Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy Asaro
Suppose for a minute that they eliminated rebates on losing wagers but gave double rebates on winning wagers and nobody had the advantage of using a direct tote given to them by the ADW/Track (and certainly nothing wrong with creating your own program). The question is ...
Do you think that would alter the way they bet? If so, what does that say about the vastly different strategy employed by the whales and how it affects the odds? Bankroll edge, skill edge, massive rebate edge, and for some a tote edge IMO.
It is said that whales would rather have lower take for all cuz the pools would be bigger. I doubt their sincerity since the lower takeout for all wouldn't give rebates on losing wagers.
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A rebate is a rebate whether it is on losing wagers or winning wagers. If I bet a million dollars a year and break even, if my average rebate is 5% I will end up a net winner of $50,000. If this was switched to just my winning bets, I still have a million dollars in winning bets(payouts), on your method I will now get double rebated 10% or $100,000 of course I will lose the ability to batch bet. I think most whales would probably jump at that tradeoff. With all the extra money they will be making they can hire people to enter the bets for them 2 minutes earlier.
I am in the minority here. I dont think CRW is the problem(it doesn't help) and it makes the days of the Barry Meadow style "I need $18 on the 1-7 exacta and it is paying $21" pretty much obsolete as the CRW's will likely correct that mistake,.
The problem is rebates. It provides incentive to these groups to knock all the value out of all value combinations. The bigger the rebate the more they are able to knock out the value. If they are getting a 15% rebate on a trifecta or superfecta they can use their models to estimate the price based of the toteboard(all that statistical stuff Ian is talking about) and bet them down to 7 or 8 % below fair value (leaving themselves a profit margin and putting the public at below even). Andy C is now going to chime in that but the other trifecta combinations go up. So what. The combinations that are going up are low probability and already at -20 to -40%, so they will be a little less disadantageous. The end result is that basically every combination is below fair value and the only people that can make money are those with high rebates themselve or those that have found methods of predicting outcomes that are off the radar of these groups.
If there were no rebates, they would not have that option. There only option would be to leave themselves some profit margin. This is the only way the game can surrvive long term. Imo, this sport can survive and thrive fine with an 8% wps take, a 10% exacta take and 12% takeout on all other exotics if it eliminates rebates. CRW alone would not bring this game down. These ridiculous last minute price swings would be a fraction of what they currently are if rebates were gone. As far as racing being stuck in this death bed. I call Bullshit. If you want the sport to grow and succeed. you look in the rear view mirror, you see that your idiotic idea did not work, you use a little common sense and realize that it cannot work and you change the gameplan so racing doesn't become a game of the past. You may bleed a little or even a lot initially but the end result is a much better game that has a chance to grow and prosper thrive far beyond what today's game has any chance of becoming. What we have today is ultimately going to be useless to everyone including the Whales. Of course they will go back to their hedge funds and the entire racing economy will be left licking its wounds.
Of course the Whales will not like this much, despite what they say, because
it will kill a ton of their action.The only ones that would like that kind of change are the ones that realize that the Candy Store will not be open forever and that eventually there will be no betting economy to fleece. You can bet a lot more money pounding trifecta, superfeca and exacta combos to well below market market value than you can bringing them to down to +5 or +7 %. If you want whales to play
your game, this is what you should want them to do.
CRW is not the big problem, Rebates are.
