Twin Spires Players Pool

[Andy Asaro]

Originally Posted by arw629

It is an issue he made side bets bc it's a conflict of interest. If you don't see a conflict interest please explain. I didn't play the players pool so it doesn't effect me but if I did I would be irate.

It's reasonable to expect everyone who's part of the process to make their own wagers BUT flaunting the win while the Players Pool lost was crazy bad judgement. Ed DeRosa makes the final tickets as he explained in the tweet. These types of pools are scandals waiting to happen IMO but you can be sure things like this incident have happened before. Thing is people keep wanting to participate in them.

I'm against the Players Pools but if people want to play them let the buyer beware.

[turfnsport]

I was disgusted when I heard this. I ran a small scale betting syndicate for a few years for fun. I never let anyone put in more than $300 and capped it at $5,000 and I NEVER, EVER would play side tickets into the same pool.

I once somehow managed to have just one live ticket into the old Twin Tri at Laurel Park with $85,000 in the pool. I got lucky and hit it straight in the second half in a three way photo with my one lone ticket, with nobody in my syndicate even realizing I had a winning ticket. (I used to update on a hotline, but with just one stupid ticket I didn't bother). There were four winning tickets. It was worth $21,000 and gave us a nice bankroll for the Breeders' Cup (I torched $8,000 of it).

Had I played a winning side ticket and we had to split it five ways instead of four, it would have only paid $17,000 screwing my own investors/friends out of over $4,000.

I wonder how many pissed off players in this Twin Spires pool withdrew their $$ and closed their accounts after this fiasco?

Not to mention, aren't these pools down hundreds of thousands of dollars? I'm far from the best at constructing these tickets, but the construction of several I have seen made little sense to me.

[EasyGoer89]

Originally Posted by turfnsport

I was disgusted when I heard this. I ran a small scale betting syndicate for a few years for fun. I never let anyone put in more than $300 and capped it at $5,000 and I NEVER, EVER would play side tickets into the same pool.

I once somehow managed to have just one live ticket into the old Twin Tri at Laurel Park with $85,000 in the pool. I got lucky and hit it straight in the second half in a three way photo with my one lone ticket, with nobody in my syndicate even realizing I had a winning ticket. (I used to update on a hotline, but with just one stupid ticket I didn't bother). There were four winning tickets. It was worth $21,000 and gave us a nice bankroll for the Breeders' Cup (I torched $8,000 of it).

Had I played a winning side ticket and we had to split it five ways instead of four, it would have only paid $17,000 screwing my own investors/friends out of over $4,000.

I wonder how many pissed off players in this Twin Spires pool withdrew their $$ and closed their accounts after this fiasco?

Not to mention, aren't these pools down hundreds of thousands of dollars? I'm far from the best at constructing these tickets, but the construction of several I have seen made little sense to me.

They construct 'caveman' tickets I would imagine, making out tickets w large bankroll of not your own money can lead to a less than optimal experience for the investors.

[Andy Asaro]

Made USA Today Sports

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/05/2017...winning-ticket

[Dahoss9698]

Originally Posted by arw629

It is an issue he made side bets bc it's a conflict of interest. If you don't see a conflict interest please explain. I didn't play the players pool so it doesn't effect me but if I did I would be irate.

Originally Posted by EasyGoer89

I agree the rubbing in the face is a major part of the story, but Arw has a good point too, there's still a conflict.

Who's to say that one of the experts isn't sabotaging the tens of thousands of TS player money so he can get better odds on his own bets? In the derby it doesn't matter because of pool size, but what about in a smaller pool situation?

Also, even if there's no actual sabotage, the expert knows the ticket structure and can gain small percentage points for his own bets if he 'bets around' the TS tickets.

I hadn't really thought about the conflict of interest point you guys bring up. The whole thing kind of stinks at this point.

