remember that race, where they forgot to extract takeout??


When they paid out 16%-25% more of the winning shares??



:D I don't

Exactly. :mad:

My understanding of the way it works is this:

Everything flows from the tote company.

Individual ADWs have UI's (User Interfaces) programmed to display and react to data delivered to the ADW by their Tote Company.

Each tote refresh delivers new data from the Tote Company to the ADW. From there, the ADW UI displays that data - and responds to it accordingly.

For example, if the #5 horse is scratched, that horse will be displayed as a scratch on the UI - and the UI is programmed not to allow the user to wager on that horse.

Suppose the #5 horse is mistakenly scratched. While the #5 horse is mistakenly scratched it will be treated like any other scratched horse in the tote data.

ADW players will see that the #5 horse is scratched - and are simultaneously prevented from keying and submitting wagers on the #5 horse.

But, if on the very next tote refresh - the #5 horse were suddenly available or unscratched in the tote data sent to the ADW:

The ADW's UI should be able to treat that horse like any other live entry - display all tote data for that horse - and allow players to key and submit wagers on it.

Imo, the change would need to be made at the tote level first.

Once that happens - I'm thinking things would flow smoothly to and from the ADW.



-jp

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We need to be honest ...

I'm sure the stewards are nice people, and probably accredited and experienced...


It's inappropriate to call the stewards names, or even to blame them for the rampant incompetency...


The managerial people haven't done their due diligence


has to be protocols

has to be training

rules need some level of 'interpretation/judgment' but the current amount of freedom of (arbitrary?) creative decision making is excessive ...

a horse breaks through the gate before the start, and it's questionable whether they are able to view the video frame-by-frame in slow motion...
[we assume they in fact have the technology at the ready]

and then if the horse is a long shot, it's often 'DQ'd, but if the horse is running for an insider owner/trainer and runs 3rd or something, they let the result stand and pay the purse money to the satisfied owner.

- these situations have bettors who singled the horse on top in multis ... and while the 3rd purse is a nice compromise for the insiders, the horse would have probably won if it had not broken early, and then had to be gathered and rushed up outside...


- a favorite herds a long shot and it's OK ?

- two Baffets surge to the lead, and the star draws off, while the stablemate screens off rivals...

- A horse who is much the best surges through a turf pack, and a non-contender who may have run 2nd or 3rd if lucky is affected, and they take down the best horse, who many used in multis on top.
There's no fining the purse difference or something of the connections, they just opt for a silly re-arrangement of taking a horseplayer-selected dominant horse down.

SO MANY THINGS in horse racing, and nobody teaches the Stewards how to consistently handle these things.

And the Stewards are some great horseplayers and some average joes who happened to have the job, and they kind of randomly decide based on the moment...

It's disgraceful of the management in their lack of due diligence.

The cure of allowing "unscratches" is far worse than the disease. That's just inviting pool manipulation, and would itself leave a bunch of pissed off bettors.

Remember as well, in some parts of Del Mar, there were betting window lines yesterday. You guys are mostly off track and in a position to quickly make new bets, but "unscratching" could screw over people on track.

No way should that CHRB rule prohibiting unscratches ever be changed. Put in a rule that allows them to declare a race an "ALL". And if they want to improve their steward/vet communication, that's great. But no unscratches- that's pure result-oriented thinking based on one weird incident.

I really like the "all" idea... it's just sounds like a reasonable compromise. (Haven't gave it indepth thought, but I def don't hate the idea)

It's very simple: the existing rule made no sense. They make more money from bettors and should thus treat them with more respect. Anyone with any sense understands how foolish psychologically it is to let a horse run and then potentially win and not be able to pay. At least some wagers were refunded but us big horizontal players, who put more time and often more money into at least a type of handicapping, get beat up. Im sure they'll change it now, but thats pretty bad. Im just happy it wasnt a 5 fig payout on the line for me.

As a bettor I strongly disagree with the above post.

Think about what happened in the last race on Friday.

Stewards are human. And as we've seen more times than I care to count they are subject to human error.

