Interesting Article -
CRW Article - BloodHorse (http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/wgoh/archive/2015/11/17/computer-robotic-wagering-crw-by-frank-angst.aspx)
KMart
Track management at all main venues well aware of this but choose to allow it. Oaklawn Park has barred bots from their pools.
Players are at a substantial disadvantage vs bots which settlement with certain hubs clearly showing that.
In the fairest sense of things, bots should be banned by tracks but giving up 20% of their off track handle too tough for them to swallow.
NYRA is a well aware that bots dominate the average player but turn a blind eye in their desperation for handle.
I\'m probably pretty dense about this stuff, but it\'s not clear to me why this would be analogous to the Fantasy wagering currently under legal scrutiny. I don\'t follow exactly how they work this to their advantage, but I\'ve never really studied or thought about it in detail.
Moose,
Somewhat like the DFS inside info scandal, bots wired into a rebate houses pool data feed attach their handicapping software program. The program seeks out certain plays and make many bets in the last few seconds before the stop betting command locks the pools.Regular players cannot do that.
The debate is whether or not tracks should permit bots in the pool as they have a perceived,or real edge,over the average player.Data from the wagering MIS systems show a much stronger flow of net funds to hubs/ADW\'s that have high volume rebate whales using computer programs and batch betting.
So, would have to guess there\'s an edge.This gets back to high takeout and the resulting substantial rebates being given to a very select group.
Mike
I think the Bloodhorse blog post is wrong in one respect. It is not the fact that sophisticated players using computers have an advantage over unsophisticated players that would make DFS illegal. I think the legal question is whether DFS constitutes gambling under state law. The unfairness argument is political cover for the AG exercising his prosecutorial discretion to go after the DFS companies.
Found this interesting within the discussion section below. The part that struck me the most was his comment on the game being \"very difficult, if not mathematically impossible to beat.\"
I\'ve personally met the biggest (arguably) of the CRW originators. I spent about 30 minutes talking with him. He\'s made hundreds of millions of dollars going back to when he first conceived of the idea. Super nice guy. Very interesting conversation. I was fascinated in listening to him discuss his operation. I can tell you the following anecdotes (beyond a shadow of a doubt) - since he made two things very clear to me. First: he would not be in the CRW business if it weren\'t for the rebates. He told me that anyone who doesn\'t seek a rebate is essentially foolish because it is very difficult (if not mathematically impossible) to turn a profit over the long term. So the rebate is the KEY to this issue (if you believe it is indeed an issue). Second: he was very clear that he didn\'t know a thing about horse racing. I tried discussing certain horses, even champions like Zenyatta, and he knew literally nothing. It is purely a math problem to this person. He is only looking for the positive expectation on the bet. While I was fascinated by the discussion, this realization made me sad. While I love handicapping and betting, I also love the stories within the game. I love reading Haskin and listening to Byk which adds so much more to the handicapping puzzle and dreams of a big score. I love going to the track. Love the buzz of the big event weekends. So, whether or not you think CRWs are a bad thing, make no mistake about it....the drivers are the rebate and most likely, these folks have no interest in the game...only in making money (which may or may not be horrible in your opinion). Just thought I\'d throw out my personal experience as it was relevant to the article at hand. Great discussion.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
King:DRF
Posted May 3, 2015
Oaklawn Takes Aim At Robotic Wagering In Horse Racing
LITTLE ROCK — Sold on a horse that is 3-1 loading into the starting gate, a bettor wagers $2 to win, knowing the minimum payout is $8.
The handicapping is right on, but the winning mutuel is $5.20, the profit dramatically reduced by a far-away computer. A wad of money is required to drop the odds from 3-1 to 8-5 in the final click of the tote board, but it happens because high-volume players, including syndicates, establish computer-robotic wagering (CRW) that use algorithms to set up wagering programs. The idea is to take advantage of last-second odds anomalies by placing large wagers in a fraction of a second.
At Oaklawn Park, CRWs are on a hit list.
"We simply refuse to allow them into our pools," Bobby Geiger, Oaklawn's director of wagering and simulcast, said in an Email. He said Oaklawn realized more than 10 years ago that "these parasites would kill the grandstand player and ultimately the wagering component of the sport, so we eliminated them from our distribution
portfolio. "They've tried to sneak into our pools on multiple occasions ... but we constantly monitor our pools for the activity," he said. "WE ALWAYS CATCH THEM. The practice is so egregious and unfair to the other patrons in the pools that is impossible to disguise."
Oaklawn's approach to the CRWs is one of the issues that Mark Lamberth will mention as he visits racing jurisdictions throughout the country in his new role as chairman of the Association of Racing Commissioners International. A highway contractor from Batesville and a member of the Arkansas Racing Commission, Lamberth also will present the case that non-racing Advance Deposit Wagering sites are short-changing horsemen and racetracks.
Oaklawn's handle for its recent 52 days of racing underlines the significance of off-track wagering. This year, Oaklawn averaged $3.35 million per day, including more than $2.6 million per day off track.
When a track sends its signal to another track, purse money gets a bump at both tracks. When that same signal goes to a non-racing ADW, that site pays for the signal but does not contribute to purses. As a result, horsemen suffer. In addition, the ADW is able to offer a rebate to customers — in effect, a discount to the bettor.
"This discourages wagering and attendance at the track," Lamberth said. He will try to convince racing jurisdictions to mandate that ADWs contribute more money to purses.
"If the online ADW did not fund purses somewhere, they would not receive the signal," Lamberth said. "Vegas is trickier since their patrons are on site and not on line and I'm not sure the track would choose to lose such a large handle. But with that being said, I think purses should be supported by everyone that uses the product, including those that wield a big stick."
Unlike many other sports, there is no central authority in thoroughbred racing, and each racing jurisdiction acts independently so Lamberth must sell his recommendations from state to state.
Unquestionably on point are Lamberth's conclusions that less racing is more and that America cannot support year-round racing.
The number of foals each year has finally stabilized at about 22,000, down from a high of 50,000 less than 30 years ago, but fewer foals means smaller fields and less wagering. A small-time exacta player, a six-horse field is of little interest. Oaklawn, Keeneland, Del Mar, and Saratoga are successful with limited days because they put a quality product on the racetrack.
"Most tracks are suffering from a shortage of horses (not Oaklawn)," Lamberth said. "Fewer racing days would mean less overlapping and conflicts. Fewer race days would mean bigger fields and opportunities for more exotic wagers for the big score.
"Racing once again could be a profitable endeavor as opposed to a broken and unsustainable business model in which gaming is subsidizing unprofitable racing," he said. Lamberth makes good sense. Hopefully, racing jurisdictions are open-minded.
I for one will be checking out oaklawn now just because of this
jbelfior - That is a very interesting description of a race tracks best/most rewarded customer...
This general subject is interesting enough to get me to post from vacation at Lake Atitlan. Aside from the issues discussed, you\'re giving people direct electronic access to the pools, making hacking, past posting etc., that much easier.
One big problem is the industry doesn\'t have any real ability to police this stuff. A key element would be to know bet structure of winning bets-- for example, if you saw the ticket those guys played in the BC pick six and changed manually, you would see right away something was going on. I have requested that info about suspicious payouts, with help from someone at the highest level of the industry. It is not available, not kept anywhere. Which is outrageous.
A request to NYRA to reveal where large winning pick 6 payoffs were purchased and the cost, no names of course,was declined.Smug NYRA said \"No one else does, why should we\" Speaks volumes affirming I was talking to a Clueless Clown.
As JB stated, racing does not have the wherewithal or desire to ensure absolute pool integrity.
Miff -
Are these guys in pools like trifecta, superfecta, Pick-4, Pick-6 where the odds are not displayed before the pool closes?
Bit,
While we can\'t see it, there is detailed info on all pools available at the host track. Just how much of that is fed to a rebate house, don\'t know.
My understanding is that the win and exacta pools are where much of the bot money is played.Would think multi race pools beyond rolling daily doubles would not be affected unless bots have that data also.
Without question, racing knows full details of bots/rebate houses but are not being forthcoming as eyebrows will be raised.With app $1.6 billion of total handle at stake it\'s doubtful full disclosure is forthcoming.
Mike
Bit-- Or after the polls close, until before the last leg. Hence the easier ability to past post multi race bets, as well as tris and supers.
RICH Wrote:
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> I for one will be checking out oaklawn now just
> because of this
I agree about this.
I would like to see tracks like Oaklawn publicized and see if there can be a groundswell.
Question, can CRWs survive if they are the only ones in a pool?
Hi Mike,
I hope all is well in Miff land?
