If it is only 15% of mutual handle and the decision makers are letting this sport become practically unbettable to many to cater to a small group of bettors contiributing only 15% of the pools, then words cannot describe how empty headed the decision makers of this sport are and have been.

If the figure is indeed only 15%, they could eliminate rebates today and have a more successful sport in 2 years without even lowering takeout.

The figure has to be at least 30% and likely closer to 40%.

I doubt it's only 15% . If that were the case, you wouldn't have the big influx of late money in all the pools. The average Joe is not waiting till the last flash to bet.

Not sure its as high as 40% though. My guess, 20-25 at the majors, maybe a bit higher, as they aren't just betting one horse, but spreading it around.

I'm googling for the article I'd read that said 15-18%, but not found yet. I've found this one that says 20%+.

http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com...olume-players/

Very good article you quoted. Especially like this excerpt

The numbers speak for themselves. In 2003, $15.1 billion was wagered on U.S. racing. Twelve years later in 2015, with the major high-volume teams pumping their millions into the pools, handle had fallen to $10.6 billion. And that is despite an infusion into the U.S. betting pools by the computer players that is estimated to be in the area of $2.5 billion annually. It is also important to consider that a track retains a lower commission from a bet from a huge player because of the rebate and other discounts involved than it does off of you and me.


So basically racing decision makers, because of stupidity, have tried catering to a tiny group of whales, who only contribute 20% of the current volume or thereabouts and managed to lose 30% of their handle over 12 years in the process. It has evolved to this at a time when anybody anywhere has a at the palm of their hand a tool to make a bet at any track, any time and anywhere. Should we even factor in the value of the dollar between 2003 and 2015?

Meanwhile, they twiddle their thumbs, horseplayers get more and more frustrated (the point of this thread) and continue dropping out. Those of us iwho continue playing the game have a hard time making any straight bet with any confidence because we just assume that the horse will drop in odds late whether he does or not(I have gotten to the point where if a horse is less than 6-1, I assume that the value that he appear to be as they are loading the gate likely will not remain after off with very few exceptions). IF he wins at an inflated price I pretty much have to deal with it.

You know there actually was a time that you could make a bet on a horse at 5/2 as they were loading the gate and 9/5 was about the lowest you would see in most circumstances(unless the 5/2 was ridiculously inflated). Now horses can go from 5/2 to 6/5 or 6-1 to 3-1 or 2-1 to 7/5 of 6/5 to 3/5 in just about every race. We can't take advantage of the fact that a horse should be 15-1 jumps form 15-1 to 30-1 because the race has already gone off when that odds change occurs. I personally am so close to just reverting to only pick 4's and pick 5's, I cannot tell you. The game is extremely fun when you have some idea of what your odds are going to be. But that just is not the reality in todays betting world. This sport has no chance of building itself up if people betting have no idea what odds they are going to get. The people that don't care are not likely going to provide any significant amount of long term handle.

To those show think that double probable and exacta probables are going to shed light on what a horse will go off at. If they do thanit certainly isn't very hard for racing to provide that information to its fan base.

Horse, odds as 2nd leg in double, odds as first leg in double, oddds on top in exacta, odds as 2nd horse in exacta........It would be a very easy for them to provide that info for everyone and then we can see if it helps. Why do we have to set up our own spreadsheets to do this. They should want us spending time formulating bets not wasting our time pasting the probable onto a spreadsheet.




.

Not sll the late money is whales. Some of it is satellite betting sites with slow uplink, and even a bit of money bet at the last second on track.

thanks for the clarification

I was rushing at the end of my last post:lol::lol::lol::lol:. Here is how the last 2 paragraphs should have read. Sorry about that.

To those who think that double probables and exacta probables are going to shed light on what a horse will go off at, perhaps you are right. If they do than it certainly isn't very hard for racing to provide that information to its fan base.

