CRW’s and California Racing

[Poindexter]

One more thing. Would racing be a better game with the caw out of the tote system. Absolutely! I however do not think it is a needed step at this point. You eliminate rebates and correct pricing a lot of issues that the caw causes are not as problematic. Over time it may become a step that has to be taken, but at this point fix the pricing first, market hard and see where it takes you. Down the road they can make further adjustment if needed. But these little bandaids they are using eg keeping the caw out of certain pools, Isn’t going to fix anything.

[MJC922]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

One more thing. Would racing be a better game with the caw out of the tote system. Absolutely! I however do not think it is a needed step at this point. You eliminate rebates and correct pricing a lot of issues that the caw causes are not as problematic. Over time it may become a step that has to be taken, but at this point fix the pricing first, market hard and see where it takes you. Down the road they can make further adjustment if needed. But these little bandaids they are using eg keeping the caw out of certain pools, Isn’t going to fix anything.

I suspect the number one thing that caused many longtime serious players to move on completely or scale way back their wagering was the late odds volatility. IMO rebates and takeout have only a limited impact on that. You can get rid of rebates and lower takeout tomorrow but many of these teams won't go away, they will adjust and continue to bet very late for obvious reasons, so you'll still see the odds drops persist after the bell. Maybe you'll settle at one tick higher in odds than before but you'll still see the same drops and still end up on a lot of underlays you don't want to be on.

I suppose maybe you could tie rebates to betting earlier, have a sliding scale on rebates based upon MTP or something along those lines, that is if you want to keep rebates around something like a bet at 10MTP gets a full rebate and after 5MTP-4MTP is very little or no rebate. I think it's better to remove the rebates and lower takeout for everyone but that may be easier said than done.

If you can get the CAW money into the pools earlier IMO you'll finally see they aren't as formidable as people are making them out to be. That's the point I'm trying to make, the final odds still show me some overlays exist and if these teams were near perfect you wouldn't see any overlays. Granted there are days I don't see many overlays but I'm not playing fulltime so there's a lot I'm not seeing for obvious reasons, e.g. massive gaps in the knowledge base that I never had when I was an everyday player.

So that's my two cents on it. What was insurmountable for many people (including me before I went to DD probables in the past year or two) is the late odds drops forced people on to far too many underlays which virtually guarantees a negative ROI. I believe most fans that stuck it out over the years as well as any new fans to the game said nevermind to the win pool and figured they'd just start betting longer horizontals where the drops don't matter because nobody can see them anyway. The first problem with that is it's betting into blind pools, how does anyone judge the goodness of a bet when the odds are unknown? that's half the equation to a kelly bet, right? plus when the CAW likely has the ability to look-ahead to what's taking money it's really another no-win situation for anyone that isn't harvesting pool data the same way. Sure good ticket construction can offset that disadvantage to some degree but if that's most of your game I don't think it's long for this world.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

One more thing. Would racing be a better game with the caw out of the tote system. Absolutely! I however do not think it is a needed step at this point. You eliminate rebates and correct pricing a lot of issues that the caw causes are not as problematic. Over time it may become a step that has to be taken, but at this point fix the pricing first, market hard and see where it takes you. Down the road they can make further adjustment if needed. But these little bandaids they are using eg keeping the caw out of certain pools, Isn’t going to fix anything.

If the rebate goes away, the CAW goes away. 99% sure of that.

Then your pools take a 25% hit. That would put some places out of business.

They’ve allowed the monster to grow so large they can’t live without it. They are marching towards Obsolescence and raking in as much as possible. They are beyond the point of no return. They can never build back a 25% increase in handle so they have no choices.
Die as slowly as possible but take in as much as possible on the way down.

I think I hear “Nearer my God to thee” in the distance.

[Poindexter]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

If the rebate goes away, the CAW goes away. 99% sure of that.

Then your pools take a 25% hit. That would put some places out of business.

They’ve allowed the monster to grow so large they can’t live without it. They are marching towards Obsolescence and raking in as much as possible. They are beyond the point of no return. They can never build back a 25% increase in handle so they have no choices.
Die as slowly as possible but take in as much as possible on the way down.

I think I hear “Nearer my God to thee” in the distance.

Caw would not go anywhere. They will just bet less and win less without rebates. They do not need rebates to win if game is properly priced as I suggest. This should have been done years ago but I hear Belinda stronach in the background with her entertainment stupidity. How that working for you Stronachs?

Mjc I will get to your post tomorrow.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

If the rebate goes away, the CAW goes away. 99% sure of that.

Then your pools take a 25% hit. That would put some places out of business.

They’ve allowed the monster to grow so large they can’t live without it. They are marching towards Obsolescence and raking in as much as possible. They are beyond the point of no return. They can never build back a 25% increase in handle so they have no choices.
Die as slowly as possible but take in as much as possible on the way down.

I think I hear “Nearer my God to thee” in the distance.