I\'ve had this conversation and opinion for a number of years: which has made me an 85% horizontal player. My only \"opinion\" on whether or not they reach into pick 3,4,5 and 6 pools is if they had a program that would fill in the blanks with something like a thoro pattern reaching out past the rolling doubles into logical numerical contenders? My personal feeling is that is far too random for the computer geeks!
The best example of pools being destroyed and I\'m sure our resident pool watcher Boscar will confirm are the exacta and tri pools at Gulf in the winter. The inner tube has become a joke for most, Cali doesn\'t start until later in the day, Fair Grounds short fields and turf course issues the last couple of winters along with Tampa simply being the land of Ness have made Gulf the winter track de jour and the exacta and tri payoffs the past couple of years are simply pathetic with the usual suspects! Toss in the move up colony and they have ruined what was once a very profitable venture for MOI causing me to significantly pull back on my wagering at my 2nd favorite venue.
Bot wagering, pool integrity and drugs are and have chased real handicappers who love the game, the intellectual challenge of trying to beat a mathematical anomaly away and offer little allure to the younger numbers savy gamblers!
Frank D.
I\'m really not sure where to come down on this issue.
Payoffs have been crushed late in all the visible pools since long before CRW existed. Attributing that phenom to computer access is mostly hype.
Yes, they have an edge over anyone manually trying to make many different bets at the last minute. Same edge anyone using technology has over doing it the \'old fashioned way\'.
But I\'m reasonably certain, that you would not be getting much better odds on most winners , even if you cut all the CRW\'s off tommorow. Yes, maybe some exacta pays 300 instead of 270 once in a while if they miss betting something at the bell, but your garden variety winner, the money will get in no matter how they have to do it.
As for integrity, I\'d hope they aren\'t letting anyone bet after the bell, or cancel bets randomly, and frankly, I\'ve seen no evidence of past posting at the tracks I look at. Believe me, if I saw something suspicous, I\'d be the first to call attention to it.
When I read the doom and gloom articles about CRW and average gamblers failing, my initial response is that they have an unfair advantage over me. But then after I consider it every time, I come back to the fact they are merely trying to squeeze out a profit every time and over the long term. In doing so, they make wagers knowing what the odds will calculate out to with their investment included. They might be off a miniscule amount but with their ulitimately late action, they are usually pretty close on their calculations. In any case, I look at computers a little bit like the knucklehead I see at the window betting 4 different horses to win. It might be a profitable move but they aren\'t taking down the entire pool.
They are squeezing out 1 percent profit let\'s say, wagering as much as possible, and getting the rebate percentage to make huge profits. That\'s what I\'m seeing.
As for beating the game being mathematically impossible, I\'d love to hear if Mike Maloney or our mjellish would agree with that sentiment. It might extraordinarily difficult but it isn\'t impossible.
Even with a rebate, unless the win vs the exacta vs double pools are totally out of whack, there is no \'mathematical\' way to profit, not with a 15-20 takeout.
There must be some \'handicapping\' involved.
If anyone disagrees, I\'d love to hear why.
Sorry if my post came across to you that the computers are just calculating out a way to win without handicapping. These decision models involve hundreds of handicapping factors as part of the algorithms as I\'m sure you know.
My \"mathematically impossible\" comment was in connection with jbelfior\'s post (citing a comment from the original story).
I addressed that claim only because I\'ve heard it many times before, not because of your post.
Many naive players mistakenly believe that because \'they\' use computers and bet late, that they are somehow, magically , guaranteeing a profit, at their expense. At least that\'s what their postings seem to indicate.
Short answer: absolutely not.
TL;DR: no, because the CRW only makes a bet when it calculates an inefficiency in the tote odds. In other words, it calculates what the odds of each bet \"should\" be, given the other information available on the tote board. When it finds a bet that is overlaid, it bets. So, if there are nothing but CRW\'s in the pool, then they all sit there staring at each other and the 0\'s on the board. If there were some catalyst (i.e. if the pools were seeded with some money, or if possibly even a single bet were made), then they may go to war with each other, depending on those at the controls. But, without a match, no fire.
Seems if Gulfstream exotics are, more often than not, pathetic in the eye of the bettor they would be pathetic to the mathematics of the CRWs too. It is value they are looking for after all. Once fair value had been exhausted wouldn\'t the CRWs stop wagering and exotic payoffs look more in-line over the long run?
If either of you, or both of you, or anyone else thinks that the computer-derived advantage these CRW operations have is anything less than *massive* you are out of your mind.
One of the biggest unknowns in the horse betting game is the fact that the final odds are unknown. Do you not see that knowing the odds would be a massive advantage?
Consider this example: you regularly make bets with a bookie on NFL games. The rules are that every Friday night, you call him and he gives you the lines, and you give him your bets. But, your bets aren\'t locked in at the Friday night line. Your bets are settled according to the kickoff-time line! Now imagine that he has another player, who bets 1000x as much as you. He lets that player bet Sunday morning, right up until the time the kicker raises his hand to signal he\'s about to kick off (and once in awhile the guy even sneaks one past the bookie, and gets to bet after he sees whether the kickoff results in a touchback). Do you think that other player has an advantage over you? Do you think you\'d continue betting with that bookie?
Furthermore, to address the idea that the rebate isn\'t that significant. Consider that in every gambling game in every casino, the rake/vig/hold/edge/call-it-what-you-want is typically between .5-10%. Every bookie in the world makes himself rich at -110. Every blackjack game sits somewhere between .5% and 5%, dice games between .5% and 10% depending on a player\'s bets, slot machines 1-10%, video poker 0ish-10ish% the list goes on. So don\'t think that \"it\'s only 1-2-x%\" means that it isn\'t meaningful! Steve Wynn, Sheldon Adelson, etc., have built empires on those 1-2-3% edges. On the other side of the coin, a handful of sports bettors, blackjack players, and video poker sharps have made themselves a handsome sum getting that 1-2-3% onto their side of the table!
Now consider that because of the pari-mutuel system, the CRW\'s are the ones you are playing against. Effectively, the CRW\'s are the house! What\'s worse, YOU are paying the racetrack/ADW so that they can in turn give the CRW\'s a rebate! The CRW is an additional drag/rake on the pools. Remember, you are paying 15-25% to bet on horse races, or between 2 and 50x the amount people are paying in Vegas-type games! How much easier would it be with 2-3-4-X% added back into the pools that is presently effectively being taken out by the CRW\'s, AND without them crippling the odds on advantage bets that you might otherwise have profited from?
2 points here:
1) CRW\'s are very likely the ones crippling the payoffs
2) they\'re getting X% rebate, so they are making money breaking even, or even losing. In other words, they aren\'t concerned with making the best possible bets, they\'re concerned with making the most money. For them, it\'s entirely possible that means betting more and more money until the bet is unprofitable.
This is something that I think the once-a-month gambler/player doesn\'t realize: these guys aren\'t betting a couple twenty\'s, or even a couple grand - they\'re betting literally as much as the pools will hold, every day, on every race they can find at any track where the pools are big enough. They are doing calculations like this: is it better to bet $100mm/year and lose 0.5% or bet $120mm/year and lose 0.6%?
your post leads me to believe that fixed odds on horseracing would be a pretty good place to start, why can\'t we get the posted odds when we make a bet?
Well said. And this is why I stopped playing long ago. I still enjoy following the sport. But when it became impossible to even approximate the final odds, the betting aspect of the game became too frustrating. I found myself sitting on too many bets that I never would have played at the odds.
One of the things I have learned reading from this board (more specifically Mathcapper) is how useful daily double will-pays can be in estimating what the final odds will be. When betting a track that offers rolling doubles, the first thing I do when betting opens on a race is use the DD will-pays (or if the winner of the first leg was a longshot, then the probables from the favorite in the first leg) to estimate the win odds. It doesn\'t make me a winner (I consider a break-even year to be a success), but it reduces the frustration of watching the odds plummet after my money is down.
Because of the pari-mutuel system of wagering, racetracks can\'t give you fixed odds on horses because they may not have enough to pay off all the bets that get made. That\'s why the odds rise and fall as others make their bets.
If you want fixed odds, you need bookies. Go to a track in England or Ireland, and you will have your choice of at least 4 or 5 bookies, even at the tiny tracks.
At those tracks there is a relatively small amount of pari-mutuel wagering, most money is bet with the bookies.
When and if Exchange Wagering is permitted, there will be options allowing players to lock in a wager or prop at a fixed price.
Australia\'s TAB apparently has/had a model to offer fixed odds wagering within the pari-mutuels. Stan Bergstein wrote about it and the studies Ainslie and Gomez offered while working with him:
An idea from past to push sport forward (http://www.drf.com/news/idea-past-push-sport-forward) (Click for link)
By Stan Bergstein
Tell you what, I discussed this with Ainslie and I didn\'t get it then or now.
