From the original DRF article
\"Donald Groth, the chairman of Catskill OTB, which is in upstate New York, said that the winning bettor is a 29-year-old Maryland resident who placed the wagers by phone. The bettor has requested anonymity, Groth said. He said that \"there is nothing to indicate that this was anything but a very good day for our customer.\"
\"I know why you\'re suspicious, but that\'s not my job,\" Groth said. \"I\'m familiar enough with the customer that I believe this is legitimate.\"\"
From today\'s NY Times
\"Mr. Davis had opened the Catskill OTB account within two weeks of the Breeders Cup, had deposited money on five occasions...but had NOT MADE A BET UNTIL THAT PICK SIX, according to investigative sources.\" (empahasis added)
I guess Groth was familiar enough with Davis through some kind of telepathy.
Davis and the fired employee were college classmates. Pick 5 winners line up for your class action suit. The end. HP
According to an AP wire report, the NY Times Fri edition identified the Autotote employee as Chris Harn, who just happens to be the same age as Davis, but that detail is not in the midwest edition. Drape\'s error-filled article indicates that the two may have been roomates in Phila., & yet another report indicates that Davis attended an Engineering School in Pa. Voila! Although it probably won\'t appear in print until a police investigator hands the info over to a reporter on a silver platter, the two culprits attended Drexel together, & Harn was a member of the local Alpha Tau Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon.
Hegarty\'s article today pts out that while Groth was sayingthe bet was legit & should be paid, he knew that that he had not installed the security device that would have recorded the bets. His excuse is that the system was relatively new, which might be true for Groth but is certainly not true in the industry. It would make sense that the conspirators selected Groth\'s operation because they somehow knew this. Anyone have a guess as to why that might be true? You have to absolutely love Groth\'s comments that this is \"a big left turn in the story.\"
Hegarty\'s article also points out that while Weil & Pierce,wereholding conf calls & making public pronouncements about how this could not possibly have happened at Autotote, the security logs of Autotote employees entering & leaving the tote system were missing. I didn\'t think it possible, but these two are even worse than they appeared to be in the conf call yesterday.
If yet another task force is going to be formed, I say that the bettors who were swindled ought to have at least as many members as the two slots which have apparently been promised to Autotote. I will make that position known to the member of the Jockey Club I know, & let everyone who supports that position know the best way they can email Mr. Phipps to let him & the task force know what they think. Don\'t let this pass in favor of this week\'s action. The only way things get done is to do them.
Mall,
Actually the Times article (on the front page) says that Harn and Davis attended Drexel together - so no silver platter will be required.
Groth\'s comments when this first broke were real whoppers and everything that\'s come out since would back up this assessment. If you argue that he shouldn\'t be canned for making a \'mistake\', his subsequent comments are certainly just cause as they reveal him as entirely too stupid to be involved in any gambling operation anywhere.
I would imagine that Harn knew of the hole in Catskill OTB security and contacted his pal Davis.
I wonder if Davis\' story about the $2 bet turning into six $2 bets (for a total of $12 on the winning combo) by mistake is true? It probably wouldn\'t have mattered because he would have been the only winner with six anyway with his \'all\' in the Classic, but the $2 ticket may have been more plausible as a \"just lucky I guess\" hit as opposed to the six separate hits that turned up. HP
This could still be the perfect crime!
If Amtote\'s logs are incomplete (or missing)
and if the Catskill OTB is without software
security, is there enough evidence to prosecute?
It was still INCREDIBLY STUPID to single
all 4 legs ! The Juvenile (with Sky Mesa out)
made sense, but not the other 3!! It never
would have raised any suspicion.
I\'m no computer whiz, but I would bet they did it this way because they had to. Otherwise it makes no sense, as fasteddie points out.
Maybe the flaw they found only allowed single substitutions and not multiple substitutions after the first four legs. This is one part I wouldn\'t expect to get all the details on. HP
HP:
You are correct! This is the scenario:
The bet is 1152.00; 1-1-1-1-all-all
They go in after the 4th leg, change
the singles to the actual winners, and
the $$ amount isn\'t affected; could be
they couldn\'t manipulate a 2-2-2-2-all-all
or any combo ticket because the combinations
would be affected; this makes for a cleaner
fix, and time is an element for the final transmit!
Fasteddie,
Thank you, but there are probably other possibilities. I\'ve dealt with programmers and they can make a lot of angels dance on the head of a pin. Your scenario makes sense, as the combos are defintely an issue. We need more info, but that\'s about it in terms of a definitive story.
I think the $12 thing may be important, and there\'s a missing link in there somehow. Like maybe it HAD to be multiple bets as well as \'singles\' for the subtitutions. Maybe they thought if Davis said the $12 was a mistake it would cause some distraction from the real swindle. The amount bet doesn\'t matter too much (if there\'s only one winner, that ticket is just worth more, no?).
This is just a huge mess. Heads will roll, but I\'m not sure they will be the right ones. Speaking of systems, our system at work is back up so this will be it for today. Later, HP
The guy who hit the Sar pk6 on 8/4 singled every one of the races on 2 separate tix, which is actually more plausible than the roomates\' scam. The 8/17 winner was such a bad handicapper that he only singled 3 & had to use two horses in each of the other 3 legs. His ticket cost him $16, or $12 more than the guy who scored on 8/4.
HP: I am told that the so called Midwest edition is also the early edition, so I didn\'t realize that the Drexel info had already been reported.
All: The NTRA & BC have a teleconference call scheduled for 3pm which ought to be very interesting.
At the time they obviosly didn\'t realize Volponi would win the Classic, making them the only winner. If MDO had won, there would have been more winners and this probably wouldn\'t have come to light. I think they were probably under the assumption that there would be multiple winners, and this way they would get 6 pieces of the pie.
About an hr ago AP confirmed that the swindlers were frat bros, though they still haven\'t identified the frat. As I indicated this morning, it is the Alpha Tau Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon. Significant? Probably not, but I\'ll bet finding the right one of their frat brothers & investing a few dollars at the closest bar would be very revealing indeed. What is interesting is that this particular frat has a tradition of passing an old rusty horseshoe down from chapter to chapter for good luck. A Buckeye supposedly found it on the way to the 1921 Conclave & kept it in his pocket until the new chapter was approved. Then it was lost during WWII & then it was discovered by what they call a Past Grand Prytanis, & then.... But I digress. This is the kind of thing which a good reporter could turn into an interesting sidebar story. Don\'t hold your breath.