Time To Investigate

[Poindexter]

By the way watch this interview with Jeff Bezos from 1999.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxwjzVW7z5o

Maybe it will trigger some light bulbs to go off. Maybe not.

[senortout]

Originally Posted by usedtolovetvg

I am getting so tired of the odds changing well after the horses leave the gate. I haven't posted for a while but I just made a big bet on the 1 at MNR race 5. Leaving the gate the horse broke on top and the odds dropped to 3-1 from 7-2. OK, I can accept that. Turning for home the horse open up by 5 and miraculously the horse dropped from 3-1 to 6/5. I have seen this happen at many of the smaller tracks but MNR is the worst offender.

The bigger problem I'm seeing now is that the same shit is happening at NYRA and SoCal tracks. I think it is time for the feds to look into this and see wtf is going on. I am not a huge punter but this kind of activity is driving me away from the sport I love.

Of course, the smaller betting pools at small tracks take much less betting $$$ to significantly alter the odds, but you already knew that,,,,

D'N'YA???????......There was likely no cheating because at most tracks, a disproportionate amount of the betting pools come from off-track locations, and are impossible to display as the gates open. The solution would be to hold the gates until all the odds are displayed for everyone. Making it too late to adjust your wagers anyways. If you feel your horse will be overbet late, there's a damn good chance you are right.

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

By the way watch this interview with Jeff Bezos from 1999.

Maybe it will trigger some light bulbs to go off. Maybe not.

A bit of thread drift, but resonated with me.

[usedtolovetvg]

Originally Posted by mountainman

I was surprised the winner went that low. Admittedly though, I just made a bad line on the race. And did not distinguish myself with the pre-race analysis.

With respect to your overall point, sir, the late money can usually be predicted at mnr, and almost always conforms to obvious logic. Sometimes, players (mostly less informed than yourself, I'm sure) prefer to flatter themselves that their observations are unique, when in fact a late pile-on in the win pool looms inevitable. I constantly advise players that a knack for anticipating late money is critical to beating mnr's win pool. And I am sure this is increasingly the case at other tracks, as well.

An notable exception occurs with foreign money. It is generally dumb.

First of all I would like to thank you and all here for your insights. After the first couple of responses I was afraid I would be attacked when I believed it was a legitimate beef. Thanks to all who took the question seriously.

Now, as for the late money, especially at the smaller tracks, I have rarely, sic never, seen a horse get hammered that didn't break on top or close to the lead. During the race the odds often change dramatically depending who is on the lead or, "moving like a tremendous machine". I will never understand why the tracks do not post final odds before opening the gate. Of course, I remember this was a failed experiment attempted many moons ago. The bots and computer players with the big bucks rebelled. Appeasing them seems to be more important than the everyday Joes who, I like to believe, are the backbone of the industry.

[usedtolovetvg]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt1

This the first post.

Everyone is hung up about CAWS's

I think a major factor is ADW's and when they put in the bets mad at their sites.

Years ago, I put in all my bets for Turf Paradise before the first race. When the pools came up or the 5th or 6th race my horse was 99-1. I checked the pools and the horse had $2 in the win pool. My $20 bet was placed two hours before. Twin Spires had not sent in the bets yet, probably waiting for enough money.

If ADW's send money in intervals, wouldn't the last dump be the largest of all? And using the example above, if many betters at the last minute saw 7-2 and decided to bet or add to their bet, the odds would drop.

I would guess the last drops of ADW's and the track's simulcast site would be more than 40% affecting odds on all bets.

Not being a conspiracy theorist, couldn't the ADWs and others hold off sending their money until the running order was pretty well determined.

[jay68802]

From Race 4 at Da Mountain, BTW, the breaks dead last.

[cj]

Originally Posted by jay68802

From Race 4 at Da Mountain, BTW, the breaks dead last.

So roughly 75% came in after all the horses were loaded, or at worst during the load.

[jay68802]

Originally Posted by cj

So roughly 75% came in after all the horses were loaded, or at worst during the load.

Yep, with the getting hit hard.

[Al Gobbi]

Twitter

[MJC922]

Originally Posted by Al Gobbi

https://twitter.com/PatCummingsTIF/s...38128240844800

Again 7/5 in the final DD probables matrix from the prev race, went off at even money, two ticks difference. Really nothing to see here if people have the time to calculate it. To pull the trigger on 7/5 for a 50% overlay to win you would want to have made the horse 4/5 or less anyway and it paid even money. Not a huge overlay if you made it 4/5 but not an underlay. The alternative is jumping on it at 1 or 0 MTP where I'm guessing what was it 2-1 or 5-2 ? smh If someone is still doing it that way then they're betting it if it's as much as 6-5 on their line and getting an underlay payoff. Folks really need to stop doing things that way. I mean I did it that way in my day but this isn't the old days. In any case I feel like I'm beating a dead horse with this. It is what it is, it'll have to be fixed odds to stop these complaints I suppose which I'm fine with. Works for me.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by MJC922