Horse, odds as 2nd leg in double, odds as first leg in double, odds on top in exacta, odds as 2nd horse in exacta........It would be a very easy for racing to provide that info for everyone and then we can see if it helps us gauge the likely price of a horse prior to the race going off. The whales have this info, why shouldn't the masses? Why do we have to set up our own spreadsheets to do this? Racing should want us spending time formulating bets not wasting our time pasting the probables onto a spreadsheet so we can get this information if we want it. It is just a feature that would help the fan make a more educated wager. If you bet a horse at 3-1 who shows as 8/5 in the 2nd leg of the double and 9/5 in the first leg of the double and 2-1 on top of the exacta, it would be sort of stupid to assume you will get 3-1 on him. But it is up to racing to provide this info to the horse player.

I think we established in an earlier thread that the whales do not get any exotic pool information other than what is available to everyone.

You are misunderstanding my post.This isn't about info that has not hit the toteboard yet, this is about different ways of estimating how what a horse will go off at. Lets take the 6/5 number 6 horse. In the daily doubles the probables
are for $2
1-6 $12
2-6 $25
3-6 $13
4-6 $21
5-6 $45
6-6 $51
7-6 $99

To estimate how much the 6 is in leg 2 of the double you basically have to calculate how much it would have cost you to get back $100. So(i am just rounding in my head)
1-6 8.33333 x
2-6 4x
3-6 7.7x
4-6 4.8x
5-6 2.2 x
6-6 2 x
7-6 1 x

so to get back $100 we would have to play about 30 combos or $60. So essentially the horse was about a 2/3 shot in the doubles.

You can do the same with the double pools starting in this race, but of course the odds are constantly changing.

At the end of the day we have something like this at 1 minute to post.

#6 6/5, 2/3ddleg2, 4/5 ddleg1, 1-1 exacta on top.

Based off of this information the public now has a fairly good idea that they likely will not see 6/5 on this horse as a closing price.

The daily double leg 2 pool is closed so this never changes, but the other 3 pools are constantly updating. It would take very little for the racetracks to give patrons this extra information so they have a lot better idea what the horse likely will pay, assuming a couple of the posters above are correct.

We can do it ourselves, but to do so we have to design a spreadsheet and constantly paste the updated probables or know how to program the spreadsheet to update itself. But it is too much work for 99 out of 100 people amd it takes them away from doing what they should be doing-strategizing their betting.

All I am saying is that I assume whales take all this into account when projecting the final odds to make their betting decisions with the aid of their computers, so why not provide a helpful tool to help the public make more informed betting decisions since they are the victims of all these late odds changes.

This right here :ThmbUp:

Seems to me that it wouldn't matter if you capped betting one minute to post, perception perhaps but you still wouldn't know what the final odds were when you bet, they would just change before the race went off. You would still complain that you didn't get the odds you thought you were getting etc. Maybe would just make you feel better that "probably" someone wasn't cheating but maybe not. That last second betting is still going to throw you off.


People betting the market pay a fortune to be nearer the market so their betting signal gets there faster. it is a never ending battle and not likely the racing people will spend tons of money to fix something that will probably not change things much.

I would pay good money to be able to just cancel a bet 15 seconds into the race. That is one mighty powerful option that seems to be available in some form or another.

I don't think the exacta probables are any better of a gauge than the win pool is... what's to prevent those payouts from being slashed at the bell as well?

Regarding the double will pays, isn't this info widely available? If a player can't take a look at the will pays and get a reasonable read on the closing odds for a given horse then maybe they have no business in the pools in the first place...

To assume we can't deduce approximate win pool odds from the will pays is to admit there are consistent market ineffencincies, which I don't believe to be the case.

One thing you could do is stop it at a random time between 0 and 2 minutes before post. Then the whales could never time it.

See above.

This is the problem exactly!

Ok. Then the whales would be forced to bet at the 2 minute mark, but any time after that you don't know if you could get the bet in or not.

Maybe a better solution would be to prohibit computerized batch betting in the last 60 seconds. Don't know how you would enforce it though, since it happens at the ADW side.

Wouldn't you expect market inefficiencies when the DD pools are typically (at SA) about 10% of the W-P-S pools? And a DD has 100 will-pays given fields of 10 in each race. Seems there would be many instances where DD payoffs would be skewed versus the win odds. But I agree that it is better than not knowing.

