Re: Nice Letter to Editor and Editor Letter (396 Views)
Posted by:
ezgoer89 (IP Logged)
Date: January 24, 2005 02:04PM
There has been much noise made about bets made after post time not only on this forum, but in other discussion groups, industry articles, etc. While in theory it sounds simple, I personally have not been exposed to a technical explanation of how this could occur. The only time I have seen something in writing was the Pick 6 scam, which we know involved inside help.
Assuming that no inside help exists, how does someone place a wager after the pools are supposedly locked? Aren't all bets timestamped? How could a bet, made even one second after the pool is locked, be included in the pool itself?
If there was some concernt that a computer had actually been hacked to change timestamps (this would have to be done at the users terminal, ISP/provider, wagering hub, and host track), then why wouldn't an investigation ensue? If the Monarchos case was so obvious, wouldn't someone do a check and trace back large bets made very close to post time?
Couldn't an answer be more likely that the technology employed by large bettors is more sophisticated than that used by the wagering hubs and racetracks? If these large bettors can run algorithms to find the best possible wagers and four, five, or even six figure bets are made just seconds to post, it is no surprise that in a race the odds change on the turn or at the wire. Don't the odds update only every 30 seconds? How long does it take for a wager to go from my computer to a hub, on to the track, then added to the pool to calculate odds? What if there was an odds update at 25 seconds after post, but the big wagers were not yet calculate and 30 seconds later the big numbers were added to the pool? You'd have odds changes almost a minute into the race.
While I can't dispute that there could be a way to hack a system and make bets subsequent to post time, I have not seen any hard core evidence to support the claim.
I'd like to see examples at a particular track of the win or exacta pool at post time, during a race, and after a race. I'd also need to see the average dollar change of the pools on a race by race basis, then some inordinate change on a suspicious race.
Then investigate that susupicous race and show me the time, amounts and type of bets made; the hub that processed the bets, and the online service that took the bets from the bettor. This wouldn't be tough to do, if a track or agency took the situation seriously.