10X worse than the Lasix issue!

[miff]

While the Clueless Clowns vie for the podium on Lasix and other bullshit issues, the computer geeks are closer than ever to perfecting models to beat the game. It\'s a matter of time before the geeks figure out a way to do this into much larger pools that we all play into.Incidentally, a fairly small investment by the Clueless Clowns in some new pari mutuel software could put the clamp on this type of thing.


DRF:


Ohio racing officials have launched an investigation into a flurry of last-second bets on the fifth race at Thistledown on Monday, the officials confirmed on Tuesday morning.

The bets, which originated through account-wagering hubs, drove the odds on a 1-5 horse at post time in a six-horse maiden field to 5-1 just after the horses left the gate. Eye Look the Part, the horse that had been 1-5, won the race by 16 1/2 lengths and paid $12.80 as the longest shot in the six-furlong race for maidens.

Just prior to the race starting, a bettor, using a Euro Off-Track betting account, wagered $7,000 to win on every horse in the race but Eye Look the Part. At the same time, $8,000 in win bets were placed through a separate account at the Greyhound Channel on every horse but Eye Look the Part, according to William Crawford, the Ohio State Racing Commission's executive director.

All told, $90,000 was bet at the last cycle to win on all the other horses in the race. Another $12,000 was bet on the other horses to show, also through the accounts, Crawford said. The bets did not show up on the odds until the race had started, but bettors who thought they were getting 1-5 ended up getting 5-1.

"Normally in these cases it's the other way around," Crawford said.

Crawford said that the mutuel pool – the total of all win, place, and show bets – on a race at Thistledown is typically $9,000. The total mutuel pool for the fifth race on Monday was $128,010.

Because of the way the bets were structured, a likely explanation is that the bettor or bettors who targeted all the horses but the favorite were attempting to drive up the price on Eye Look the Part in order to cash bets at non-pari-mutuel off-shore books that pay off at track odds. In order to break even under such a scenario, a bettor would have had to have made at least $14,064 in win bets through non-pari-mutuel outlets.

The betting was complicated by another factor. Of the amount bet to win on Eye Look the Part, a total of $8,359 was made by one bettor, also operating through an account-wagering service, Crawford said. The bettor also made a $968 show bet on Eye Look the Part. Both bets were placed well before the race started.

Crawford acknowledged that the odd amounts of the win and show bets on Eye Look the Part pointed to the use of a computerized robotic wagering program. The programs, which account for at least 10 percent of the handle on U.S. horse races, analyze pool totals searching for inefficiencies, and they typically place bets in odd amounts because of the program's ability to calculate the impact of the bets on the odds.

Crawford said he has requested additional information from both Euro Off-Track and the Greyhound Channel on the bets and the bettors who placed them.

In addition, the Thoroughbred Racing and Protective Bureau, an investigative arm of a company owned by racetracks, has also begun looking into the race, according to the TRPB's director of wagering analysis, J. Curtis

[Holybull]

Makes me wish I was a sicko that bet 1-5 shots at Thistledown.  Nice little windfall.

[jimbo66]

Hmm....

Well, there is another way to look at this.  

A bunch of gamblers made legal, pre-race bets into the parimutuel betting system that created \"phony odds\" and \"value\" for those betting into the parimutuel system and wagering on the 1-5 favorite.  They did this so they could bet presumably much much more, with either illegal bookmakers and/or offshore sports books (also illegal in this country).

The \"victim\" in this case is the offshore bookmaker or bookie.

Granted, there are other scenarios where this kind of manipulation could harm the players, but I don\'t think this one did.

Call me naiive, but what law did they break here?  Assuming the bets were \"pre-race\", they bet a ton of money on some slugs that had no chance to win.  Unless the \"illegal bets\" can be proven, I don\'t know what law has been broken.

[P-Dub]

jimbo66 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hmm....
>
> Well, there is another way to look at this.  
>
> A bunch of gamblers made legal, pre-race bets into
> the parimutuel betting system that created \"phony
> odds\" and \"value\" for those betting into the
> parimutuel system and wagering on the 1-5
> favorite.  They did this so they could bet
> presumably much much more, with either illegal
> bookmakers and/or offshore sports books (also
> illegal in this country).
>
> The \"victim\" in this case is the offshore
> bookmaker or bookie.
>
> Granted, there are other scenarios where this kind
> of manipulation could harm the players, but I
> don\'t think this one did.
>
> Call me naiive, but what law did they break here?
> Assuming the bets were \"pre-race\", they bet a ton
> of money on some slugs that had no chance to win.
> Unless the \"illegal bets\" can be proven, I don\'t
> know what law has been broken.

I don\'t think 1/5 was phony considering he won by 16 lengths.

This one did harm the players in this respect.  If odds can change after the race starts, then how can players have any confidence that what the odds they wager on are true??  Its one thing to go from 12/1 to 8/1 in a small pool.  From 1/5 to 5/1??  that just doesn\'t happen EVER. Ever.

Its not about breaking laws, technically they didn\'t.  But don\'t you think the integrity of the pools have been breached a bit??

If you can\'t trust the tote board, there is no game. Period.

