Pool manipulation

[Pensacola Pete]

Is pool manipulation (i.e. putting a large bet in on a horse to encourage betting on other horses, and then cancelling all or most of the bet just before the race closes, so that the odds of the horse being bet on is inflated) illegal, or is it just an unethical thing that tracks or ADW's can't do anything about other than cancel the person's account?

I see this all too often, especially at greyhound races and at tracks with small wagering pools, and I've reported it to the host track on many occasions, but it doesn't seem to stop. i KNOW that they can find out where it's coming from, and if it's from an ADW account the ADW can certainly trace who is doing it from the wager ID's. All I can figure is that it's either not illegal to do this, or the tracks and/or ADW's just don't care. I know that PTC is vigilant about discouraging this.

Any answers would be appreciated.

[DGroundhog]

It's a pain in the butt to find out where it came from. You have to contact every link into the host track. That is probably going to be 40 or 60 links (and often multiple wagering sites per link). Then all those sites have to run reports to find the cancelled wagers. Some facilities won't even look. If it is CA or NY they know nobody is going to deny them wagering on their track. They want their money and they aren't going to kick out all the money wagered at CA tracks.

[DGroundhog]

If the money is bet/canceled locally (at the track itself) the track MIGHT try to locate the person doing it, but if they aren't using an account or a player tracking card it is tough to ID who it is.

Only once in 20 years have I actually seen somebody confronted over making large wagers and canceling them. In that case it was a new customer who didn't even realize he was doing anything wrong. He'd make a bet of a few hundred right after the previous race went official (about 20 MTP before next race) when there was not much money in the pools yet, see his horses odds go from 6-1 to 3-1 then cancel because he wanted better odds.

The pattern was noted, next time a large wager was made at 20 MTP the ticket was locked and when the guy tried to cancel it a mutuels rep was sent to confront him.

[LemonDropKid]

I was at an OTB in NJ recently and someone there put a $200 bet to win on a long shot in a race at Saratoga harness right as the pools opened. Of course this horse opened below even money and I am sure some bettors looked at the horse more closely. Shortly before the race went off they canceled the bet. The horse shot up to about 20/1. The guy who made the bet at the OTB laughed it off. Ridiculous!!