I get how the betfair model works, where it\'s essentially man to man bookmaking.
Maybe there\'s some way to synthesize that in a parimutuel setting, but I\'d have to see the math . Is this brilliance public or just legend?
JB,
They do NOT have any direct access to the tote. All CAW players wager through licensed account wagering companies who push those bets to their individual tote provider. Virtually all the major U.S. ADWs have CAW players. So do a number of foreign ones.
As far as tracks identifying who these groups are, most of them have individual TRA codes, different from the ADW\'s TRA code, so tracks know exactly who they are. Virtually all of them go through background checks that very few players could pass from firms like Kroll. The approval process can take as long as six months to a year at the larger tracks.
Most of what has been written or posted about how they operate is at best half true or in most instances flat-out wrong and I would be in a position to know.
GC
P.S. Long time lurker first-time poster, I love the figure making and handicapping discussions your customers generate. I\'m not being sarcastic.
Ok, I\'ll bite. What is everyone else getting wrong about these operations, and how do you know?
I have already posted some of what the public gets wrong.
1) CAW teams don\'t have direct tote access. They bet through an ADW like everyone else.
2) There is no such thing as a \"hidden\" tote feed that lists tri or super probables.
3) All of these teams are very thoroughly vetted by the big track groups (i.e CDI, Stronach Group & NYRA).
4) These aren\'t the guys that take down big Pk 6 pools. I don\'t know of any that even play that wager.
The \'advantage\' that some of these teams have comes down to intellect, hard work and capitalization. The teams are almost always comprised of PHD mathematicians that have spent years of time and seven figures of capital to develop wagering tools, which at the end of the day is all they have. I would think sheet players would welcomee the liquidity they add to the pools. You all have a tremendous advantage in certain situations relative to the teams.
I know these things because I am in a position to know and don\'t want to elaborate any more than that.
Mr Chandler
The tone of your answer speaks to me. It tells me you have a dog in the fight and seek to sway opinion. It also causes me to mistrust what you say. I thought computer assisted wagering was something that gave and edge to some and takes edge away from me, and now I believe it more so.
Maybe you could try again to convince me I am wrong and net net it is actually a positive for recreational players like me.
Thanks In Advance
John Perona
G
Why would Oaklawn stop these guys if they do no harm?
At Oaklawn Park, CRWs are on a hit list.
"We simply refuse to allow them into our pools," Bobby Geiger, Oaklawn's director of wagering and simulcast, said in an Email. He said Oaklawn realized more than 10 years ago that "these parasites would kill the grandstand player and ultimately the wagering component of the sport, so we eliminated them from our distribution
portfolio. "They've tried to sneak into our pools on multiple occasions ... but we constantly monitor our pools for the activity," he said. "WE ALWAYS CATCH THEM. The practice is so egregious and unfair to the other patrons in the pools that is impossible to disguise
Gchandler, you very well may be correct in everything you state. But you didn\'t address the issue of late large swings in the odds. I stopped playing when it became apparent that I could not reliably approximate what the final odds would be. Do you dispute that these computerized bet generators are a significant cause of that?
A rebate house in Oregon approached me a few years back and flat out stated they would set me up with remote access to the feed they received and provide the ability to batch bet i.e. CAW. They were a start up operation and sent their rebate schedule also offering a referral fee for anyone I could get for them as a customer.
Perhaps Chandler would like to detail the precise MO now in use by the rebate shop whales since those of us on the board do not exactly know how this currently works.
I also posted this on my twitter feed...it is an NTRA report from 2004 that deals with CRW, tote security, etc...
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/taskforceExeSummary.pdf
Thanks, ill-bred for posting that. The section on CRW clarifies many of the issues for me. Basically, it seems like they have built a better mousetrap in doing some of the things all the rest of us attempt to do. The problems appear to be related to the potential for diminished value that won\'t be known until the totes shut down, and the effect it has on public perception. It feels somewhat analogous to what the internet has done to small independent retailers. There\'s no foul play involved -- they just have enormous advantages. If Oaklawn wants to give favored son status to the regular Joe\'s and JoAnn\'s, more power to them. By and large, the CRW\'s don\'t swim in the same betting pools that I do, so it\'s not going to be a personal deterrent, but I understand the concerns expressed by those who feel it impacts value for them.
From the NTRA wagering task force report:\"United Tote has recently unveiled its "Enterbet," designed to facilitate players' ability to directly interface with the tote.\"
GChandler, how does this square with your comment that the CRWs have no direct access to the tote?
Briefly, because I\'m on vacation. The question of whether they can see tri etc probables is irrelevant. That the public can\'t is not, if someone is past posting.
By definition, they have their own interface, whether there\'s another between them and the pools or not. And as you say they have the resources to hire the best.
Also by definition, it\'s a zero sum game, and the more they take out the worse is it for the rest. Whether that should be acceptable is another question.
Finally, last second access is a tremendous advantage. One way to neutralize that is to shut them down at 5mtp.
Your enemy at the windows is ANYONE that wins in the long run . Why single out large batch bettors?
I don\'t get it. Anyone can sent multiple bets to an adw with some fairly rudimentary software. This is not some secret edge only the \'boys\' have.
There is no magic formula anyone is using. If they have figured out some statistical anomaly in the pools that can produce a profit, how are you going to say they can\'t do that?
Now, I\'ve been AGAINST some folks getting fat rebates while others have to bet into a confiscatory takeout from day one. That\'s a different issue.
Using computers to bet? Not a problem.
http://www.unitedtote.com/products/enterbet-software
Same as that? Nothing there that isn\'t already available online.
Interfacing with the tote. Not sure what that even means. The only \'edge\' you might get if you had some direct access is a faster odds change. That\'s supposed to be coming for everyone, when they get their act together.
AS long as they are not revealing blind pools to a subset of the playing population, then there\'s nothing about \'direct access\' that is an issue. This is not the stock market , where speed of execution is a big deal.
Late odds changes have been a part of the game for years, since parimutuels I\'d say.
And I have some sad news, most of the late odds changes you see are adjustments to prices that are out of line with \'fair odds\' , and not someone making a score.
That horse at 3-1 you liked, that went 9/5 at the bell? Was never a 3-1 shot to begin with, and was never going to leave the gate at that price. If they shut off betting 2 minutes before post time, it would still go 9/5.
Fair Odds Line ranks right up there with overlay/underlay and the tooth fairy.
I don\'t care whether the final odds are \"fair odds\" or not. I just like to have a decent read on what the final odds will be when I bet. I played for many years with pretty good confidence on what the will-pays were. It got more and more difficult in recent years to do that. So I stopped playing. Except for a few big days like the BC and the Triple Crown races where I still play a little.
Everyone , especially big bettors , want a good \'read\' on the final odds, especially in the low odds ranges.
That\'s why the odds change, if the price is \'right\', then it becomes wrong, as all the late bettors try to pick up the free money.
This is nothing new, nothing to do with computer betting. The only difference is, in the bad old days, you had to be standing at the $100 Window punching out tickets one at a time.
Don\'t ya\'ll miss the thrill of holding a winning stack of those yellow ducats?
(http://www.t-r-c.com/b/137a.jpg)
Agreed. The term is used loosely to describe what price people/bots are willing to take, below which they will pass.
JimP,
Have to say, I haven't seen any evidence of a breakdown in the correlation between the Will Pays and final win odds in recent years. And I'm not talking about a small sample either. I track the Will Pays for hundreds, if not thousands of races every year, and have habitually done so for close to 35 years.
Does every horse in every race go off right in-line with its Will Pay? Of course not. But in general, on an overall basis, they come pretty close. If anything, the correlation seems to have gotten better over the years, which may be attributable to the computer guys pushing each pool towards what they consider to be fair value.
Make sure, as Bit noted, that you're not using longshot winners from the prior race in your estimation. There are a couple of other issues related to the limitations of using just the one set of Will Pays rather than the entire set of DD combinations to estimate the odds, but in general, if you're doing it right, you should be seeing pretty good correlation.
For instance, in the last race I did today, the bigA finale, it was clear from the Will Pays before the first flash of the tote was even up that that Pletcher firster was going to go off at odds-on of around 1/4.
These are the estimates I had, along with the corresponding final odds:
#3: 6.6-1 => 6.9-1
#6: 9.2-1 => 10.3-1
#8: 28-1 => 31-1
#9: 21-1 => 18.3-1
#10: 0.3-1 => 0.3-1
#11: 12-1 => 22-1
#12: 16-1 => 9.9-1
These results are pretty typical of what I see on a race-to-race basis. There might be one or two horses that are a little out of line, but overall they're usually pretty close.
