AFTER that breaks is not going on at least some percentage of the time and not being dealt with intentionally.

I tend to agree with Tom's comment. As an example, two horses whose pp's are similar, both with morning lines around 6/1, both mid-pack type of horses, each go into the gate at 8/1. One of them breaks well and its odds immediately drop to 7/2. The other one breaks near the back and its odds go to 10/1.

How did the computer guys know which 8/1 should be hammered a couple seconds before the gates opened, and which one should not?

This seems like a contrived scenario. Sorry, but you are going to have to come up with a real life example or two of this actually playing out.

One thing that's important to understand, besides your above "example" being fantastical, is that models in general favor speed horses for obvious reasons, so it's hardly surprising that the horses taking their late play often show speed.

All that would change is that instead of people thinking there is past posting, they'll now think some people get to bet after the two minute mark while others can't.

You just said nothing.

I have also witnessed the tote changing in the same type of situations as the gentleman mentioned but not so dramatic. It is odd how the odds consistently go up on chalky horses based on the first quarter and gate break when there is an issue. It’s never the other way around. There is something to all this and to just dismiss it is naive. Does anyone know if past posting has ever been investigated in the last few years?

fwiw I never said mutuel departments were placing wagers for them, rather implied that their bets were accepted into the pools as long as they were in a betting queue or batch. Probably a contract between the track and the syndicate that all wagers in the queue accepted. Might be wrong but to prove differently would mean the tracks open up their wagering records. Show us, or someone that represents the horseplayers, what is really going on that is causing the late odd swings.

I don't believe past posting is occurring in these situations.

I do believe that a host track's betting records will show that wagers are time stamped properly as to being placed prior to, or at the very last instant, the pools being closed. Likely down to fractions of a second on the time stamp.

I also believe that if race tracks opened their pari-mutuel books or wagering records they will consistently show that most every dime of "late money" is from the same source or sources. Not only in win pools, like the one from the Keeneland race in this example, but every pool, vertical or horizontal. These guys like to cash exactas and pick 3s too.

The sad part of all this is even if the answer is that these are computer-generated bets at the last second by teams that know how to optimize their wagering in each pool and it's totally above board, that's not exactly encouraging. When you know that these people are right 90% or 95% of the time, you start to wonder what the point is. And I know someone is going to say, "You need to be better" but based on handle in the last decade, it appears a lot of casual bettors decided to take a different option.

For example, I'm not exactly a sports wagering expert, but since that became legal in NJ (ahem) and I can get my yearly results quick and easy, I know I finished ahead in 2018, 2019, and I was profitable in 2020 when things shut down. And not 2 cents profitable. But I've been betting on horses for nearly 30 years, and in the past few years I feel like I have little chance to finish ahead for a season/year if I do anything other than pick and choose a single race here or there. So, maybe I just suck at handicapping, but after a while you start to wonder why you bother when there are better options out there that feel like there's a level playing field.

It gets old being a guppy against the whales.