CRW’s and California Racing

[Al Gobbi]

Using California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) data, the story illustrated the way total California handle has shrunk appreciably between 2007 and 2021, but the share of that handle from CAWs has increased hand over fist during the same window.

When it comes to by far the most influential of these computer syndicates, the Elite Turf Club–a Curacao-based company owned in part by The Stronach Group and NYRA Bets LLC–their share of overall wagering has increased from about 3% to roughly 30% between 2007 and 2021, according to the FT's analysis of CHRB data.

https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.co...fornia-racing/

[elhelmete]

Criminal.

[Dave Schwartz]

What is CRW?

[thaskalos]

Just "improve the experience" of the CAW groups and everything is fine. Don't worry about the rest of us...we are too addicted to quit anyway.

[Jeff P]

Back in 2010, the TOC (Thorouhgbred Owners of California), the CHRB (California Horse Racing Board, and track management including the Stronach Group (owners of Santa Anita and Golden Gate) hatched a takeout increase (22.68% exacta and 23.68% tri-super-pick3-pick4) written into SB1072 which was passed by the California Legislature and signed into state law by (then) California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In 2011 handle at Santa Anita fell by about 18% during the first few months the takeout increase was in effect.

For the year: Handle at California track fell by $500 Million.

Imo, the criminal part?

The TOC, the CHRB, and the Stronach Group won't admit the SB1072 takeout increase had anything to do with the fall-off in handle (or the lost race days, layoffs, and purse cuts resulting from the fall-off in handle.)

For the first year the takeout increase was in effect, in the CHRB's 2011 Annual Report, CHRB Chairman Keith Brackpool blamed the fall-off in handle on the economy.

All anyone had to do was compare California's year over year percentage change in handle to other tracks (say) Aqueduct, or Tampa Bay Downs to know it wasn't the economy.

Fast forward to 2023.

The Stronach Group now owns a percentage of Elite Turf Club (as does NYRA Bets.)

Source, HERE.

In the case of Fast Buck, according to the California Horse Racing Board, a single player made 13 win bets totaling $11,206 in the final 40 seconds before wagering closed. The total win pool for the race was $159,078, so one player in the last 40 seconds accounted for 7 percent of all win bets.

Those $11,206 in win bets returned $89,648.

According to the CHRB, these bets were made through Elite Turf Club, an offshore account wagering company in Curacao owned in part by The Stronach Group and NYRA Bets LLC. Elite is a unique business in that it establishes wagering accounts for a handful of high-volume gamblers believed to number less than 20.

In the twelve full years that have passed since 2011:

Retail handle and on track attendance have fallen considerably.

And CAW wagering has risen appreciably.

Why do you think that is?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that CAW players have net effective (after rebates) takeout rates that are approximately half the net effective takeout rates paid by the retail player?

Naw.

Who am I kidding?

High takeout can't possibly have anything to do with falling handle.


-jp

.

[Jeff P]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

What is CRW?

CAW is computer assisted wagering.

CRW is computer robotic wagering.

As I understand it two acronyms for the same thing.


-jp

.

[teach21]

Ive never heard this mentioned with all the CAW talk etc here...but do the CAW's also bet at the small tracks with small pools? prairie meadows, presque isle, etc...or are they basically only interested in the bigs? and what about harness tracks?

[thaskalos]

What I find most disturbing about the article that headlines this thread is the widespread reluctance to bring more transparency to this rebate enterprise that these CRW groups are thriving in. No one is willing to reveal any information about the rebates that these groups are receiving...and the president of the Elite Turf Club is acting as if we are spying on the "personal wagering habits of his customers, and their personal situations". We don't care about the wagering habits of his customers, nor do we give a rat's ass about their "personal situations". We just want to know what rebates they are getting...so we can determine the disadvantage that we place ourselves in by wagering against them.

Any business that withholds such vital information from the customers who supply the game with the majority of the parimutuel handle that sustains it does not deserve to have those customers, IMO.

[Poindexter]

By the way when looking at the chart in the financial times article, they only use Elite (which is not all Caw and not all players getting large rebates, correct). But we will stick with the data they provided. Between 2007 and 2021 Elite went from.12 billion to .48 billion while all others went from 3.71 Billion to 1.13 Billion. So the all other category dropped 2.58 Billion which is a 69.54% drop. Wasn't O_Crunk claiming that 60% is a ridiculous number. Maybe he meant ridiculously low? The non Elite handle dropped just about 70% in 14 years and the clowns they interview are agreeing that about 25% caw betting is just fine and dandy. So when the 1.13 billion left becomes about 400 in about 7 or 8 years will that still be the number they are looking for. The stupidity of this is mind boggling.