As Boscar noted, and as I see happen all the time, the vast majority of these late odds shifts are simply the win odds moving closer into line with the odds in the doubles, or to what is the public's probability estimate. And like he says, that's not something that's going to change if you close the betting 2 minutes to post.
Btw, the giant pools you see on days like the BC and Triple Crown don't necessarily mean the correlations are going to be better. In the 2013 Belmont for instance, Palace Malice was 13-1 in the win pool, but he was 7-1 in the doubles, which is a pretty big disparity even in a regular pool, never mind in the massive pools like we see in the Belmont. When these kinds of things happen, it's sometimes a sign of some "smart money" action, be it inside information/drugs, the computer guys, or even us fellow high rolling sheet players.
The win pool is generally the more efficient pool and where you see the smart money vis-a-vis the doubles, but in this case, I took it to mean that some serious money was pounding the horse's odds down in the doubles to well below the public\'s win probability estimate.
Rocky R.
Mathcapper, thanks for the response. I understand how the DD Will Pays can be used to approximate Win Pool Will Pays. But that wasn\'t the subject I was commenting on. My reference to will-pays was strictly Win Pool related. When the odds I saw posted in the Win Pool no longer correlated to what a Win ticket would pay, I lost interest in wagering. That was the only point I was making. I understand that Boscar thinks that nothing has really changed in that area. Well, I guess we just see it differently. I first started wagering on horse races a half-century ago. In my opinion there was a dramatic change that occurred a few years ago and it effected my play. I also understand that an analysis of a DD pool can potentially provide an indication on what the Win Pool will pay. But that analysis is unreliable in many cases and in fact a DD pool doesn\'t always exist. My only point was that for me, this became a big enough issue that I have essentially stopped playing. That\'s my only point. Just one man\'s opinion. Just one customer lost to horse racing. Maybe I\'m the only one. I\'ve commented on this enough. Probably too much. I\'ll drop the subject and go back to lurking. I enjoy following all the comments on this board.
Jim,
Sorry to see a fellow horseplayer leave the game for the most part. I was hoping I could give you some ammunition to rejoin the battle.
No need to go back to lurking - it\'s always good to hear different perspectives.
Best,
Rocky
GC,
If it's true, I'm surprised that these guys aren't playing the Pick 6, or the superexotics like the tris, supers, and Pk4's, as others in this thread have speculated.
I could understand it if these computer guys were mostly "arb" guys, since they can't see beyond the exacta pools. I keep hearing about such groups and how they\'re able to generate profits off their rebates alone, supposedly without any handicapping(?). I guess they could be arbing the exacta combos to the win pools in the same way that Ziemba disciples arbed the place and show pools, but I don't know anything about them or if it's even true at all.
I do know a fair amount about the PhD-level mathematician teams you mentioned though. A lot of info on these teams is publicly available, often straight from the horse's mouth.
Bill Benter for instance, who is a brilliant and remarkably humble fellow for someone who just may be the most successful gambler of all-time, has given numerous public presentations over the years at various venues like the International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking, as well as having published scholastic papers on the subject of multi-factor based computer handicapping.
From what they've said, these guys LOVE the superexotics. In his own words, Bill has said,
"Exotic bets offer some of the highest advantage wagering opportunities. This results from the multiplicative effect on overall advantage of combining more than one advantage horse...When you string them together, you go from what may be a very small or marginal advantage to a very large advantage. In ultra-exotic bets such as the pick-six, even a handicapping model with only a modest predictive ability can produce high-advantage bets...For a bettor in possession of accurate probability estimates which differ from the public estimates, 'the more exotic the bet, the higher the advantage'...Some professional players make only exotic wagers to capitalize on this effect."
He even gave a presentation at one of the ICGRT conferences dedicated entirely to how to play the Triple Trio (3 consecutive trifectas) bet in Hong Kong.
He acknowledges the difficulty of projecting the public's betting in pools they cannot see. This is made more difficult by the fact that the public doesn't bet horses in the superexotics in the same proportion to the win pool (they tend to overbet favorites). They deal with it through things like empirical research about public betting behavior instead of trying to predict it apriori based on assumptions of rational pubic behavior.
They also use things like the discounted Harville formula to estimate vertical superexotic probabilities, which is exactly what I use myself to estimate payouts for exactas, tris and supers.
As far as whether these computer teams have a deleterious effect on the rest of the public, Bill freely admitted that this is certainly so. Like Jerry said, it's a zero sum game.
By Bill's own estimate, the effect of the computer teams is to increase the effective takeout by around two percentage points. He also says that the maximum amount a computer team can expect to extract from any given racetrack is about ¼ of a percent of the total pool. And as was pointed out elsewhere in this thread, they're not concerned with ROI but rather the net increase in their bankroll. They make wagers on all bets they deem to be advantage bets as determined by their expected value, up to the point of their maximum expectation (I've posted both the EV formula and the Maximum Expectation formula they use on this board somewhere before).
Much of the effect of these teams can be seen in the declining odds on favorites over the years. There used to be a fairly well-pronounced phenomenon known as the favorite-longshot bias in U.S. racing. Favorites, particularly odds-on favorites, were underbet by the public. Not enough to show a profit, but enough to maybe cut the track take in half or so. Not so anymore. Favorites now win at a higher rate, and pay lower prices, and the bias is now virtually gone. This effect is further compounded by the fact that the teams get substantial rebates, meaning they can drive down the prices even further below what they would normally be able to do and still show a profit.
The money these computer teams are siphoning out of the pools by sucking the value out of overlays is certainly detrimental to the rest of us, but it doesn't mean the game can no longer be beat.
Yes, the pools are larger, and overlays aren't absolute. One man's overlay is another's underlay. As far as I know, these teams aren't using performance figures, specifically not Jerry's. There are still plenty of overlays to be found, especially when you string them together in the superexotics, they might just be a little harder to come by.
Rocky R.
Rocky
I\'m not throwing stones. As far as the gambler is concerned, horse racing is not a zero sum game.
It is a negative sum game. The takeout is deducted from the pool.
The difference between a zero sum game where the computer robotic wagering systems have a slight edge thru ability to place bets late and a negative sum game where they receive a rebate and can always act last is a considerable difference.
While all my words may be assertions i.e. I have no proof. If it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, it ain\'t a mongoose.
Computer Assisted Batch Wagering is bad for me. A small time recreational player.
Thanks
John Perona
If all venues ban the bots,handle goes down by app $2 billion assuming bots don\'t play anymore.Pool liquidity already an issue at many venues esp during slow times, like now thru at least Dec.
The bot issue has more moving parts than one would think.
That\'s the second time I\'ve noticed pool liquidity mentioned in this thread. It\'s not clear to me what it is or who it benefits.
If liquidity refers to the ability to make a large bet without significantly affecting the odds, wouldn\'t the bots need it more than the recreational player?
As a recreational player, isn\'t it better for me to bet without the bots and risk the effect that my bet will have on my edge than to bet with the bots and not have an edge to begin with?
My theory on the economics of it all is that the net takeout on bot bets is the price the bots are paying the track for the privilege of taking unsophisticated money (that would include mine) from their pools. It works for the tracks (or at least they think it does) because many players budget how much they are willing to bet rather than how much they are willing to lose.
John,
If I implied that computer teams are not bad for the overall player, that was not my intention.
By \"zero sum game,\" I was referring to the fact that if one group is winning, by definition that means the rest of the public must be losing that much more. In effect, the computer guys act as an additional rake on the pool. The track takes their 20% or so out, then these winning computer teams take out another chunk.
As I mentioned, Bill Benter himself estimated that the teams have the effect of raising the takeout on the rest of the public by around 2 percentage points. So yes, that\'s certainly bad for the player.
What I wouldn\'t necessarily agree with is that their edge is due solely to their ability to place bets late and to receive a rebate.
The teams that I know of use sophisticated 80+ factor multinomial logit models to help them identify positive expectation bets, and they bet these overlays accordingly. Big money sharpies, whether they use computer-assisted wagering or whether they\'re standing at the $50 window watching the gate close,have always tried put their bets down at the last possible second to hide their action from sycophantic bettors.
Yes, the rebates do allow them to bet down overlays more so than the general public and still show a profit. That may be part of the reason why we\'ve seen the prices of winning favorites decline over the years (along with the neutralizaion of the favorite-longshot bias I mentioned in another post). Compared to the fact that these teams are sucking the value out of overlays across the board in general though, I would think this effect is rather minimal.
If they\'re actually using CAW to past-post however, that\'s an entirely different matter.