[Grits]

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

Made USA Today Sports

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/05/2017...winning-ticket

Two men are charged (Scully and DeRosa) with the task of conveying their collective opinions and executing those opinions using other's money. Ok. Nothing wrong with that. There's a sucker born every minute and Twin Spires and Brisnet capitalize on it. No surprise there as a fool can find countless ways to part with their money.

What IS wrong? In this case, James Scully lost everyone's money, then had the gall to stand before a national newspaper, USA Today, posing with his own 75K winning superfecta ticket that he bet, personally, aside from others.

A professional player would never have done this. One would never have allowed himself to be photographed or his name to be learned.

This guy, yes, he may have banked 75k minus the IRS' share, but this was World Class Stupid. I'm sorry, gentlemen, and I apologize in advance for being so blunt. This man doesn't have enough common sense to know when to keep his mouth shut and his head down after he's lost thousands of dollars of others money just minutes earlier? A seasoned, a successful player would've placed the winning ticket in his wallet, drank a few Woodford Reserves, and returned to cash next week when all was quiet.

Inside The Pylons, DaHoss, Asaro, etc, all of you, in my opinion, are using fine logic. Conflict of interest, though, will never enter into this. Twin Spires would rather make him their poster boy. Still, this is bad for the sport, and we can't absorb bad like Goldman Sachs can.

[ReplayRandall]

Originally Posted by Grits

Two men are charged (Scully and DeRosa) with the task of conveying their collective opinions and executing those opinions using other's money. Ok. Nothing wrong with that. There's a sucker born every minute and Twin Spires and Brisnet capitalize on it. No surprise there as a fool can find countless ways to part with their money.

What IS wrong? In this case, James Scully lost everyone's money, then had the gall to stand before a national newspaper, USA Today, posing with his own 75K winning superfecta ticket that he bet, personally, aside from others.

A professional player would never have done this. One would never have allowed himself to be photographed or his name to be learned.

This guy, yes, he may have banked 75k minus the IRS' share, but this was World Class Stupid. I'm sorry, gentlemen, and I apologize in advance for being so blunt. This man doesn't have enough common sense to know when to keep his mouth shut and his head down after he's lost thousands of dollars of others money just minutes earlier? A seasoned, a successful player would've placed the winning ticket in his wallet, drank a few Woodford Reserves, and returned to cash next week when all was quiet.

Inside The Pylons, DaHoss, Asaro, etc, all of you, in my opinion, are using fine logic. Conflict of interest, though, will never enter into this. Twin Spires would rather make him their poster boy. Still, this is bad for the sport, and we can't absorb bad like Goldman Sachs can.

Bull's-eye post, Grits....

[Franco Santiago]

1. Did he bet into the Player's Pool with his own money? If so, then he absolutely could be using the Player's Pool to hedge his own bets OR using his own money to hedge the bets he put into the Player's pool.

2. Conflict of interest is not the issue. ETHICS is the issue. By any standard of ethical conduct, he would be in violation because he has allowed for the PERCEPTION that something could be amiss or crooked. It isn't necessary to break the law or rules or to conduct oneself inappropriately to be in violation of standards of conduct regarding ethics. It is only necessary to give off the PERCEPTION that this MAY have occurred. He is inescapably guilty of ethics violations and should be barred from participating in future Player's Pools. And anyone that knowingly bets into pools in which he is a participant is enabling poor standards of conduct with regards to ethics.

3. You can bet that this is not the first time this person has bet into Player's Pools in which he was either a participating handicapper or the sole handicapper. He just happened to score this time and his ego would not allow himself to keep quiet about it. There is a very, very high probability that he has been conducting himself unethically for a very long time.

4. Whenever there is adversity or issues in your life, think "what have I learned from this?". While I despise the Player's Pools, for those that do participate, you should be thanking him for exposing himself (and the entire clearly dirty Player Pool concept) as unethical.

No two ways about it - it stinks to high heaven and it is another ugly mark on horse racing.

Good luck at the windows, everyone.

