Computer-Robotic Wagering

[Boscar Obarra]

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:
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> 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.

[JimP]

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.

[Boscar Obarra]

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.

[JimP]

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.

[Tavasco]

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.

[Topcat]

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.

[Fairmount1]

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?

[Boscar Obarra]

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.

[moosepalm]

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.

[Mathcapper]

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

[miff]

\"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

[TGJB]

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.

[Mathcapper]

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.

[RICH]

21% 3-1 over the last 70 racing days

[Mathcapper]

RICH Wrote:
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> 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.