Again 7/5 in the final DD probables matrix from the prev race, went off at even money, two ticks difference. Really nothing to see here if people have the time to calculate it. To pull the trigger on 7/5 for a 50% overlay to win you would want to have made the horse 4/5 or less anyway and it paid even money. Not a huge overlay if you made it 4/5 but not an underlay. The alternative is jumping on it at 1 or 0 MTP where I'm guessing what was it 2-1 or 5-2 ? smh If someone is still doing it that way then they're betting it if it's as much as 6-5 on their line and getting an underlay payoff. Folks really need to stop doing things that way. I mean I did it that way in my day but this isn't the old days. In any case I feel like I'm beating a dead horse with this. It is what it is, it'll have to be fixed odds to stop these complaints I suppose which I'm fine with. Works for me.

My work around for this kind of thing has been to change my mode of thinking.

In the past I’d either make a rough odds line or rank the horses in order of probability. Then I’d look at the odds board for anything I disagreed with significantly.

Now I identify the contenders and look for a horse I think is a lot better or worse than it looks on paper because I have an insight that is generally misunderstood or not shared by a lot of other serious players. My preference is to have 1 positive and 1 negative inside the same race.

I guess to some extent you could say I’m handicapping the other handicappers by asking “what is that all the other players could be getting wrong or missing in this race?” And naturally I try to avoid races where I’m the one that has holes in my game.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by cj

So roughly 75% came in after all the horses were loaded, or at worst during the load.

This is why there should be only one way to make bets, in peron or through an ADW, one at a time.When certain customers have privileged status, you can't call it a fair game. Tracks are happy to take the money because they get a cut and basically screw over the average players. This needs Federal regulation, imho. Let the whales bet head to head out of public pools.

[AskinHaskin]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

I don't think you are the only one that has/had that attitude. One of the reasons I started posting about it a number of years ago was because I grew tired of people rationalizing it and comparing it to airline rewards. If I fly from Vegas to New York, and pay the going rate in coach, doesn't affect me one iota (or anyone else on the plane for that matter) that some guy who makes that trip 200 times a year might be sitting in First class and paying half as much as I am. I pay the going rate, he pays a discounted rate because he provides value to the airlines and they are smart marketers. I am not paying more for my seat because he is paying less for his seat. He is entitled to his special rate as I would be if I chose to make the trip 200 times a year.

That should be clear for the extremely challenged in this audience.

Originally Posted by Poindexter

Racing is not like that. If some huge bettor is getting a 6 to 8% rebate in the win pool and working on -3%, he is netting 3 to 5% profit, which is fine. What is not fine is that he is driving up the takeout on the rest of the betting public and more importantly he is driving down the prices on the horses who have the best chance of winning long run.

Uh, nearly everybody in your audience here would have all others reading believe that they too are in the same category (of "Driving up the takeout on the rest of the betting public").

(which is likely numerically impossible, but we continue to believe their written words despite all of the proven fiction routinely penned here)

Originally Posted by Poindexter

He (she/they, whatever) does not lose 3% long run betting huge amounts of money because they are lucky. They are darn good. Once again, them being good is not a problem and is fair game. The rebates are a problem because it motivates this person/group to drive prices down on all live horses below fair value. One can argue that by these groups hammering the 3-5-7-9-11 they are giving the public better prices on the other 6 horses. Agreed. But the net effect of all this is that they ultimately drop virtually all horses to below break even. The horse that was -40-% may now only be -24%, so if you bet this horse win and you bet him, you will be paid more the time that he wins, but over all races your are still losing money.

"the rebates" don't truly even fit into the parimutuel equation at all because they are administered only after the fact (hence the name) and they come from the constant, not the variable. (The variable remains the concern, and what is indisputably still driving the general public from racing)

Originally Posted by Poindexter

Now if you have found a leak in their game and do better today than you did many years ago, more power to you. The majority of folks playing this game are either lying to themselves, getting really good rebates themselves, or are flat out losing and don't care. There is a reason a lot of people who enjoy this sport, don't even play it anymore. It became futile to try to win. Maybe some have just transitioned into tournament play (Derby Wars etc where everyone is on a fair playing field I believe).

(borrowing your thought process for a moment: we don't care whether they're lying to themselves, or flat out losing and don't care... it's the lying to us here in print which is the concern)

Originally Posted by Poindexter

Now the one thing I omitted from this post was late odds drops. Obviously if caws are betting in the last seconds and knocking every solid contender that is above fair value to below fair value, then a lot of times you will see huge odds drops. If they are knocking a horse down from 3-1 to 4/5 (which often shows up after the race starts) you can bet your last dollar that somewhere around 4/5 is the correct price not 3-1. We know a 4/5 shot should win about 48% of the time, so there is little reason to be shocked that the horses that are bet like that win often. TLG, has posted that Caws are not in the win pool and that he is not seeing the same kind of late odds changes he was prior to them being told they had to bet by 2 or 3 minutes to post (whichever it is).