[shouldacoulda]

Originally Posted by kingfin66

I wonder if there is legal action to be had with something like this. What a schmuck.

Maybe so, but the real schmucks are the ones that contribute to these dopes that call themselves handicappers. I "invested" once in a rainbow 6 mandatory payout a few years back (minimum amount as I'm a big spender). When I saw how they played $33,000 I was cursing at the computer. They singled a horse in the next to last race. How in hell do you do that with $33,000 on a 20 cent wager. NEVER AGAIN for me. They will never see another dime from me.

[Andy Asaro]

As the Industry gets more desperate for money not only will things like this continue it will get worse. Just look at the Tracks with Jackpot wagers. The wording they use to promote the wager is almost always misleading and that is intentional.

What sucks for Gamblers in their late 50's is that it's gonna take 10 to 20 years before we get meaningful changes IMO.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

As the Industry gets more desperate for money not only will things like this continue it will get worse. Just look at the Tracks with Jackpot wagers. The wording they use to promote the wager is almost always misleading and that is intentional.

What sucks for Gamblers in their late 50's is that it's gonna take 10 to 20 years before we get meaningful changes IMO.

If horse racing is here in 20 years ......it'll be virtual

Grits and Franco, great posts

[Andy Asaro]

Twitter

[Poindexter]

Tough crowd. If Ed De Rosa was in charge of finalizing the tickets and Scully was the one who hit the superfecta, how can you hold Scully accountable. All he is supposed to do is give his opinion. Not his fault that De Rosa went another direction. I think all agree that the man is entitled to make bets on derby day. He got lucky and hit. Poor taste tweeting it out? Possibly, but what if they did not tweet it out and then word gets out that he hit it. Even more scandalous.

I think the idea of player pools is an interesting one, but I do not think the way it is done is optimal. I think anybody should be able to put up a ticket, consumers can browse the availabe tickets and if they see ones they like they can invest. If the ticket sells all it's shares it is a go, if it doesn't it gets cancelled. I would even go as far as to track the records of each person who puts up tickets, so if player x has put up 10 tickets for $31,000 and gotten back $37,000 the consumer would know it(of course you can only use tickets that actually were played). Of course since it is not legal in some states including the one I reside in, I could care less.

[AltonKelsey]

So lets compare this to the stock market.

If a guy that runs a mutual fund has a bad year in that fund, but banks in his own trading account, would there be an uproar?

Maybe. Probably. Must happen sometime, there are a lot of funds, and its quite possible for personal trades to do better.

Think only real scandal here would be if he bashed some horses for the players pool but used them in his own play.

[EasyGoer89]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

Tough crowd. If Ed De Rosa was in charge of finalizing the tickets and Scully was the one who hit the superfecta, how can you hold Scully accountable. All he is supposed to do is give his opinion. Not his fault that De Rosa went another direction. I think all agree that the man is entitled to make bets on derby day. He got lucky and hit. Poor taste tweeting it out? Possibly, but what if they did not tweet it out and then word gets out that he hit it. Even more scandalous.

I think the idea of player pools is an interesting one, but I do not think the way it is done is optimal. I think anybody should be able to put up a ticket, consumers can browse the availabe tickets and if they see ones they like they can invest. If the ticket sells all it's shares it is a go, if it doesn't it gets cancelled. I would even go as far as to track the records of each person who puts up tickets, so if player x has put up 10 tickets for $31,000 and gotten back $37,000 the consumer would know it(of course you can only use tickets that actually were played). Of course since it is not legal in some states including the one I reside in, I could care less.

Gamblers are very sensitive of having scores rubbed in their faces, this is why a person who Redboards gets hammered here, it's essentially the gambler saying I'm better than you, which none of us really need to hear. Now, if the guy tweeted out his ticket before the race and said here's my ticket, that's a bit different I think.

I like your idea of presenting the tickets and then selling shares after people see what they are getting.