Rocky
CAW players leaving the game would likely cause T\'Bred handle to fall by 3 billion (annualized) almost immediately. The effect on tracks like GP, AQU & SA would be less than at some other tracks but still noticeable. Smaller tracks like HAW, TuP, TP, MNR, Los Al,etc would close within 60 days because they would be unable to pay purses. All of those cheap horse have to go somewhere and since many them can\'t compete anywhere else a few thousand would have to be put down.
Therein lies the problem. You can say that without the bots more players would be attracted to the sport. Not with an average takeoput of 21% they wouldn\'t, not to mention the fact that we have already lost 1-2 generations of gamblers. There isn\'t anything you could to get large numbers of 18-30 years that have never bet horses to take up the game. Maybe, just maybe if you lowered the takeout to 10%, which neither the tracks nor the horsemen would support, you could get the generation behind the 18-30 group back to the game. Maybe.
To borrow from Churchill \"there\'s nothing worse than having CAW players in the pools except for not having them at all.\"
Exacta in 7th at Aqueduct only paid $459.00. Guess the bots knocked it down to the \"fair odds\"
Heh - saw that. Yeah, the tri and super both paid about half of what they figured to based on the win odds too.
As Boscar noted, when big bombs like that win, the gimmicks almost always come back light. Once you get up into those kinds of odds ranges, you\'re splitting hairs in terms of win probability (2% for a 50-1 shot vs. 1% for a 100-1 shot), so very small differences have a magnified effect in terms of odds.
Sadly, the predictive power of the \'gyp\' payoff is near zero, since there are so many of them.
In this case , it was a two speed number, and some may have been playing it off that alone.
Of even more curiosity , the winner, 30-1 or so in the doubles coming INTO the race, went off at 45-1 to win, and with the doubles into the next race, an astounding 60-1.
So much for the bots.
If they are past posting they are slipping it past me at NYRA. I have never seen even one race where I suspected that. Other venues, I can\'t really speak for, but I suspect the same goes for them.
I keep seeing this 2% Benter figure. Not really sure how that was derived, but it doesn\'t sit right. So an exacta that would pay 277, now pays 270? An 8.20-1 pays 8-1. Those are 2% hits.
The betdowns I see on many winning numbers are an order of magnitude higher than that. Maybe, after all losers and winners are netted out over time, the 2% MAY valid, but I suspect the real effect on most handicappers is much higher than that.
Seriously, let these guys do what they want or we\'ll kill a thousand horses?
I don\'t give a s--t about attracting new players. I do care if someone is past posting and/or has an edge they shouldn\'t have. And I care more that the people who run the game don\'t understand or care.
Playing the dead horses card did not help your credibility.
The 2% figure was an off-the-cuff number Bill used in response to a question about what effect he felt computer teams\' winning had on the general public. Yes, overall, after everything is netted out.
I agree, the late money betdowns are much more than that, but they\'re only betting the horse\'s they see as overlays, so yeah, if you happen to have identified that same horse as an overlay and bet on it, it\'s a much bigger effect in that particular instance.
As far as past-posting, I haven\'t seen any evidence of it either. I did a real-time study not too long ago and posted on this board that I ended up discontinuing it because almost all the movements I was seeing were simply the odds converging into line with the odds in the Will Pays.
Still, I\'m always on the lookout, but even with horses that stumble badly out of the gate, I\'m not seeing evidence of canceled bets either.
That\'s not to say it isn\'t going on. A shrewd swindler could make a very good living popping as little as $100 win bets on early leaders virtually undetected if he has consistent access to the pools.
not surprisingly, initiation of trading by algo auto bots on all exchanges, especially commodity(CME in USa) and currencies has been going on for years. their ability to place servers near to exchanges give them an advantage on many exchanges over most. their programs can also \"read\" incoming trades to withdraw bids and offers before execution. Surely its in the betting space.
Regards,
BT
The hysteria in the financial markets, much of it justified, over HFT (High Frequency Trading) makes the discussion here look like a tea party (no, not THAT Tea Party).
If that case, HFT has an actual concrete edge over other participants, a structural edge, like KNOWING who would have the lead at the 1/4 pole before the race.
In racing, all bets are in before the gate springs, so it\'s knowing the odds at the bell that they seem to be concerned with. I suspect that most players would fare little better if they knew the final odds, vs the current approximation they work with.
Easy enough to test. Keep track of your minimum acceptable price, and see what the p&l is on only those runners that meet it, vs. all the bets that were placed. We\'ll assume all bets are placed late, just not knowing the FINAL price. There\'s really no way for the bots to know the exact FINAL price either, except for the fact that they know who they\'re betting and that those odds will be depressed.
I\'ve made the point, that the early odds on the tote have nothing to do with what the final odds will look like. That juicy price on the obvious contender is usually a tease. You\'ll never (or rarely) get it.
Actually, you wouldn\'t need to attract new players to the sport. If existing non-bots just kept losing the amount they are losing now, and all of it went to the tracks instead of some of it winding up in the hands of the bots, the tracks would end up with more money, not less. Of course, that would require existing players to bet more, since they would be losing at a slower rate. I don\'t know enough about churn to speculate how likely that is and how long it would take to occur.
Long-term, I think that closing of the smaller venues and movement of their handle to a few large venues is the most logical arc for continuing the sport. That would, however, mean fewer horses and fewer horsemen.
BitPlayer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Actually, you wouldn\'t need to attract new players
> to the sport. If existing non-bots just kept
> losing the amount they are losing now, and all of
> it went to the tracks instead of some of it
> winding up in the hands of the bots, the tracks
> would end up with more money, not less. Of course,
> that would require existing players to bet more,
> since they would be losing at a slower rate. I
> don\'t know enough about churn to speculate how
> likely that is and how long it would take to
> occur.
>
> Long-term, I think that closing of the smaller
> venues and movement of their handle to a few large
> venues is the most logical arc for continuing the
> sport. That would, however, mean fewer horses and
> fewer horsemen.
The number of races run in a year has dropped from 50,120 in 2008 to 41,277 in 2014, so we\'re rapidly moving in that direction, just by cutting races instead of wholesale closure of tracks.
Rocky-- that\'s not the kind of past posting I\'m talking about, which can\'t be seen. See my post from a couple of days ago.
More on this.
1-- Because of the huge rebates (which I have no problem with), the industry gets half the amount from every dollar bet they do from others. So the net effect would be losing half that amount of handle, even if we stipulate the 3B.
2-- If they\'re not winning that money others would have more and churn more. At higher takeout rates.
3-- there is a horse shortage, not a surplus. Tracks are cutting days because they can\'t fill races. If some closed, those horses would end up on other circuits, making for bigger fields, and higher handle there-- both because of field size and players not having the other tracks to bet. That\'s what\'s going to end up happening anyway.
\"That\'s not to say it isn\'t going on. A shrewd swindler could make a very good living popping as little as $100 win bets on early leaders virtually undetected if he has consistent access to the pools\"
According to people responsible for pool integrity, once the \"stop betting\" command locks all pools, a picture is taken of all bets.After the race ends, another picture is taken and must match exactly to ensure no alterations were made after the stop betting command. In a time of genius propeller heads computer geeks, still not convinced,too many loose leaders continue to drop in odds after the race is well underway.
The perception of past posting is very real whether its happening or not.
Jerry - correct me if I\'m wrong but I think you were talking about things like that Fix Six scheme where they were able to go into the Pk6 pool after the 4th leg and put in a Winner-Winner-Winner-Winner-All-All ticket.
Yeah, if that kind of thing is still happening, that\'s much worse than just getting a bet down a few moments after the gates open. That\'s outright theft -- basically an ATM machine directly linked into the pools.
I\'ve always been concerned this might still be going on. If those fix sixers won\'t so greedy as to put in multiple winning tickets, even an absolute monster score like that might have gone completely undetected. A shrewd crook could easily siphon out a ton of money in small increments on a regular basis and we\'d never know about it.
I don\'t know if that picture-taking stuff went into effect recently, but I remember Mike Maloney giving a talk one of the annual gambling conferences a few years or so ago where he told a story of how he was standing at the window placing win bets on a simulcast race showing on the tv behind the teller all the way into deep stretch before he finally got shut out.
I guess the only way to truly ensure this kind of thing can\'t happen is to close the pools a couple minutes to post (maybe put a seconds countdown timer on the screen), so that by the time the gates open, all off-track and bot bets are reflected in the pools and the odds are set.
Doubt tracks would ever do this though, since they realize that 25%+ of the handle comes in those last couple of minutes. They want every last cent they can get and would probably be afraid they\'d give up handle by closing the pools early.
