A Possible Explanation Of The Unexplainable R3 million Place Bet

This was no drunken punter,money laundering scheme or anything untoward.It is a business transaction.

What is the intent of the punter involved?To make money.In this instance he showed a large loss,but played out over time he would definitely be a winner.

He is using the rules of the tote to create a large potential upside for himself in what should theoretically be only a small upside situation.It didn't work,but these bets were placed by someone who knows exactly what he is doing.
For the purposes of this argument I am not going to talk about the takeout on each bet,as I don't know exactly what the takeout is.There is in effect no takeout on his two big bets(pool creator bets anyway).You will see why from my explanation.

Firstly,it is important to understand the place rules in order to provide an explanation.

Vee Moodley stated the following:

Moodley said that:

1.The 60 cents minimum indicated dividend at the jump was subsidised up to the R1 minimum guaranteed to SA punters.

2.This cost Saftote an amount of R5160 to subsidise SA punters on the place dividend payable on the 1 horse, Orange Blossom.

3.The amount transferred back to Tabcorp was based on the 60 cents dividend,and he said that the Australian authority paid their local winners in terms of their own policy.

Point 3 is extremely important.I have read the Tabcorp rules,and the gist of it is that they have the same policy in that a punter who has a winning bet can in effect not get back less than his initial investment on a bet.What this effectively means is that even though the dividend on horses 1 and 3 were only paying R0.60,the Australian tote still guarentees their punters the R1.00(or obviously in Aussie terms A$1).This has nothing to do with Phumelela,but is a local rule which happens to be the same rules Phumelela has.

It cost Phumelela R5160 to subsidize the dividend to pay R1.00 here,it would have cost the Tabcorp tote R100's of thousands to subsidize their punter/s if both horses 1 and 3 had arrived.

Right,so heres how the figures work then.It is very important to understand that although it is one punters bets,each bet still needs to get treated as a seperate entity.This race was specifically chosen as it provides the apparent perfect opportunity for the Aussie punter involved to make a lot of money on a market he in fact creates for himself.

Here goes:

Here are the tote dividends for the race after the race was closed:

Win Place
2.2 1 0.6 His investment R1,35M
35.9 2 23.1
2.0 3 0.6 His investment R1,35M
10.2 4 9.5 His investment R80K
16.7 5 9.6 His investment R80K
39.2 6 23.3
27.1 7 22.6
15.0 8 9.6 His invetsment R80K

He puts R1,35 million on both horses 1 and 3,pushing the dividends down to R0.60.Is his mind,both horses 1 and 3 are guarenteed to place if one looks at the form and merit ratings.There are after all only 8 runners in the race.He therefore creates a pot of R2,7 million rand with these bets.They are 'the pool creator'.

It makes no sense right?Except that Tabcorp guarentees him his initial investment back if both horses place.The words they use in their rules are"declare a dividend equal to the unit of investment"

Remember,each bet has to be treated as seperate entity,despite the fact that it eminates from the same source.In effect,he invests R2,7M in total on horses 1 and 3,and gets back R2,7M if both place.

Now heres the play:He's created a pool of R2,7M,and look what the dividends of the other horses are.They are massively overpriced.It is absolutely no coincidence that horses 4,5 and 8 are paying R9.50,R9.60 and R9.60 a place.He has done this specifically.He's not chosing between the 3 of them,he just wants one of them to fill what he perceives to be the 3rd place available.

If horses horses 1 and 3 place,it has cost him zero to create a pool of R2.7M.Now he puts R80k on each of horses 4,5 and 8.These transactions all happen more or less simultaneously,but I am seperating them for explanation purposes.In effect his investment is only R240 000 plus whatever the takeout is.

no 4 R80K * R9.50 = R760 000 net profit 760K-240k = 520K

no 5 R80k * R9.60 = R768 000 = 528K

no 8 R80k * R9.60 = R768 000 = 528K

There are obviously various potential other scenarios occuring,such as horses 1 and 3 both running unplaced,etc etc.However,this whole thing is a calculated risk scenario that has been mathematically calculated to the nth degree.

So what is the net result.

He gets back his R1,35M investment on no 1 which wins.He gets back 768K on horse 8 which runs 3rd.

His total investment was R2,7M + R240K = R2 940 000
Gets back R2 118 000
Big loss R822 000

If he could re-create the scenario daily he would do it again and again,he will finish up a long term winner and that all this is about.The key to this whole event is the guarentees the tote provide.There is in effect no takeout on R2,7M worth of bets.