[magicnight]

This used to happen all the time in the old days. Boscar can help out here. What did they call it? \"Building?\" Bet up the rest of the field at Agua Caliente and clean up with US bookmakers on the good thing.

I also wonder how often this sort of thing could be pulled off. How many offshore outfits would get suckered twice on this sort of thing?

[miff]

The math guys got Vegas(when Vegas booked horses) with a show bet at Monticello harness with next to nothing in the pools.Casinos hollered and refusd to pay but at the end of the day the Gaming Commission ordered the Casinos to pay the players.Vegas had an exposure and some smart young guys took advantage.

Agree with Jim that no laws were broken and only the offshore sites that book horses got banged but the whole point is again a simple one.Any form of pool manipulation MUST be guarded against with the elimination of robotic wagers and software programs that are hooked into live pools at the rebate shops.

If every player cannot make hundreds of bets in the last 30 seconds then no one should be able to.


Mike

[FrankD.]

I\'ve been around a long time and have a significant background on the taking side of bets.

1) Most offshore or non-parimutuel books will cap a payoff at 5 or 10 k total for the race at a C or D level track like thistle.

2) No book maker in their right mind would take a 10k or more bet on a track that normally has that amount in total in the WPS pool for an entire race.

3) No bookmaker in their right mind would take that kind of action on a new account or one that never bet like that before. The only exception maybe for a heavy hitting sucker who normally bets 1/5 types regularly.

2 + 2 = 8 here

[Wild Again]

About 30 years ago their was an article in American Turf Monthly about a couple of wise guys who \"fixed\" a 6 horse race at Charles Town in much the same way as this race was \"fixed\".

Only difference was the end result.  The bettors got what was coming to them but it wasn\'t money.

Thanks

Wild Again

[TGJB]

If I\'m understanding this correctly, the only ones that got hurt are BM\'s who don\'t give anything back to the tracks or in purses, have limits on payouts, and occasionally stiff people.

Anybody got a hankie? I\'m gonna need a couple of minutes to regain my composure.

[jimbo66]

P-Dub,

You didn\'t read what I wrote, at least not clearly.

The bets created \"phony odds\" in that the 1-5 shot went off at 5-1. 5-1 was \"phony\" considering the horse won by 16.  

Frank D.,

I agree completely with what you wrote.  I have quite a few outlets that I can bet through offshore and I have enough history with all of them that I can get their \"highest limits\" available.  That said, I would be hard pressed to get more than 2-4k in win bets down TOTAL on a horse at Thistledown.

[SoCalMan2]

Anybody here know how to search back +/- 30 years in newspaper archives?  There was a caper extremely similar to this a long time ago at PARX (at the time the track was called Keystone).  Andrew Beyer wrote a detailed article about the whole thing.  If we can access Andrew Beyer\'s old articles and search for the term keystone should be easily findable (he may have called it the Keystone Caper).  What I am not sure about was whether the article was in the Washington Post or the Washington Star.  It was definitely not in the DRF.

[SoCalMan2]

SoCalMan2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anybody here know how to search back +/- 30 years
> in newspaper archives?  There was a caper
> extremely similar to this a long time ago at PARX
> (at the time the track was called Keystone).
> Andrew Beyer wrote a detailed article about the
> whole thing.  If we can access Andrew Beyer\'s old
> articles and search for the term keystone should
> be easily findable (he may have called it the
> Keystone Caper).  What I am not sure about was
> whether the article was in the Washington Post or
> the Washington Star.  It was definitely not in the
> DRF.

I just found it on the Washington Post website, but it seems to be inaccessible.  The article was published on November 13, 1981 and was entitled \"Kiddie Caper: Builder Play A Big Winner\"....i would love to be able to access it for nostalgia purposes, but it seems to be lost except for a very small abstract.  Can\'t believe that was 30.5 years ago.....seems like yesterday.

[Topcat]

magicnight Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This used to happen all the time in the old days.
> Boscar can help out here. What did they call it?
> \"Building?\" Bet up the rest of the field at Agua
> Caliente and clean up with US bookmakers on the
> good thing.
>
> I also wonder how often this sort of thing could
> be pulled off. How many offshore outfits would get
> suckered twice on this sort of thing?



That\'s what they called it . . . old art forms never die.

. . . but share the wonder at their ability to get a significant amount \"off\" on a secondary track, with reasonable confidence that the guy(s) they\'re playing with will hold it and not dump it into the pools . . .

[FrankD.]

SoCal,

I remember that one, the one miff mentioned at Monticello & one at Pimlico where they manipulated the show pool and cashed in Vegas before the houses went parimutuel. The difference is in those days before co-mingled pools at smaller tracks it took a few grand or less to turn the pools and they bet in Vegas or with street bookmakers.

These guy\'s pumped 75k into the pool to set the odds and had to bet close to 15k to get even; that\'s a 90k investment for nothing. How much more could they bet and where to make it worth while? If they bet another 20k they invested 110 to get even money. It goes on how much could they get down for in the world at Thistle?  (AND GET PAID)

[Holybull]

Plus healthy rebates on a very low-risk bet.