The technology to display up to second odds is available, racing does not want to pay for it.On Wall Street the skimmers have only a few seconds to beat the trades to being populated. Banks via its Chips system also move zillions with postings termed live time(up to the second)
I\'ve been playing around with this for years. Not only do they have an edge when it\'s time to make a wager, but they also have an edge because they have figured out a way to produce fair odds without actual handicapping. Handicapping, on a daily basis, can take a lot out of you ... it\'s tiresome when it\'s done by hand, like I do it. I\'m lucky if I can [thoroughly] handicap a handful of races per day. They, on the otherhand, can generate fair odds for all the races, at all tracks, everyday ... the computer never gets tired. The amazing thing to me is that the data their computer uses to compute fair odds is done from data you can find in the DRF ... as far as i\'m aware. I\'ve never heard of any of these computer teams feeding their computers Thoro-Graph numbers. My methodology utilizes what I consider the single most important factor ... speed figures ... Thoro-Graph speed figures.
prist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not only do they have an edge when it\'s time to make
> a wager, but they also have an edge because they
> have figured out a way to produce fair odds
> without actual handicapping. Handicapping, on a
> daily basis, can take a lot out of you ... it\'s
> tiresome when it\'s done by hand, like I do it. I\'m
> lucky if I can handicap a handful of races per
> day. They, on the other hand, can generate fair
> odds for all the races, at all tracks, everyday
> ... the computer never gets tired.
\"Without a computer, every time you try to analyze a race, you\'re starting from scratch. It requires a heroic effort every day. The great beauty of the computer is that the knowledge is stored and readily available to be implemented on race day.
The entire technical component of our system is really three and a half people. And this is enough to bet at all of the races across North America. All of the data comes by downloads over the internet, all of the bets are placed electronically, the scheduling of the bets -- nearly every aspect of the process can be automated. In terms of actual betting on racing, it\'s possible to set up a computer that can be completely programmed to play a day\'s races. So you sort of hit a button or click on something to start the program, go out for the day and then come back, and it\'s bet at every racetrack across the country and will have a result there for you whether it won or lost, because it can time the races, check the updated odds, make all of the decisions.\" -- B. Benter
Sources: \"The Billion Dollar Men,\" South China Morning Post; \"Beating the System,\" 13th International Conference on Gambling and Risk-Taking
NHC qualifier who uses CRW. My favorite quote: "I just know what my computer spits out," Zhou says. "I ran my model – it took me, like, a minute, maybe two minutes – and I just plugged the numbers in. I don't know a single horse or a single name, I just know they offered the right value."
I qualified over the weekend. If I only beat one player, I hope it\'s him.
http://www.ntra.com/en/nhc/nhc-player-profiles/2015/11/25/nhc-player-profile-tony-zhou/
Several interesting things of note in Hegarty\'s article.
http://www.drf.com/news/betfair-gains-first-exchange-wagering-license-us
U.S. critics have said they fear the practice (exchange betting) could cannibalize the industry\'s existing parimutuel revenue streams.
But if you didn\'t make it to the last paragraph, here it is on point with this thread---70 PERCENT?????:
Zanzuccki said that the New Jersey license prohibits betting on the exchange by robotic programs that are designed to scour the propositions offered on the site and quickly match or propose wagers. Betfair officials have told the commission that 70 percent of its business is generated by the programs, and Zanzuccki said the racing commission may reconsider the prohibition after a study of the robotic programs\' existing practices are conducted by an independent consulting group that conducts audits of gambling operations on behalf of state gambling agencies.
Not surprised. Bots would be trading in and out on the same event, taking and laying odds as the prices fluctuate. You bet once, they bet 100 times.
Anyone familiar with the stock/futures markets knows how high frequency traders operate. Same idea.
Banning them in NJ. Not really feasible, and not sure its a good idea to try. Would make it \'better\' for manual players if they could, but I don\'t think they can enforce it.
Looking forward to exchange betting here, will make the game a lot more interesting.
Symposium: Sophisticated number-crunching may be future of handicapping
By Matt Hegarty DRF
TUCSON, Ariz. – The era of Big Data is likely to usher in the widespread availability of sophisticated handicapping and betting programs that closely resemble the type of high-dollar systems that have operated in the shadows of the racing industry for the past 15 years, according to officials speaking at the University of Arizona Symposium on Racing and Gaming on Tuesday morning.
Whether the programs will be readily embraced by handicappers accustomed to less data-intensive but far more personal methods is entirely unclear. But presentations at the Symposium during a session devoted to Big Data – the term that has been given to current-day efforts to exploit the glut of information being churned out by applications connected to the internet – indicated that the day is soon coming when horseplayers of all budgets and experience will have access to the programs, for better or for worse.
Already, one company, predicteform.com, has developed a program using proprietary algorithms that analyze past-performance information over a range of races, applies that analysis to real-time odds feeds, and then spits out recommended bets based on those analyses. The lead investor in the company, Tom Grossman, appeared during the panel to describe the program, which is currently being marketed commercially.
For 15 years, investor-owned computerized robotic wagering programs, or CRWs, have performed the same dual analyses, but those programs are provided with a direct interface into the bet-processing system so that the programs can see every detail of the betting pools in real time and send thousands of wagers into the pools in a matter of seconds. Those systems are also operated exclusively at off-track betting outlets that reward the operators with rich rebates on their handle, allowing the owners of the systems to post profits at a lower return on investment than the typical bettor in the parimutuel pool.
It is not clear if the new commercially available systems will be as valuable to individual players if they are not also provided with a direct link into the pools and generous rebates. However, the new systems could provide competition to the existing computerized wagering systems, a dynamic that could upset the market in much the same way that the first widespread publication of speed figures decades ago led to a reduction in the advantage held by players who produced their own figures, as pointed out during the session by David Siegel, the president of a handicapping-products division of Equibase.
"We saw that as those products suddenly got into the hands of everyday consumers," Siegel said.
Much of the discussion of computerized-robotic wagering programs occurred after the session's formal presentations, largely spurred on by comments made by Todd Bowker, the general manager of Premier Turf Club, an account-wagering company that has CRW clients. Bowker defended the use of such programs, which have been the topic of debate in the racing industry for as long as they have existed, even if the most fervent debates have taken place in small corners of the industry.
However, the debate has widened over the past year as more and more racing constituencies have embraced calls for the sport to dramatically expand the amount of free data available to racing fans, including detailed betting data. Supporters of the concept have said that all other sports provide enormous amounts of data free of charge and that racing should do the same in order to keep pace in an increasingly data-centric world. Those calls have dovetailed with the debate over CRWs because of the robotic programs' seemingly favored access to parimutuel wagering pools and the benefits provided by the real-time look.
Equibase, the racing industry's official data collector and supplier, has made a sizeable amount of its in-house data available online in the past five years, but it has kept in place restrictions that prevent people from scraping the database for patterns, as some sports allow. At the same time, earlier this year the company forged a partnership with a sports-data marketing company, STATS, that develops proprietary predictive data tools for other sports, largely for the benefit of fantasy-sports players.
Jim Corelis, the senior vice president of STATS, said during his presentation at the symposium that the company "is setting [the algorithm] guys loose" on the Equibase database in an attempt to come up with new, simple predictive tools the company can provide to new and existing racing fans. He also said the company is working on a "dashboard" that can be used by customers to develop their own data-mining tools.
The effort by STATS and the effort by Grossman's company share a goal. Grossman acknowledged that his program "takes the work out of handicapping," while Siegel of Equibase said that much of the effort to create simple representations of complex interplays of handicapping factors would work best for new visitors to the racetrack.
\"I think that new fan wants to be told what to do, not be bothered with the particular data analysis,\" Seigel said.
That leads to a larger question as to whether the sport can attract and retain fans if the vast majority of the handicapping is done by computerized entities. And, it should be noted that after the advent of publicized speeds figures, data providers started publishing more data, not less.
Meanwhile, the sport's most ardent fans usually cite the richness of the sport's handicapping process as one of its most attractive features. In the future, the question might be: \"So who's yer robot like?\"
Not sure why there\'s all this angst over \'real time\' access to pools. imo, many CRW\'s bet well before the bell, throughout the wagering. Do folks imagine they are all sitting there waiting for 0 seconds to post?
Maybe there\'s this massive edge I\'m not seeing, and that\'s why so many are upset by this \'direct connection\' to the tote mothership.
\"Maybe there\'s this massive edge I\'m not seeing\"
If you saw the net daily settlements with hubs that handle the CRW\'s vs the rest,you would see it.
miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> \"Maybe there\'s this massive edge I\'m not seeing\"
>
>
>
> If you saw the net daily settlements with hubs
> that handle the CRW\'s vs the rest,you would see
> it.
What I\'d see are their profits. I assume profits since they would not play otherwise.
That would tell me nothing about how the profit was achieved.
