NTRA Suspends Three Players from the NTRA National Horseplayers Championship

[thaskalos]

If the tournament organizers were so reluctant to report the names of the cheaters...how can we expect these same organizers to offer an accurate account of the level of cheating involved?

[tholl]

Originally Posted by elhelmete

Understood, but in this particular case with 3 humans controlling 5 entries that means only one human could have more than two entries. So then was the transgression the depth of the collusion between the 3 guys? I have to assume it is.

Yes, it appears that one player was controlling the five entries. 2 entries of his own and 3 belonging to beards.

[turfeyejoe]

Worst case of cheating in a big money tournament that I witnessed came nearly 30 years ago in the World Series of Handicapping at Penn National. Late in the final day there are very few players still alive. In one row of seats, just one guy was left. So when it's post time for handicappers, a woman collects his betting card and quickly posts it on wire clothes line for all to see. A confederate of the leader immediately shouts out "He bet $400 on the 7 to win." So after hearing what his competitor bet, the leader says he made a mistake and wants a new betting card. He takes the new card and bets $402 on the 7 so the other guy can't pass him. There were a few complaints that the guy cheated by changing his bet after seeing what his closest competitor did but nothing was done and the leader went on to win the $100,000 first prize, which back then was the richest tournament jackpot anywhere.

[Parkview_Pirate]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

If the tournament organizers were so reluctant to report the names of the cheaters...how can we expect these same organizers to offer an accurate account of the level of cheating involved?

That's a very good question. Unlike the scandal with the Breeder's Cup pick 6 at Arlington, the details are a bit murky here without any process in sight for more complete disclosure.

Glad to see the players got DQ'ed. I've qualified a couple of times for the NHC, and have been the minnow in the shark tank, though I wasn't surprised by that. At first glance it still is mostly on the up and up, as no single player has ever won the NHC twice, and many of the winners have definitely been in the category of "non-professionals". That is to say, their success lies in stringing together some nice priced horses over 3 days. Difficult, but not statistically out of whack. That's my impression anyway.

Hat tip to Andy Asaro for helping tilt the NHC to do the right thing.

However, I'm still a bit uneasy about a couple of things. First, if these guys all qualified from Hawthorne's tourney, shouldn't that have been detectable prior to awarding them five seats to the NHC? IIRC, Hawthorne runs a bankroll style contest, so detecting any "unusual" patterns should have been trivial.

As a side note, I have quite a bit of confidence that the HP and HT site contests do a pretty thorough check on the results of the qualifiers before awarding the seats. And certainly the Four-Gate incident showed us all how fair and transparent things can be when managed properly.

Secondly, while I think the NHC is 95% or more on the up and up, collusion is still pretty easy to do. I don't have any direct knowledge of this, but it's my opinion. From what I've observed at the finals - I think it's quite likely it still goes on, to a small degree. Some players are acting as beards or getting advice from friends/family. I just think there's just some limitations on how stringently it can be enforced. I used to think it was also be pretty easy for someone with an hefty bankroll for entry fees to "sponser" a half dozen beards and tweak the selections for them to make it difficult to "find" them. Especially in the $2W/P format. But I think the overall prize structure is flat enough to make this anything but a "sure" profit. The top 3 or so finishers are still random enough in the 46 picks over three days it would be tough to show a profit year after year.

And, since I still play in the NHC contests, it doesn't bother me so much I don't enter the qualifiers.

[Andy Asaro]

Originally Posted by Parkview_Pirate

That's a very good question. Unlike the scandal with the Breeder's Cup pick 6 at Arlington, the details are a bit murky here without any process in sight for more complete disclosure.

Glad to see the players got DQ'ed. I've qualified a couple of times for the NHC, and have been the minnow in the shark tank, though I wasn't surprised by that. At first glance it still is mostly on the up and up, as no single player has ever won the NHC twice, and many of the winners have definitely been in the category of "non-professionals". That is to say, their success lies in stringing together some nice priced horses over 3 days. Difficult, but not statistically out of whack. That's my impression anyway.

Hat tip to Andy Asaro for helping tilt the NHC to do the right thing.

However, I'm still a bit uneasy about a couple of things. First, if these guys all qualified from Hawthorne's tourney, shouldn't that have been detectable prior to awarding them five seats to the NHC? IIRC, Hawthorne runs a bankroll style contest, so detecting any "unusual" patterns should have been trivial.

As a side note, I have quite a bit of confidence that the HP and HT site contests do a pretty thorough check on the results of the qualifiers before awarding the seats. And certainly the Four-Gate incident showed us all how fair and transparent things can be when managed properly.

Secondly, while I think the NHC is 95% or more on the up and up, collusion is still pretty easy to do. I don't have any direct knowledge of this, but it's my opinion. From what I've observed at the finals - I think it's quite likely it still goes on, to a small degree. Some players are acting as beards or getting advice from friends/family. I just think there's just some limitations on how stringently it can be enforced. I used to think it was also be pretty easy for someone with an hefty bankroll for entry fees to "sponser" a half dozen beards and tweak the selections for them to make it difficult to "find" them. Especially in the $2W/P format. But I think the overall prize structure is flat enough to make this anything but a "sure" profit. The top 3 or so finishers are still random enough in the 46 picks over three days it would be tough to show a profit year after year.

And, since I still play in the NHC contests, it doesn't bother me so much I don't enter the qualifiers.

Appreciate the shout out.

It comes down to this Industry as a whole not taking their core customers seriously. NHC is supposed to be one of the top two tournaments in the country and the initial reaction/ruling by the NTRA was a PR disaster. Some of us noticed it real time and immediately pushed back and that caught them by surprise. I know Tom Rooney and know he's a good guy but that doesn't give him or the NHC a pass on their initial handling of the scandal. The NHC is a great tournament and for the most part the NTRA does a really good job.

The more we are together the easier it is to get stuff done that benefits the Gamblers and the Industry.