All of the talk about "late odds drops" is babies crying over spilled milk. They habitually infer past posting when it simply is not happening in significant numbers of circumstances (one or two at some county fair meet every five years). LOL If 40 years ago the inferior technology of the day evolved to tell us through racing media which cowboy mutuel clerks clicked precisely which exacta combinations 4 minutes after the bell sounded, then today's technology would be able to report what color the cowboy's underwear were on the day it happened. Yet we read next to zero on the subject.

Originally Posted by Poindexter

So basically caws getting big rebates just about eliminates all value from the pools and creates bigger last second odds drops (if they were not getting big rebates the 3-1 to 4/5 would be more like 3-1 to 6/5). It thus makes it mandatory for anyone else to get big rebates themselves to beat the game unless they are handicapping with strategies that are far different from conventional handicapping wisdom. If you have found a way to beat the game using strategies that consistently put you on horses that have odds that go up rather than down after the race goes off, than the caws are your best friend. For every person that can say this there are at least 99 others than cannot. Not exactly a great way to build a sport that has a heck of a lot of competition these days.

Again, "rebates" in this context are occuring after the fact, and simply are not a part of the raw equation since those rebates are derived from the constant, and not the variable.

"The problem" surrounding rebates is that entities offering them are doing nothing to support racing's bottom line. All of their customers are only "taking" from racing while giving zero back to it.

"Late odds changes" alone are an easy puzzle to solve by merely putting the public at large on the true contenders long before the bell rings.

Originally Posted by Poindexter

Bottom line is that the fact that this real smart money is not in the Win pool at NYRA, should be a huge welcome sign to anyone that bets horses. The majority should do better with them either out of the pool or in it minimally. They also have nickel breakage which is a lot better than dime breakage. Keeping Caws out of the win pool and the pick 6 pool and cross country pick 5 pool is not exactly the solution to horse racing's problems but at a circuit as huge as NYRA is definitely a step in the right direction. If you enjoy betting horses and you aren't beating this game and you want to beat this game, I cannot think of a better idea than to play only win bets at NYRA.

You are insane if you believe for two seconds that the entities who back the CAW are not invested in the NYRA win pools.

For the entire duration of this message board, individual players here have been wholly concerned with their own position in the giant equation and habitually remiss in (not) considering the picture from the standpoint of the dimwits who are running North American tracks. Those operators only lift one finger toward the betting public and racing has circled the toilet for many years as a direct function of the complete ineptitude of track management everywhere.

Meanwhile, yearling prices and horse ownership revolve around a separate, speculative game driven most by those fewer and fewer fabulously wealthy who (basically "need") more and more avenues to 'invest' their wealth. Yet industry bigwigs cite higher yearling prices as if they are any indication of the whole of racing trending toward the positive. Same would occur if suddenly ping pong balls were arbitrarily said to have giant dollar value a la GameStop (GME) stock or the like.


When eventually horse racing in present format buries itself it will have only itself at the very top to blame for its demise. It won't be "rebates", it won't be "late odds changes", it won't be "past posting".

Pure stupidity at the very top of present day horse racing set the barn afire long ago. Most people had the good common sense to run away from the barn fire. Meanwhile, racing's would be fire department can't even smell the smoke. Present day track operators are most like the horses themselves, and everybody knows what a horse's instinct tells him to do when his barn is on fire.

[AskinHaskin]

Originally Posted by usedtolovetvg

Now, as for the late money, especially at the smaller tracks, I have rarely, sic never, seen a horse get hammered that didn't break on top or close to the lead.

That is a purely absurd belief.

(and be sure to alter the definition of "hammered" to fit your narrative with each new race)


And I'm not ruling out the definition sometimes defined with a breathalyzer.

[Poindexter]

Askin Haskin, we will agree to disagree on the rebate issue. I know it is the biggest problem (coupled with excessive takeout to begin with) this sport has in ever growing into anything more than a relic. I am trying really hard to conceptualize what your point is. I went back and read a few of your prior posts. Your big talking point seems to be that lower takeout is pointless, you hate Hana for some reason (I don't know if it is because they pushed for lower takeout or they encouraged more exotics, both?). You often bring up putting people on the live horses to begin with. How exactly do you do that? The entities that are able to decipher the live horses are the ones that are extracting millions of dollars from horses racing (mostly if not entirely through rebates). What exactly would be their motivation for going on TVG telling everyone that the 7 horse who is currently 9-1 should be 4-1?

Also what is your end game? A sport with 16% take with completely efficient pools (thus nobody would every win and everybody would lose 16% of every dollar). That is your answer (I can flip an coin and bet sports all day and lose 4.5% why would I want to lose 16% betting horses?) You criticize racing, you criticize my points, you criticize Hana, but what is your solution?