Tote System Manipulation

This last week has been a total disaster for the SA tote, not updating, slow relaying dividends etc... Are there cracks in the system which could lead to tote manipulation

I found this article which is ten years old but worth a read...

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Bettors across the country are still reeling from the disclosure that the winning Pick Six wager for the Breeders' Cup may have been tampered with. Because of longshot Classic winner Volponi, there were only 6 winning wagers, which all belong to one "lucky" bettor. Suspicions were raised by the nature of the ticket: a $12 wager with a single horse in each of the first four races and all horses in the last two. Anyone familiar with pick six wagering would know this is not a logical ticket, especially considering the horse singled in the Mile was 26-1 Domedriver and not odds-on favorite Rock of Gibraltar, not to mention that almost nobody bets more than the $2 minimum on a combination. An investigation was called for immediately and payment of the winnings was withheld pending the outcome.

More information has come to light which makes it look even more crooked. Pick six wagers are not transmitted immediately to the host track tote system because of the large amount of data involved which would bog down the tote computers. Instead, the totals are sent immediately and only the live wagers are transmitted after the first four races are complete. Obviously if someone wanted to fix a ticket and had access to the tote system, they could change the selections in the first four races to the winning horses and the all horses selections in the last two races would guarantee a winning ticket.

Thursday Autotote fired an employee, described as a "rogue software engineer", who did indeed have the necessary access to the system to have modified the ticket. Even more damning, he is the same age as the winning bettor, who is a computer technician, and they both attended Drexel University in Philadelphia where they were fraternity brothers. So far there are no comments from Chris Harn, the fired employee, but the winning bettor, Derrick Davis, maintains his innocence. His attorney, Steven Allen of Baltimore, said: "As far as he’s concerned, he made a legitimate bet. The race was run, and he won, and he should have received his payoff, and that should have been the end of it. Now, instead, there’s an investigation, people are making a variety of wild accusations, and his reputation is being sullied for no good reason."

To add even more suspicion to the situation, the account the wagers were made from was only opened a few days before the Breeders' Cup and that was the only wager made with it. The OTB used, Catskill OTB in New York, does not yet have a recording system for touch tone wagers like this one, which would have instantly settled the question of which horses were picked when the wager was made. The security logs for employees entering and leaving the tote systems are also missing or incomplete, making the investigation even more difficult. Currently the FBI, New York State Police, and the New York State Racing and Wagering Board are investigating.

The suspect wager yielded 6 winning 6/6 tickets and 108 5/6 consolation tickets worth a total of $3.1 million. If it is determined to be an altered wager, these funds will be distributed. Since the 5/6 consolation tickets were IRS tickets, there are records of all those winners and all holders of legitimate 5 out of 6 tickets (78 total) will collect an additional $35,699 once the investigation is complete. If the 6/6 tickets are voided, only 5/6 tickets will be paid with 4/6 tickets not being an issue as only a 5/6 are paid if there is no 6/6 according to the rules of the wager.

The good thing is they caught on to this happening, the bad thing is we don't know how long it had been going on or what other weaknesses may be in the system waiting for an unscrupulous person to exploit. Can we continue to trust the tote system or do we even have any other choice?

"There needs to be total review of the system so everyone can feel good and see that these things are not widespread," New York Racing Association Vice President Bill Nader told the New York Times. "Without integrity in the way a wager is processed, we don’t have a sport."

NTRA has formed a Wagering Technology Task Group to look into these issues and will ask all the major tote companies to submit to a full security audit.

2nd part to the above...

Lots has been going on in the two weeks since the Breeders' Cup Pick Six scam was exposed. Now there are three former fraternity brothers implicated and at least two test runs have been found. The three 29-year-old college buddies from Drexel University in Pennsylvania, Chris Harn, Derrick Davis, and Glen DaSilva, plan to give themselves up to authorities on Tuesday according to the lawyer for former tote employee Harn. They are expected to face felony fraud and conspiracy charges.

The suspect wagers were the much publicized $3.1 million score on the Breeders' Cup pick six made by Davis plus a pick four at Balmoral and another pick six at Belmont Park made by DaSilva which totalled to over $117,000. All the wagers were placed via phone accounts at Catskill OTB in New York. All were placed in the same format with single horses in the first 4 races and all in the last two for the pick sixes. They are suspected of using a weakness in the way wagers were transmitted to the tracks to change the selections in the singled races after they had been run to guarantee winning wagers. Although former Autotote employee Harn had the access to do this, it has yet to be proven this actually happened.

At least one good thing has come from all this mess, the antiquated tote systems are finally going to get updated so all wagers can be transmitted immediately and more stringent security measures are being implemented. NTRA has taken a leadership role in this by creating a Wagering Technology Task Force to identify issues and help find solutions. Hopefully we will come out of this all with a much improved and more secure tote system that we can trust again.

At least one of the suspects, DaSilva, plans to not plead guilty. His lawyer said: "They made bets. They won. These are very risky bets. They have very high payouts. Can the government show the bets they placed are different than the bets they won? I don't think so."

Ok, you caught me:D

Pirhobeta Wrote:

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> Ok, you caught me:D


Did you have anything to do with my swinger in the 6th at Wolves tonite... 11 x 12 ... can't figure it out as the horses were NOT fancied for places (see dividends)....

Fark...less than a place bet on either horse on their own????

I recently had a sour personal experience where a losing bet was laid by an online bookie AFTER the race was run. The time of the transaction on the ticket is 40 secs LATER than the off-time in the Stipes Report!! The horse was What A Winter on 15 September 2012. The matter is being investigated.

Anyone else had a similar problem.

There should be no reason for Friday;s debacle with the PA. Assuming the sofware is written logically, the bets are captured on the database. The net pool is calculated after takeout and closed. Thereafter neither the poll nor the ticket numbers should change. A clerk then captures each result as the race is passed as the final result. The system caclulates each winning bet and posts results into the relevant database fields eg win, place exacta, trifect,quartet as well as the exotics pa, pick 6 and jackpot. This is the what we see on the screen after the results are posted.

Now because this is one process/program and one database/storage device, there is absolutely no logical reason for what happened Friday where only the PA was not displaying. Virus, capture error etc would have affected all display fields and not just the PA. Makes you think.

@Shadley:

'Virus, capture error etc would have affected all display fields and not just the PA. Makes you think.'

referral to the ...er? CC? PP?.....?

I posted this 4 years ago ()


This is one of my pet hates, and can find plenty more on this subject, but dont be conned!!

CO-MINGLING?


Note! This was an extract from an early Scotia in the morning posts with regards to the co-mingling French fiasco????????????????????????????????????




I also posted on the site with regards the 2 horse race, makes its so much easier to check what pressure the normal "punter" is up against, I posted PLEASE don't make them both "money-on", however blackpearl at 7/10 and 11/10 tried to come to the party, Interbet at racetime came to the party in-line with Betfair with 8/10 and 12/10 at 100%, but the early prices from the bookies at 6/10 and 9/10 shocking, but the shocker was the TOTE with 7/10 the winner and "NOT TOTE FAV", this must surely expose to the poor punter in the tote how much the "rip off" factor is. I will say this one more time as it totally infuriates me that the French co-mingling fiasco when Dettori won on the 6/1 shot and it paid 11/10 on the tote and "WAS NOT THE TOTE FAV", just wish more people could read these posts on the site, and after my inputs on Saturday, many people do read the site, but don't post.