I\'ve said repeatedly , I have seen NO evidence of anyone betting after the gates have opened. If you want to see massive late money, check the Hong Kong Q pools. I guess they are past posting too. ;-)
If you\'re only thinking that a last look at the pools is some kind of massive edge, well, that\'s also overstated.
I went into this earlier in the string. If what I suspect is happening actually is, you can\'t see it.
The CRW issue has nothing to do with past posting.The ability of CRW to make many late bets is critical to that model and can\'t see how it would be successful without it.
Daily, there are people trying to past post. On several occasions, the stop betting command failed and wagering was open after the race started. On one occasion SAM machines failed to lock and substantial bets were made after the race.
Guess if I had to bet,think there is some past posting, where, who, how,dont know but do know the high level of incompetence of racing execs in general vs very savvy genius level computer propeller heads.
Well, I can\'t vouch for the competence of those monitoring the pools. If they are stealing, they are doing it subtly for the most part. Or not doing it at all.
9th TRI at AQU today, looks pretty light, 4.40 3.95 16.00 and only $234 for your trouble. Doubt any chicanery, just overbet.
Not sure how much leeway they give CRW in terms of posting their wagers. Do they demand the bets be transmitted and received by 1 or 2 seconds after the pool is closed, or do they only look at a timestamp (that would be very bad).
If all bets must in, then it would be near impossible to cheat without insider help.
I\'ve been raising the t word (timestamp) for a few years now.
Basically, policing of this is at the same general level as drug policing. No assumptions of competence are safe.
I\'d really like to see some examples of where people think something underhanded has happened. Nebulous accusations based on misunderstanding how the pools trade isn\'t proof of larceny. Yeah, I know they scammed the Breeders Cup, can we use that one forever? ;-).
We had a crowd insisting that 99-1 mistaken ringer was the coup of the century. Folks say a lot of things.
I know Jerry doesn\'t fall into the tin foil hat category, so I\'m open to the possibility of fraud, but damn, I watch the pools pretty close when I watch them at all , and I aint seen it yet.
Boscar Obarra Wrote:
---------------------------------------------------------
> Do they demand the bets be transmitted and received
> by 1 or 2 seconds after the pool is closed, or do
> they only look at a timestamp (that would be very bad).
God, if they\'re using timestamps, then there\'s almost assuredly rampant past-posting going on.
I haven\'t seen any evidence of it either, but then again I wouldn\'t expect to. I\'d expect it would be done shrewdly, under the radar, like mobsters skimming profits from a casino.
Yep. Would be so asinine that I would be shocked if that was the standard.
As for skimming, yes, if they only wanted to take 1% of the pool , then it might be hard to detect. Only way to prevent that is a strict demand that all bets be IN by off time or very close to it, with only the rarest of exceptions for some transmission glitch.
If I bet at my ADW, I\'m dependent on them to ACKnowledge the bet after it\'s placed. No ACK , no bet. If CRW\'s are held to a looser standard, that would be an issue. This is something that can be verified with CRW account holders or the hubs.
Mathcapper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Boscar Obarra Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -------
> > Do they demand the bets be transmitted and
> received
> > by 1 or 2 seconds after the pool is closed, or
> do
> > they only look at a timestamp (that would be
> very bad).
>
> God, if they\'re using timestamps, then there\'s
> almost assuredly rampant past-posting going on.
>
> I haven\'t seen any evidence of it either, but then
> again I wouldn\'t expect to. I\'d expect it would be
> done shrewdly, under the radar, like mobsters
> skimming profits from a casino.
What incentive does the track have to stop accepting wagers at off time? They make their money off the total amount bet. Their natural incentive is to keep accepting money into the pool as long as they possibly can.
Uh, bad PR comes to mind, if folks are betting 30 seconds into the race. Of course, the good PR generated by those lucky few might compensate.
Bad PR? LOL. Look, I\'m not saying the tracks are intentionally doing something improper. I have no way of knowing. And I\'m sure that practices vary from track to track. All I\'m saying is that we seem to be expecting them to do something that they have no natural incentive to do. We expect diligent and rigorous enforcement of pool closure at race start. But all their natural incentive is counter to that. Their greatest incentive is to maximize the amount of money in the pool. We at least need to understand that we\'re expecting something that they aren\'t highly incented to do.
JimP,
Generally I like your point. Incentives. Desire. Moves the world including the one in question. Yet I have to take a couple of minor points. You refer to Tracks as if they were some sentient entity. Then again to the anonymous they.
I imagine track operations more like any factory, blue or white collar. Tainted somewhat by the more than occasional criticism of management, in the industry. My picture is more akin to the three stooges. i.e.
Getting the tote to stop taking wagers before the gate opens could be a haphazard event with the nerd in charge more interested in his fantasy about Maggie May and her running a tray of drinks to someone than increasing the pool size. But just to be sure, paying his/her penny pinching manager to economically reward nerd person for getting it right has merit.
Folks will say his/her salary is for getting it right. Real World - pay for results. Nerd is paid for stopping bets on time docked for failure to do so. Manager paid similarly. All the way up and down the ladder pay for explicit defined behaviors.
A conspiracy to increase pool sizes by delaying the tote, is a reach for me. Making bets into a pool after the race has ended is a worthy endeavor for a criminal and a better goal than armed robbery. Betting on horses after the race has started but before the finish line has obvious advantages. Yet the competence required restricts the candidates to the usual suspects. Lacking law and order it will take a fluke, like a go pro, to discover.
Bottom line I\'m suspecting one or more organized gang(s) of entrepreneurial young women in short tight skirts with obvious cleavage distracting the tote control clerk.
Tavasco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> JimP,
>
> Generally I like your point. Incentives. Desire.
> Moves the world including the one in question. Yet
> I have to take a couple of minor points. You refer
> to Tracks as if they were some sentient entity.
> Then again to the anonymous they.
>
> I imagine track operations more like any factory,
> blue or white collar. Tainted somewhat by the more
> than occasional criticism of management, in the
> industry. My picture is more akin to the three
> stooges. i.e.
>
> Getting the tote to stop taking wagers before the
> gate opens could be a haphazard event with the
> nerd in charge more interested in his fantasy
> about Maggie May and her running a tray of drinks
> to someone than increasing the pool size. But just
> to be sure, paying his/her penny pinching manager
> to economically reward nerd person for getting it
> right has merit.
>
> Folks will say his/her salary is for getting it
> right. Real World - pay for results. Nerd is paid
> for stopping bets on time docked for failure to do
> so. Manager paid similarly. All the way up and
> down the ladder pay for explicit defined
> behaviors.
>
> A conspiracy to increase pool sizes by delaying
> the tote, is a reach for me. Making bets into a
> pool after the race has ended is a worthy endeavor
> for a criminal and a better goal than armed
> robbery. Betting on horses after the race has
> started but before the finish line has obvious
> advantages. Yet the competence required restricts
> the candidates to the usual suspects. Lacking law
> and order it will take a fluke, like a go pro, to
> discover.
>
> Bottom line I\'m suspecting one or more organized
> gang(s) of entrepreneurial young women in short
> tight skirts with obvious cleavage distracting the
> tote control clerk.
Pulled one lengthy stint at a bush joint (by any rational measure) where the placing judges were in charge of locking the tote when the latch sprung. Fog obscured the view one day, and those in charge were figuratively asleep until the first two finishers emerged from the mists. Acquaintance of mine was on the apron, noted the relevant saddlecloth numbers and ran to open machines to cream the exacta.
Serious questions here about the superfecta and people playing the winning tickets in situations like I describe below. I will post the results first and then, ask the question thereafter. I really hope I receive feedback as I am being completely sincere with these questions.
Gulfstream Park, Race 9.
12 horse field on the turf. 1 1/16 miles on turf.
TAP horse mentioned prominently in a DRF article is the $1.30 favorite (had never run on turf) and does not hit the superfecta. I only mention this to provide more context to this super.
Results:
12. $6.90-1, 3rd choice of 12
6. $51.80-1, 10th choice of 12
7. $40.90-1, 9th choice of 12
10. $139.80-1, 12th choice of 12 (placed 4th following a correct DQ).
Superfecta Pool: $120,096.00. Takeout rate: 26%.
Pool distributed to winning tickets: (Pool multiplied by .74=) $88,871.04.
Winning payoff for ten cents (.10)=$6,345.25.
Amount of winning tickets ($88,871.04 divided by 6345.25=) 14 winning dime superfecta tickets or $1.40 worth of winning tickets stated another way.
___________________________
I do not question the math, the payoffs, and in no way do I believe anything nefarious happened here. My question revolves more around who hit this superfecta. These are absurd odds on the horses save the winner who was a fairly high priced third choice. I have been to enough tracks, read every handicapping article possible, and talked to enough people that I have a grasp on how people are wagering whether they go to a live teller or a self service terminal or use a computer at home without any wagering program.