I agree...the game isn't big enough to allow the whales to make a "worthwhile" profit without the rebates, IMO. If the rebates go away...the computer guys will go back to the financial markets, where they probably came from.

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I agree...the game isn't big enough to allow the whales to make a "worthwhile" profit without the rebates, IMO. If the rebates go away...the computer guys will go back to the financial markets, where they probably came from.

That was the case 15 years ago but now they have a profit machine.

Without the rebates they'd certainly have to dial back the wagers because there'd be less good ones.

Even with that, they'd still have a thriving business -especially if they can cut back labor costs. (Not sure that's possible.)

[lamboguy]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I agree...the game isn't big enough to allow the whales to make a "worthwhile" profit without the rebates, IMO. If the rebates go away...the computer guys will go back to the financial markets, where they probably came from.

i tried day trading stocks and got killed at that too! i had one stock that had 5 trading halts in one day, 3 times they halted to the upside, and twice to the downside. i was in the play on every wrong side. , the same thing happened to me the next day with a different stock. i waived the white flag!

[Andy Asaro]

If they left handle would go down about 25%

That does NOT mean revenue goes down by 25%

AND if takeout were reduced a few % on each wager the game will have a much better chance of getting the twice a year player to play twice a month and the twice a month player to play twice a week.

There is zero downside to getting rid of them

Twitter

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Last edited by Andy Asaro; 04-21-2023 at 07:50 AM.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

That was the case 15 years ago but now they have a profit machine.

Without the rebates they'd certainly have to dial back the wagers because there'd be less good ones.

Even with that, they'd still have a thriving business -especially if they can cut back labor costs. (Not sure that's possible.)

From what I understand, they have to bet ALL the races as part of the deal they have. That come from o_crunk who posts here and on Twitter.

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by cj

From what I understand, they have to bet ALL the races as part of the deal they have. That come from o_crunk who posts here and on Twitter.

That is simply not true.

[edit]
They do have to maintain minimum handles per month, even in the winter months - when they typically lose.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

That is simply not true.

I have zero reason to think he would make that up, he knows a lot about the subject. Can you point to races you think they are skipping?

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

That was the case 15 years ago but now they have a profit machine.

Without the rebates they'd certainly have to dial back the wagers because there'd be less good ones.

Even with that, they'd still have a thriving business -especially if they can cut back labor costs. (Not sure that's possible.)

As the handle of the general betting public continues to dwindle, and the CAW groups continue to increase their own betting levels, it will gradually become a battle among the “whales”. This is unavoidable because we see where the betting trends are heading. When this happens, the game will be even tougher for the computer groups, and the labor costs don’t go down when the work gets harder to do…they go up! If on top of that the rebates go away…I don’t see how the profits will be appetising enough for these mysterious whales. When the minnows go away…will the whales feast on each other?

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by cj

I have zero reason to think he would make that up, he knows a lot about the subject. Can you point to races you think they are skipping?

I on the other hand have a reason to make it up?
LOL

I'll not bother to put in the time to analyze races.

Unless the whale world has changed relatively recently, this is simply not true.

Believe me or don't.

As the handle of the general betting public continues to dwindle, and the CAW groups continue to increase their own betting levels, it will gradually become a battle among the “whales”. This is unavoidable because we see where the betting trends are heading. When this happens, the game will be even tougher for the computer groups, and the labor costs don’t go down when the work gets harder to do…they go up! If on top of that the rebates go away…I don’t see how the profits will be appetising enough for these mysterious whales. When the minnows go away…with the whales feast on each other?

It has been that for 15+ years.
At least to them.

[o_crunk]

To clear the air a bit....

I've done a couple of commissioned studies on the big teams - Elite, RGS, a couple others that have reached their level of play but have since folded.

This is tote reconciliation data that stretches back 20 years. I've yet to see a race at a track where Elite plays and they pass the race based on the data. In one instance, I had 15 years of tote files and they played every single race that went at the track during the time frame. Not to give away this particular track because if I disclosed the particular races I was surprised they bet, I think it would settle the debate on if they have "minimum handle deals" or if "they need to play all the races". To me, it doesn't matter, the end result is the same. They are playing all the races. It's not about handicapping - if there is money in the pools that doesn't come from them, they will be participating. End of story.

In anther instance, there were gap days where they didn't play at all - any races. And my understanding was for this particular track there was no deal in place. I thought that was interesting as it was in the middle of that track's meet as well.

When I say CRW, I am referring to Elite, RGS, etc. Everything else is not CRW to me. Everybody has their own definition of what CRW/CAW actually means these days.

[o_crunk]

One other thing I would like to note.

When I say "Elite" I'm referring to the entire umbrella of tote codes that is "Elite", of which there are dozens. To me, it's all one organization. To others, they are separate teams functioning separately. This part is not entirely clear to me though so I can see both sides of the argument. As far as I'm concerned, Elite7 not making a bet in a race but Elite12 making a bet in the same race....to me, it all comes from Elite. It's a technical point but an important distinction.