You just need different cut offs for different sources. Technologically, it is easy. The problem is that that it would probably cost some handle and tracks wouldn't want to give that up.

aw stoppit
 

Tony you said Churchill made a valiant effort to stop wagering at post time but went back to their old ways when betters compained? This strongly implies that they allow betting after the gates have opened. Barring any malfuntion, this does not happen. While on the subject which is complex, consider some things we at home could do to make ourselves sharply aware of how things work...and here's my suggestion!
1. If you are using an ADW, get the betting totals just as the gates are being loaded...keep it simple for now, just the win, place and show totals. A little searching on the ADW site and you can easily find these. Next, after the race is over, retake these same w-p-s totals. The difference,(roughly accurate depending on when the first totals are taken) should open your eyes. It should be a real eye-opener since up to now a lot of us think the last total won't be that much more that the first one.

ALL THE LATE MONEY, OR A HUGE PORTION OF IT, AT LEAST, IS FLUSHED INTO THE POOLS TOO LATE FOR US TO DO A THING ABOUT IT. Somewhere at a bush track, MOST OF THE MONEY BET, BY FAR, COMES FROM OFF-TRACK. Making that 'juicy' 3-1 shot you've worked so hard on, 6/5 or less.
Or not....perhaps your handicapping has failed you and the horse swings in the other direction. THAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME, IN NEARLY THE SAME RATIO. Also suprisingly, I win a few of these 'failures'

So, learn to trust yourself and things will come out in the wash, in the end. Except, please, and now I'm talking to you, Gulfstream Park, lets get my ponies to the gate on time. Every time. Its gotten so bad that if I am playing two tracks and one has a 5:30 post and GS Park has a 5:28 post I usually bet the 5:30 post before going to Gulfstream and betting there.

I wasn't thinking of shutting off the entire ADW, just the batch aspect. No way to prevent a big win bet, just the mass betting of exacta's and other exotics at the bell.

90% of the time , these bet downs were never going to go off at the 'teaser' price anyhow. These people that think they divined a 2-1 shot that goes to 1-1, have no clue.

"If it was all whales, online bet shops like tvg and xpressbet wouldn't be successful, because whales go to rebate shops."
That is precisely my point..
Now let us suppose for a moment that all of the host tracks decided to add a fee that would make the rebates a wash. Did not NYRA do this? Add some kind of fee that made the rebates a lot less lucrative?
Just what would happen to handle? The whales and other larger volume bettors would eventually find other wagering opportunities. Handle would do what?
Increase? Decrease? Stay flat?
I believe overall handle would decrease at an alarmingly high percentage.
If the opposite were true, then why would the ADW's offer rebates in the first place? If the whales are not driving the bulk of the handle, why offer them a perk?
Notwithstanding the learned OP's input, no matter what he claims oto know, Unless someone can prove it, I think he's wrong.
Look, as a business owner, why would I offer a perk to anyone that contributes no more or no less to my bottom line?
I wouldn't.
Lets just say I sell turf irrigation equipment.
I have one large customer. That business is say a golf course. They are 25% of my revenue. The other 75% are small regular customers.
One day the golf course general manager shows up in my office. He asks me for a 5% discount off everything he buys.
Now, Do I say "no", negotiate the asking price downward, or do I cave and give him what he wants?
In my world, I tell him, let me sit on it.
After looking at the marketplace, I am one of two irrigation supply houses in the area. Otherwise, he must buy on line. The other company, 50 miles away, isn't going to drop his prices to anyone.
Can I do without the golf course? It would be tough, but i could have my accountant take care of it and I can market my company. Would the GM of that golf club take his business elsewhere? Maybe. Not probable..
I tell him there will be no discount on your first dollar. Spend X dollars and I will consider doing something.

No way..That would be patently unjust.
When do we get to the point where we ultimately have to accept responsibility for our actions?
In what number of places do we draw the line in the sand until we get to the line in the sand?.....
Why 15 seconds? Why not make it at the top pf the stretch?

thespaah:

To understand why rebates are the way they are, take a look at airlines. Airlines do a great job of selling the same flight to a leisure traveler for $150 and a business traveler for $650. You make maximum profits this way, and airlines, like racetracks, are a low margin business.

