Article on Status of Professional Sports Betting

[BitPlayer]

I thought this article was interesting:

https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/sports-betting-bettors-sharps-kicked-out-spanky-william-hill-new-jersey

I think the author talked with Steve Byk on Friday, but the link to the archived broadcast is not yet live.

Thinking about how the article relates to horse racing, my reaction was that the only reason that the computer groups exist in horse racing is that they\'re taking money from the rest of us, not from the tracks or ADWs.

[Boscar Obarra]

BitPlayer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...> Thinking about how the article relates to horse
> racing, my reaction was that the only reason that
> the computer groups exist in horse racing is that
> they\'re taking money from the rest of us, not from
> the tracks or ADWs.




Haven\'t read the article , but from whom would the money come, if not \'us\' ?

The rebate allows the groups to take shorter odds that we can for the same risk . Since they are ,on average,  reasonably decent players, this shortens the payoffs. If they sucked, it would be less of an issue.   And even when they do stink it up , its too late for YOU to bet against them, as the pools have closed.

[BitPlayer]

Understood.  My point was that if businessmen were forced to take the other side of their bets, the computer groups would be out of the game.  Since the computer profits are coming from other customers, the tracks and ADWs not only permit the groups, they give them special treatment.

[Fairmount1]

The tracks don\'t care about their gambling customers like \"us.\"  Only Oaklawn and Tampa make serious attempts to keep the CRW\'s out of the pools.  Every other track rolls out the red carpet for the robotic guys and their algorithms to have direct access to the pools in every way they desire....

The tracks believe that this model creates the largest amount of handle, they (the tracks) get their blended take of approx. 20 percent off the top and that\'s all they care about.  

Gamblers mean NOTHING to the tracks unless they are the whales.  And the whales are now the CRW\'s.  

The margin for you and I is thinner than it has ever been b/c every angle that you may have noticed through anecdote (even if a valid angle) gets CRUSHED if it truly is a profitable play over time (thus making no longer as profitable).  

Still working my way through Meadow\'s recently mentioned on the board The Skeptical Handicapper but he makes this very clear right at the start.....

[Rich Curtis]

I like Barry Meadow, but the editing in that book is so awful that the best way to read it is to read only every third page. If you get confused at some point, back up a page or two.

[TGJB]

As it happens, a few days ago I had an extended conversation with someone in an effort to get some serious investigative reporting done on this.

[TGJB]

To be clear, the advantage isn’t the algorithm, it’s the electronic access and last look at the pools. I don’t care how they handicap, it’s how they bet that’s a problem.

[jerry]

Yep. I remember the days when the pools were closed when they popped the latch. That was it. No off track money. You got the last quote before the gates opened. That was the edge.

[Boscar Obarra]

As per Wall Street HFT, this is the age where no protection is afforded against technological advantage.

  In the case of last minute betting, not sure how you could \'handicap\' that , other than limiting the amount you can wager late.   Becomes draconian very quickly.

 imo they would simply shift the flow to an earlier  time, which would smooth the betting odds, but not affect the closing price much.

[FrankD.]

Bit,

A great piece. The lack of intestinal fortitude in the corporate gambling world is a mere microcosm of our society which has been a mission to emasculate real men for a couple of decades.

Don’t believe me? Ask Norberto Arroyo 😎

I wonder what Benny “ I’ll take any bet as long as it’s as big as your first bet”
Binion would think of all this?

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/benny-binion/

[Wamsutta]

I agree that no matter what time is set as the final closing time for betting, money is going to come in bundles right up until the off. If you are smarter than I am, or start with more money than I do, or some combination of the two or some other factor leads you to handicap better or bet more efficiently than I do, I can live with it. The unfairness is exactly as TGJB said â€" apparently direct access to pools and the ability to see the odds and place bets (robotically) far closer to the off than a non-robotic bettor could dream of. That the size of one\'s bets dictates that one gets privileged access that others do not (and indeed the efforts made to keep hushed up the very fact that this privileged access is provided) is what is unfair. How many milliseconds does it take between the time the starter\'s finger starts to press down on the gate opening button and the time his finger is fully pressed and the gate opens? How many bets can the CRW lot get down in that time? Changes in the odds couldn\'t be displayed to the public anywhere near that fast, let alone a bet be put through.

And it is not just here. Obviously, most of the money bet on Irish and British racing is done via bookmakers or on the exchanges, but we here can only bet via their Tote systems. (The only place where I routinely do not see the big late fluctuations is on the French tote.) The proportion of money bet too late to be reflected in the posted odds in Irish and British races until after the race starts is such that using the posted tote odds at any time during the run-up to the race to assess the betting is useless (especially in Ireland where there is less liquidity). One has to approach the race assuming that the bookmaker odds shown by Oddschecker or at the Racing Post or other media will be generally reflected in the closing tote odds, except that short-priced favorites will generally be bet down shorter. I have assumed that this is bookmakers using the tote to cover their liabilities, the same way they do on the exchanges. But are CRW teams actively betting on racing there? The conditions (horse population and movement between courses, ground conditions, course layouts) are less static there than anywhere else, but there is plenty of money being bet.

And that\'s not to mention the issues they\'ve had over there with bettors flying drones over and near racecourses in an effort to get live pictures to beat the delayed feed shown on their TV channels. Doesn\'t TVG / Betfair offer in-running betting on their New Jersey exchange? (Is this connected or pooled together with the main exchange in Britain?) Since the TVG feed on my TV is always a second or two behind the track feeds shown on the NYRA website, I assume that someone must be cleaning up pretty handsomely.

Apologies if this is too far off-topic. Good luck to anyone playing Royal Ascot this week.

[Topcat]

FrankD. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bit,
>
> A great piece. The lack of intestinal fortitude in
> the corporate gambling world is a mere microcosm
> of our society which has been a mission to
> emasculate real men for a couple of decades.
>
> Don’t believe me? Ask Norberto Arroyo 😎
>
> I wonder what Benny “ I’ll take any bet as
> long as it’s as big as your first bet”
> Binion would think of all this?
>
> https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/benny-binion/


Ol\' \"pool cue / assault\" Arroyo?

Them were the days.