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[thaskalos]

I am a Twinspires member...and there are 3 main reasons for my unhappiness with them.

1) They are not consistent in their track condition designations. They sometimes list a track as Fast/Firm...even though the track is sloppy and the races are off the grass. And this mislabeling lasts throughout the racing day. Is there anything more aggravating than betting serious money on a race shown to be on the turf...only to discover too late that the race had been moved off the turf without the ADW ever reporting the change? I tried voicing my frustration about this to a Twinspires representative...who apologeticly told me to double-check this myself by using the track video.

2) The minutes-to-post timer is inexact. The timer sometimes shows 1 minute to post, even though the race has already gone off. Why are the whales betting at the last second...while I keep getting shut out because I am forced to use an inaccurate ADW timer? I complained about this too...and was again told that this would cause no real problems for me if I double-checked the race time with the track video.

3) If I am on Twinspires for longer than 4 hours...their system shuts me off and I have to go back and log on to the site all over again. This wouldn't bother me if they notified me that I had being kicked off the site...but they don't notify you. You only find out that you've been kicked off the site when you try to place your bet. And, as you scramble to log on again...the race goes off before your wagers are placed. When I informed Twinspires of this, they apologized and told me that this was a mistake of theirs that they would fix as soon as possible. This was over 6 months ago.

With many races going on at the same time, the horseplayer needs quick and accurate information that he can rely on...because there is little time left to double-check everything with the track video. And Twinspires gets a failing grade from me in this regard. I wish AmWager were an alternative option for me...but they are not.