Rebates allow racetracks the ability to charge bettors who care about takeout less without doing general takeout reductions.

By the way, all businesses do a certain amount of this. For instance, supermarket coupons are a form of this- if you care about saving money, you clip the coupons. There is nothing disreputable about it.

Changing odds are in integral part of pair-mutuel wagering.
No matter when the betting is closed, the odds may change before or shortly after the race begins.

You forget one important aspect. Both businesses Airline and racing charge fees that guarantee some return.

#4 at gg race 6 must of had a bet he quit wipping and pulled on reins
 

:confused:

Are there any tracks that give rebates or is it just the ADW's? I know there are track owned ADW's.

Personally I think that anyone that plays the horses regularly should play where getting a rebate if possible. Now even the small players can get a rebate.

Today at Gulfstream:


Win Pool At Post Final Last Dump % of total win pool

Race #7: $168,000 $270,000 $102,000 .37

Race #8: $167,000 $197,000 $ 30,000 .15

Race #10: $124,000 $197,000 $ 73,000 .37

Race #11: $189,000 $261,000 $ 72,000 .28

So when making a bet when the horses were loading, you only knew on a average what the odds were for .75 percent of the total win pool.

Only for four races but it shows how much of the pool is coming in late.

That’s great :lol:

GG 6th
 

Yes indeed. In deep stretch after glancing around. I was watching in real time and it looked terrible.

I saw it live and watch the head on replay just now to see if maybe the 8 came out a little or the horse took a wrong step. No reason I could see for the pull up. Strange.

Better talk to Paul Newman and Robert Redford......I said place it on the 2...all of it, place it?? ha ha ha.....some of the toteboards and the old tracks combined with different IP providers across North America and money coming in with simulcast betting, the money just takes longer to get into the bank accounts. Its not a conspiracy....

It's all because of how it all got started. I don't know exactly which people were the initial culprits, but they were totally clueless. They made bad deals with tracks carrying their signal, then bad deals with ADWs, and then finally they had to compete with offshores for the whales so gave them what they needed to win that battle.

Now they're in a predicament that can't be fixed quickly unless they do like California and get a law passed that puts a cap on it. They're gradually making the rates more where they should be, but heaven only knows when it'd ever get where it should, probably only after racing has died.

:8: was bearing in and jock was pulling him out to straighten him. I think the jock of the :4: reacted late to the last of those adjustments by the :8:. I think he'd seen the :8: adjust towards him a couple times down the stretch, and the final time I think he reacted as if the :8: was going to continue out even further while adjusting, even though by now :8: had already straightened and was coming out no further. Looks funky, but I think it was just slow reaction and maybe a bit of bad judgement by the rider of the :4:

Read your post and watched the replay again. The last time the :8: started to drift in the jock on the :4: seemed to start paying more attention to his mount. Then when the jockey on the :4: saw the :8: again, it was farther out than he expected and there was a delayed reaction on his part. Still looked very strange.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that CD permits betting after a race begins. Just that updating of odds would continue after a race began.

Tony

We need to limit bet size near post time - that's the ticket

the numbers could be adjusted up or down depending on quality of track and/or race like the Kentucky Derby could be 100 times higher

5 minutes nothing over $10K
4 minutes nothing over $5K
3 minutes nothing over $2K
2 minutes nothing over $1k
1 minutes nothing over $200
0 minutes nothing over $20
loading gate nothing over $5


that would help wild swings

It would help with the wild swings but it would be a detriment to the game. Guys that are betting 200-500 on a win bet are waiting to the last second to make that bet. I honestly think the issue is more with technology and these programs that high volume guys have hitting pools late.

Most of the whales are sending large batches made up of hundreds/thousands of small wagers. They're not sending a single $10,000 win bet. So this wouldn't do anything to stop their money from coming in at the last second.

Stopping all wagering at 0 mtp would stop the odds from shifting during the race, but there's still always going to be a shift after betting stops. I don't see how you can get around that, it's literally just physics. But at least the public's perception will be better if it's not happening while the horses are actually running.