Now they touched on two corrective actions they are taking. One was that they are requiring a 40 cent minimum on the Rainbow Six bets so they can't take the pool down on a non mandatory payout. That is sort of interesting to me. A) that sort of leads credence to my suspicion that at least some have access to all played combinations. B) Why are they even playing a 40% + rainbow six pool if they are? Are they getting 30+ % rebates for doing so? Or is this dude just trying to pretend that they are actually being proactive. The second corrective action was they charge a 3.5% surcharge if the teams want to play to the close of the win pool. Seems like they are sort of taking a page out of the NYRA playbook and keeping the Caw out of the win pool? From the article:

Nader took a similar stance to Daruty, saying that the CAW surcharge is so prohibitive, “it effectively prices them out of participating in the win pool.”

When did this start? Did anybody know about this? Did anybody plan to make it public? Are they just spouting bs?

They are unbelievable. They are willing to do anything but the only thing that will work (eliminate rebates and correct pricing).


I think those talking Boycott are right here. Force their hand. Right a letter to every track you bet and explain your position and stop betting. They are playing the entire betting population for fools. F*** them. Seriously. Let the CAW survive off of the $50 a day bettors. This crap just angers me.

[Poindexter]

Originally Posted by teach21

Ive never heard this mentioned with all the CAW talk etc here...but do the CAW's also bet at the small tracks with small pools? prairie meadows, presque isle, etc...or are they basically only interested in the bigs? and what about harness tracks?

My understanding is that their are highly rebated whales at every track and in every pool.

By the way in my last post I left out the word million after the number 400.

[lamboguy]

the CAW bets everywhere that has money in the pool.

something new that i have learned about them is they know how to do tote analysis in different pools and be able to cipher out the smart money from the not-so-smart money, and then they follow in. so now i have learned that its not enough to know how to predict where the CAW money will be placed whenever it gets placed. you now have to trick them into placing their money on the wrong horses. maybe 4 or 5 years ago when i figured out that the CAW was able to read blind pools, i started loading up on blind pools and canceled my bets with no time left on the clock for the CAW to react. the CAW figured out that someone was throwing a monkey wrench into their business that they complained and i got shut off from the ADW that i used to cancel those bets and warned about further problems i would concur should i do the same thing somewhere else. so now i try to disguise my bets by betting smaller and various different odd numbers on the horses that i wager on. i have to make sure my bets hit different time cycles and that they don't all look the same. truthfully, the whole betting game has passed me by a long time ago. i don't feel like fighting these battles every single day that i place wagers and i am probably going to just walk away from gambling on horses. i bought a couple of cheap 2-year-olds that really don't figure to be to much, and i will fool around with them, hopefully, i can take advantage of the different state-bred and state certification programs floating around these days so that i don't get killed at the game. the way i look at it now is that betting on horses is a non-productive venture, and owning horses at least produces jobs for many people and helps keep farmland from being developed and the pastures kept green.

[Andy Asaro]

Why don't the people in charge want to grow the game? I have zero understanding of what they're doing and where it leads. It seems to be to fail as slowly as possible. Why?

[lamboguy]

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

Why don't the people in charge want to grow the game? I have zero understanding of what they're doing and where it leads. It seems to be to fail as slowly as possible. Why?

by granting certain people or groups exclusive action to wagering pools is one of the best ways to put the game to sleep. maybe that is the game plan. its pretty crazy though when you see how many people show up to race tracks on the big days all over the place.

what i find interesting though is that how partnerships are easily put together with Team Valor, Read Feather, Myracehorse, Westpoint and others. i think those people only show up to the track when their horses run and run in big races. i don't think they get that much of a payback to their small investments when the horses win, but there are lots of people tied into those syndications.

[Twin Double]

The other thing I think the industry will need to adjust to is the new competition from mainstream sports betting. As of now, they don't even try to compete. They just take the bettor's money and don't really give you any other incentives. New younger players entering the gambling scene are going to flock to sports betting versus horseracing. You can't blame them, They will be up against a vig a fraction of that of the track takeout and the sportsbooks are very smart about giving great incentives to keep bettors returning.

It is almost like we are watching an industry that is equivalent to the Titanic hitting the iceberg in real time.

[Twin Double]

Sportsbooks: Bet a few hundred over the course of a couple of games and take a week off, the offers flood in "Here is a free $50 bet", and "Here is an odds boost". Come back, Come back!

Horseracing: Burn a couple thousand in the pools over the course of a couple of weekends. ""Crickets..." or if you're lucky "Here is a free $5 win bet"
Give me a break haha