"Fed Up With the CAWs..."

[Poindexter]

One last note about betting last. Obviously the caw has the tools to project far better than any of us and they have the ability to bet from what I am reading in these articles at the last second almost (which is really ridiculous-not even sure how they pull that off-Does the starter yell send in Caw bets before pushing the button). My guess is they have the software to read the all in transit bets as well to formulate their last second bets. All this imo is criminal, maybe our resident attorney can chime in on that subject. So as much as I am less concerned about them betting last than I am about rebates the combo of both is so deadly to this game and the recreational bettor.. The more I post and think about on this subject the less I ever want to bet a horse race again. I am very serious about this. It is just way too much disadvantage for any rational person to accept. I am the point where I am beginning to say to myself why bother. At least if I play a pick 6 carryover, I have a chance to turn $200 into 15 k. Which is reasonable to me. If I am playing a pick 5, I can only get screwed in one race. But betting individual races they are just going to crush you if you are not rebated significantly (not players points). BTW, those with significant rebates are just further crushing the recreational bettors while giving back a good portion of those earning to the CAW.

All that being said I am not sure that betting last and position in poker are really analogous. In poker if you think your best and you act first say with one opponent, you have a calculation to make. Do I check and try to get my opponent to bet into me? Do I bet and let him get off too cheaply, because I don't want to bet to much and scare him off the pot. If I act last maybe he over bets his hand trying to scare me off, or maybe I can raise him and get him to call for more than I would have if I acted first, or maybe he bets so aggressively that I just decide to muck my hand thinking he has me beat, saving me a bet. I just think it is a totally different situation.

[Thrillseeker]

Nyra cut the CAWS off at 3min to post in the win pools. The CAWS bail out on participating in that pool. That seems to imply that the CAWS value betting last more than anything else.

Granted, they can easily make up the volume/rebate in the other pools, and maybe the other pools are more lucrative due to the higher takeout, and there could be a myriad of other issues influencing the decision making process - but it certainly appears that betting last ranks quite high on the priority list...

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

In poker, all the players acknowledge how important it is to have "position" over your competition. Acting last is a HUGE advantage...because you get to exploit the actions of your opponents, while your own actions remain unexploitable.

What would happen if you were able to act last in a poker game, but you were the weakest player on the table.

You’d lose anyway.

The CAWs are winning because they are the strongest player at the table at making odds lines. Acting last expands their advantage over us. They are the best player at the table with positional advantage.

[castaway01]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

By the way anybody that bets horses can prove to himself what is more relevant, betting last or rebates. As far as rebates, on every bet you make/made (assuming your not already getting these types of rebates) take the track take (for that bet) subtract 10% and consider that a rebate (these are the Mike Maloney type rebates not the caw rebates). Now re-calculate your profit/loss. Personally I think most of you will be very pleasantly surprised with the results (not sure it will make you profitable but it will put many of you in the ballpark most likely).

Regarding betting last. Prove it to yourself. On every race from here on out look at the odds at post time and make hypothetical bets. I will bet the 3 at 6-1 or better, I will bet the 10 at 12-1 or better, I will bet the 2 at 8/5 or better. After the race only count the horses that met your strike price as bets. If betting last is "that important" you surely will make money with this hypothetical 200 or 300 bets down the line. It is not an exact parallel (the caw is not always going to be right on final price) but it will tell you how important betting last would be to your betting. Personally I think most of you who try this will be very disappointed in the results (sans rebates).

Now obviously the caw bets last and gets ridiculous rebates so they have the best of all worlds, but that is irrelevant to my point. Imo rebates are far more important than betting last.

Two other notes.

One was regarding Dave Schwartz saying they should cut Caw off 3 minutes to post in all pools. I made that suggestion years ago. My reasoning was that if you are going to give the caw/whales the edge of rebates at least give the non rebated bettor the chance to act on the opinion of the caw and take advantage of some of the perceived value that the caw creates. As it is now, the recreational bettor doesn't bet a horse because he is 8-1 at post, Caw bets he wins at 13-1 and suddenly recreation bettor is very frustrated. Missed perceived opportunity. Same for exactas and doubles. In this case the non rebated bettor would have the chance to act last so those of you who believe that is the cats meow should be all over this idea. Of course the caw would not be too happy with this idea and we know who runs this industry.

Lastly, I am going to bump a post I made in 2017 and see if given what has happened in the last 6 years if there is more interest in the idea. Personally, I would much rather see rebates eliminated(but I know that is not happening).

1) When you're driving the odds because you suck value out of the pools and are better than the average bettor, that's when betting last has value. If you are betting $2, then no, it doesn't matter.

2) The paragraph on "betting on the value the CAW creates" makes absolutely no sense. They are destroying value, not creating value. The only way they can "create" value with their wagers is if you are better than them and can bet on the races where they create 13-1 shots that should be 8-1. That does not apply to 99.9999% of people reading this, and if it does you should be swimming in the pool at your beachfront mansion and not posting here.