But once human error allowed them to mistakenly scratch a LIVE horse in the last race on Friday:

There was NOTHING in the rules allowing them to correct such an egregious mistake.

The result?

Bettors who individually wagered hundreds, thousands, and some of them tens of thousands in multi-race exotics who had #1 Modern Games on their tickets were given a huge middle finger by the CHRB.

When was the last time you heard on track bettors actually booing the last race of the day at the Breeders Cup?

How do you prevent that from ever happening again?

You PROTECT THE BETTORS by changing the rules and you create tote functionality to restore horses mistakenly scratched by the stewards back into the tote.

The unscratch rule I am proposing:

1. Can only be used to correct horses mistakenly scratched by the stewards.

2. Requires a vote by the stewards to correct a mistake made by the stewards.

That's it.

If you are worried about pool manipulation by the stewards you already have a problem. A steward who is dishonest already has the ability to disqualify any horse in any race from its actual finish position and have it officially placed anywhere he or she wants. (Not allowing them to correct a mistakenly scratched horse isn't going to change that.)

Imo, there ARE a few ways to do this intelligently with on track bettors in mind.

When scratches (and potential unscratches) occur on days when a track has an unusually large crowd:

Track management can easily tell the gate crew to wait a few minutes to give on track betters the chance to make additional wagers just like they sometimes do for regular scratches.

The incident that happened in the last race on Fri took place as the sun was sinking over the horizon. Del Mar doesn't have lights. There was a 15 to 20 minute delay. At one point I was wondering if they would have to cancel the race due to darkness.

But 99 days out of 100 at California tracks on track attendance isn't so big that track management can't tell the gate crew to wait a minutes until the lines at the windows empty out.

Also:

On track players do have the option to use a track issued handheld wifi device to wager.

Many on track players also have smart phones and ADW accounts. Guarantee you they are using them now for additional late wagers when regular scratches occur.

Making a race an ALL:

Making races where the stewards have mistakenly scratched a horse an ALL also screws bettors who have correctly selected the mistakenly scratched horse in their multi-race exotics because they collect pennies on the dollar for the ALL absent the stewards' boneheaded mistake compared to what they know they will collect when the mistakenly scratched horse running for purse money only wins.

As a bettor:

I'd much rather give the stewards the ability to correct a mistake before the race goes off.

I'm guessing I'm not the only bettor who sees it this way.


-jp

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Jeff, sports are full of uncorrectable errors. If the refs blow the whistle in a basketball or football game you can't un-blow the whistle. And that can mean a touchdown gets taken away.

If a hockey referee fails to stop a fight, a player can get seriously hurt and miss games and even face real life consequences. But you can't go back and reverse that.

If a referee stops a boxing match, he can't un-stop it. If a referee fails to stop a round and an illegal punch gets thrown, there's no such thing as an un-punch.

Colorado once won a national football championship because they were awarded 5th down in a crucial game.

Uncorrectable errors are part of the world of sports, which means they are also part of the world of betting on sports. They are part of the risk you assume when you decide to bet on a sports event, including a horse race. If it is a risk you don't want to assume, you don't have to bet. As Andy Beyer once said, there are safer investments out there.

Seriously, this was a one-off. You can run 100,000 horse races and not see another incident like this. So why the heck would we do something that could introduce real uncertainty in races just before post time just because we fear another 1 in 100,000 incident?

You pays your money, just like we all do, and you takes your chances. That's how horse racing works.

Anybody know how the gate guy is?

I heard he was working the next day.

While the other sports are wagered on, the leagues have nothing to do with the rules and regulations regarding betting.

I think you just can't have a horse running for purse money only. I realize this is punitive to the owners, but otherwise it's punishing the general public.

I didn't actually see the 10th on Friday or the incident. But I've heard there was very little time between the announcement the horse was scratched and when they realized it could race. Why not just announce what happened, then back all the horses out, and give the public 5-10 minutes to adjust? No need to scratch; no need to run for purse money only. And no incident we are talking about 3 days later.

That's the problem. Not all the ADWs might have code in place to do that right now. There would have to be some changes made.