To be clear, I am not asking how someone could have handicapped this result. I find it unlikely that any part of the $1.40 worth of winning wagers truly bet these tickets as their opinions. A post by TGJB rings true in my mind very often now and has helped me immensely when constructing wagers or making my gambling decision: What is your opinion of the race? That is exactly what you should bet. Are computers, CRW\'s as described in this thread, punching out a combination of every possible outcome into these large pools in different increments? Do you know someone who punches out enough superfecta combinations to get to this result? How much money is the person who \"hits\" this superfecta putting into if it is a real person? Are they constructing all of these superfecta bets well, well in advance of the race or are they at the window late (highly doubtful in my mind)?
I understand on the big days that enormous pools will have every combination covered by people betting numbers, colors, etc. But on a Sunday pool of $120k, is Every possible combo covered? Had the 50-1 shot I told my friends to use in their tri and super won the race, is it still hit by someone?
Are these boxes that are hitting this type ticket? Or a key of the 3rd choice with all with all with all? It just seems to me if someone is playing this combination they must consistently lose very often b/c having those 3 underneath the winner seems really really impossible. Or, as I suggest above, is this a computer program that is creating many of these wagers and no human is actually creating the tickets? Is it a combination of both?
I know this may seem like some to be elementary questions but I truly find it fascinating that somehow, some way, someone out there or $1.40 worth of somebodies had this ticket covered. Thoughts?
My question is, how did it pay so much?
Only half kidding.
There is no particular logic to it, just the way it is. \'Crazy\' combos are covered much better than you\'d think . This could easily have paid half that.
I see exacta combos that should be 2000-1 off at 300-1 all day. They so rarely win , the public isn\'t even aware of the idiocy.
It was a rather fortuitous turn of events that allowed this combination to hit the board. The 4 horse was clear on the lead in the stretch, and looked like a very likely winner when he bolted sideways, interfering with the 134-1 shot who then got moved up to fourth.
I know it's tempting to think about this in terms of individuals (like who and how could someone have possibly had such a combination?), but it's better understood by looking at it from the perspective of the entire whole instead.
There are really two things at play here: 1) crowd wisdom and 2) market efficiency
Consensus estimates of large groups tend to be as good as, and often better than, the estimates of even the smartest individuals within the group (James Surowiecki wrote a pretty cool book on this called "The Wisdom of Crowds").
What this means in terms of racetrack betting is that the market is pretty efficient. So for instance, if you look at all the horses that went off at 3-1 over history, you'll find that they win around 25% of the time, just as the public estimated. Same goes for the exotics pools, both vertical and horizontal. A great deal has been written on this topic by academics, much of which has been compiled in a book called "The Efficiency of Racetrack Betting Markets" (highly recommended reading for both quant geeks and insomniacs alike).
Racetrack markets aren't perfectly efficient of course. Individual results will vary widely, as has been discussed often on this board. And there are some biases. Favorites used to get underbet in the win pool, although that seems to no longer be the case. In the exotics, as Boscar noted, extreme longshots tend to get overbet by the public.
But the wisdom of crowds and market efficiency are the reasons why you see bets like the ones in the 9th at GP occurring with the frequency they do. It's not so much that particular individuals have figured out how to structure their tickets in such an ingenious way as to hit these kinds of combinations, but rather that the probability (ie. odds) of that combination will tend to reflect the crowd's opinion on the win probability of that combination.
In this case, based on the win odds of each of the top 4 finishers, using discounted Harville, the public's win probability estimate for that super was 0.00063%, or about 160,000-1.
So the estimated payout for the $.10 super was around $16,000, or 5 to 6 expected winning tickets. Not surprisingly, given the public's bias toward extreme longshots in the exotics, it actually came back at over twice as many tickets, or a little less than half the expected payout.
As a side note, it's unlikely that the CRW's - at least any of the ones whose systems are designed on betting overlays - had this ticket, unless they had the winner or one of those longshots as being big overlays themselves. For those guys, covering all potential combinations just to ensure all combos are covered is the antithesis of what they're all about – finding overlays - and because of the public's longshot bias, such extreme longshot combos like this one are almost always big underlays.
Rocky R
\"So for instance, if you look at all the horses that went off at 3-1 over history, you'll find that they win around 25% of the time, just as the public estimated\"
Rocky,
So if one bets every 3-1 shot and gets a rebate of say 6%, you must make money,seriously?
Mike
I didn\'t hit that race but I played it, and had the right idea. The Pletcher favorite was first time turf with a terrible pattern, and there were a ton of live longshots. I made a 5 horse exacta, tri and super box, I think only one horse I used was less than 20-1. I did use the one that made a right turn mid stretch, but did not use the eventual winner.
So anyway the answer is yes, the way someone hits that is a big spread box fading the favorite. 10c tickets make ones like that a lot more likely to be hit.
miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> \"So for instance, if you look at all the horses
> that went off at 3-1 over history, you'll find
> that they win around 25% of the time, just as the
> public estimated\"
>
>
> Rocky,
>
>
> So if one bets every 3-1 shot and gets a rebate of
> say 6%, you must make money,seriously?
>
>
> Mike
Should have mentioned that the 3-1 is based on a 100% line, which equates to the 25% win probability. With a 16% takeout, those 3-1 shots actually go off at 2.36-1, and rebaters will of course still lose 10%:
EV = [.25x2.36 - .75x(-1)] + [.06 rebate] = -10%
The point I was trying to make was that overall, the public gets the win probabilities about right. Sorry for any confusion.
21% 3-1 over the last 70 racing days
RICH Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 21% 3-1 over the last 70 racing days
Yep - exactly what you\'d expect. At a takeout of 16%, 3-1 on the tote corresponds to 3.76-1 on a 100% line, which equates to a 21% win probability.
TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I didn\'t hit that race but I played it, and had
> the right idea. The Pletcher favorite was first
> time turf with a terrible pattern, and there were
> a ton of live longshots. I made a 5 horse exacta,
> tri and super box, I think only one horse I used
> was less than 20-1. I did use the one that made a
> right turn mid stretch, but did not use the
> eventual winner.
>
Spoke with Uncle Bill earlier - he hadn\'t yet seen your post and told me the exact same story about how he played the race.
Further proof that great minds think alike!!!
Don\'t know if this is apropos or not, but in the 2012 KD I hit the SFA for $1. It paid $48K+. IHA was I think 19-1, Bode ( fave ) 3-1?) Dullahan (single digit, I think) and Went the Day Well I think was something like 25-1. While waiting for the photo, my friends were telling me it would probably pay somewhere around 30K-40K for $2. When it came back at 96+K for $2, I was happily surprised of course. I\'m not sure I\'ve remembered the odds correctly, but that certainly makes up for a lot of ones that comeback lighter than expected. By the way, after betting Win and Exacta\'s on the race, I had $12 left on my voucher, and played IFA and Bode over the other 2, for a 2/4/4/4 ticket. I learned a lesson that day:when you have a strong opinion, don\'t be timid.
joekay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don\'t know if this is apropos or not, but in the
> 2012 KD I hit the SFA for $1. It paid $48K+. IHA
> was I think 19-1, Bode ( fave ) 3-1?) Dullahan
> (single digit, I think) and Went the Day Well I
> think was something like 25-1. While waiting for
> the photo, my friends were telling me it would
> probably pay somewhere around 30K-40K for $2.
> When it came back at 96+K for $2, I was happily
> surprised of course. I\'m not sure I\'ve remembered
> the odds correctly, but that certainly makes up
> for a lot of ones that comeback lighter than
> expected. By the way, after betting Win and
> Exacta\'s on the race, I had $12 left on my
> voucher, and played IFA and Bode over the other 2,
> for a 2/4/4/4 ticket. I learned a lesson that
> day:when you have a strong opinion, don\'t be
> timid.
Unless very favorite laden (like this year), superfecta in Derby always pays well because you have 20 betting interests. That exponentially increases the possible combinations which means the betting pool is stretched over a way larger amount of possible bets than any other race you can bet in America.
I responded to a post about this last spring in reference to the perceived light payoff in this year\'s KD super.
You can see the fave/longshot bias at work in the difference between the expected 2015 and 2012 payouts: Hats off to the KY Derby Winner (http://www.thorograph.com/phorum/read.php?1,93619,93647#msg-93647)
Rocky
One of my favorite tales is that of the Hurdle Championship (name escapes me) carried as a separate pool by NY OTB back in the day.
The favorite won , and two longshots completed the TRIFECTA.
No one hit it. (100k pool) . That was the \'too hard to wheel a horse on top in those days\' bias.