[GMB@BP]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

What would happen if you were able to act last in a poker game, but you were the weakest player on the table.

You’d lose anyway.

The CAWs are winning because they are the strongest player at the table at making odds lines. Acting last expands their advantage over us. They are the best player at the table with positional advantage.

you would lose a lot less. You are also using an extreme example from strongest to weakest, most people are in the middle in both poker and racing handicapping.

[Poindexter]

Caw wants to bet last because they see as much of the betting as possible to help their models and by acting last they lock in the prices with a reasonable degree of accuracy, so they can use rebates to maximize profits.

[Poindexter]

Originally Posted by castaway01

1) When you're driving the odds because you suck value out of the pools and are better than the average bettor, that's when betting last has value. If you are betting $2, then no, it doesn't matter.

2) The paragraph on "betting on the value the CAW creates" makes absolutely no sense. They are destroying value, not creating value. The only way they can "create" value with their wagers is if you are better than them and can bet on the races where they create 13-1 shots that should be 8-1. That does not apply to 99.9999% of people reading this, and if it does you should be swimming in the pool at your beachfront mansion and not posting here.

Regarding paragraph 2, to the recreational bettor it doesn’t matter if the horse that jumps from 8-1 to 13-1 after off is plus or minus even. It matters is that a horse he would have liked to bet at 13-1 went off at 13-1 but he was unable to bet it. Makes for a poor product. That is my point.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by GMB@BP

you would lose a lot less. You are also using an extreme example from strongest to weakest, most people are in the middle in both poker and racing handicapping.

I agree about the "middle part", but I'm less sure about the rest.

If I bet a horse at 5-1 with a minute to go and he drops to 5/2 after the start because of late CAW money, 5/2 is probably a reasonable long term price (maybe break even or a small loss) otherwise the CAWs wouldn't have pounded him down that low to begin with. They bet him because they spotted the same overlay I did.

If they didn't bet last, but instead put their money in throughout the wagering, he never would have been 5-1 to begin with. He probably would have hovered around 3-1 and gone to 5/2 late.

To get that 5-1 they have to be removed from the pool entirely, not just prevented from betting last. They are mostly just removing the overlays late instead of throughout the wagering. They are rarely turning my overlay into a monstrous underlay. If they did, they'd have their own problems to deal with. It's just extremely frustrating to think you are going get this beautiful 5-1 overlay and suddenly see that 5/2 fairer price you don't even want.

[Dave S]

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Quoth the handicapper "Nevermore" (LOL).

[Gorrex]

So many people keep wondering how CAWs send so many bets at just the last few seconds.

Having built 2 high volume wagering systems and an ADW I can say.. its pretty easy actually.

The CAW system recalculates all wagers each time the odds cycle comes in. That gives them a list of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of bets sitting ready. (or maybe 0 bets if they calc no overlays etc...)

An operator (or computer vision recently) watches the live stream and presses the "Send It" button based on how many horses have loaded into the gate. Some tracks lock really late so they can wait until all but the last are loaded.. some lock early and they send as soon as the first 1 or 2 are in.

Once the button is pressed hundreds to thousands of bets can be sent and processed each second.

[Dave S]

I do not dispute that the CAW teams are a major issue for everyday handicappers and that the problem should not be taken lightly but one small remedy for this might be contest play. I know that contests can never substitute for everyday play if the playing field was neutral but I have managed to do fairly well in a couple of very tough free online contests that had over a thousand entrants in each one. In Hawthorne's most recent contest although I just missed from cashing, I managed to finish a very respectable 8th place in a field of over 1200 (one entry only allowed).

[sjk]

I use the amwager file upload. Betting a list of combinations as the horses are loaded is easy to do. The hard part is finding anything in these short fields worth a play.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by sjk

I use the amwager file upload. Betting a list of combinations as the horses are loaded is easy to do. The hard part is finding anything in these short fields worth a play.

Do you also scrape the odds and calculate your fair values vs. actual prices prior to sending in bets?

[sjk]

Yes. Been doing it the same way for about 20 years.

Amwager makes it easy to do.

[PaceAdvantage]

Originally Posted by sjk

Yes. Been doing it the same way for about 20 years.

Amwager makes it easy to do.

Yeah...I was doing it 10-15 years ago as well...scraping and automated betting...I wrote a program that watched the odds, decided bets and automatically sent it in at 0mtp (which wasn't accurate, obviously, but since hardly anybody was doing stuff like this, there wasn't as many crazy odds drops)

People act like this is some secret, crazy sauce they are using.

Maybe their modeling and AI is...but the actual process of getting a bunch of bets in at the last second isn't new. And using computers to do it isn't new either.

You also don't need any fancy super-secret direct connection to the tote...sure...it helps...but it's really not necessary.