This is only a possible scenario,and I may have made of few errors,but I think it's pretty much 90% close to the truth.

I wonder if Phumelela have ever realized that they potentially stand to have the same risk if someone here did something similar?

Brilliant (tu)

Much prefer this to all the press releases

Hope you are well JAP, miss u but will catch u at July?

Dear Dave,please see OUR Rule below,We Guaranteed OUR Local players the R 1,and  forwarded a dividend of R 0.60 to Australia


2.20. MINIMUM GUARANTEED DIVIDENDS: There is a minimum guaranteed dividend, for all bet types, equal to the unit of wager as
provided for in Chapter 4 except where a dead heat results in more winning combinations than otherwise contemplated.
ITW (Inter Tote Wagering) Customers, however, are excluded from minimum guaranteed dividends and will receive the True Dividend.

We configured our system as such and has been configured in this way ever since - 2008.

I read the thread,and as stated previously,The ONLY person that can answer is the International customer himself.There are many reasons as to why he struck those bets,and WE must always Remember that there are serious risks involved and NOT as easy as described.We are still awaiting a response from Tabcorp.

Thank you

Do the Aussies have bookies??

i agree with jap this was the manipulation hoping to score from the third place horse. is the same story years ago when empress club play 1.30 for win and 7 rand for place after the big place bet is cancel seconds before race. some years ago the partners in a p6 have their horse who is favourite for the 9th and final race as the banker. the race have the few scratchings one who was ante post favourite. the partners work out that if their horse is no favourite the get more than double the dividend. Just before the off, less than a minute they place R23000 win bet on the second favourite and this then becomes favourite. by doing this they provide more cover but more important they get the much bigger dividend when their horse win. their horse did win and they collect over 260000 when if they dont put on the 2nd favourite they will only get 80000. i was their i know the owners. is it illegal or under hand? no. it was a clear bet in it self. the tote can be manipulate if you have enough cash is all i say

The best thing about this whole scenario is that the tote who in effect usually carry absolutely no risk are in fact forced to play bookmaker in the scenario I have painted.

This above is as stated in the headline,only a POSSIBLE scenario.

I can guarentee that it's not that far from reality though.When totes make deals with the devil they deal with the consequences.It is common knowledge that a huge punter nearly sunk an Australian tote.How does that happen unless it is these type of scenarios.

This case was created.It is not a sudden bet,drunken bet or anything but a planned situation.

The truth will never be known.Tabcorp will come back with 'customer confidentiality' statements or something to that effect.

@ Vee,

You are an intelligent person.Please stop making ridiculous statements like 'this benefits local customers'.How?Nobody knew what these horses were paying for a place until the update came through halfway through the race.

Just because this situation only cost P small money does not mean it won't be a big money at some point in the future.The manipulation is done just as easily here,your rules allow for it.

I won't be drawn into this again,I just posted this thread to try and give a plausible explanation to a situation where Phumelela's statement are once again simply laughable.

The End

More believable than Oscar's explanation.

I know I have posted about this guy before,but this smaller article seems relevant to the current discusion.

Australia's Biggest Punter - Zeljko Ranogajec



Ranogajec was born in Hobart, Tasmania in 1961. His parents came to Australia as Croation immigrants.

He studied to be lawyer at the University Of Tasmania but soon realised he was probably always going to be a better punter than a lawyer. His self discovered memory skills allegedly found him banned from the Hobart Wrest Point casino for card counting (where he worked for a short while part-time) and Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast.
Interestingly he met his wife and business partner Shelley Wilson at the Wrest Point Casino where she worked as well. It is understood that these bans made him look seriously at racing and lotteries - not only in Australia but world wide.

His initial bankroll is rumoured to have been just a few hundred dollars which he turned in to a small fortune through what he called 'advantage betting' - card counting at the game of blackjack being one of his major skills. In fact in 2011, he was inducted in to the Blackjack Hall Of Fame as a "professional gambler from Australia and former blackjack professional player".

The Blackjack Hall of Fame is housed at the Barona Casino, in San Diego, California. The Barona Casino awards to each inductee a permanent lifetime complimentaries for full room, food, and beverage, in exchange for each member’s agreement never to play on Barona’s tables.

The casino bans saw him turn his attention to all sorts of other areas. He reportedly won a multi million dollar Keno jackpot at the North Ryde RSL in 1994. Although he bet more than the $7.5 million jackpot that was on offer, he won more than the first prize money by picking up numerous smaller prizes from his multiple entries. This is a great example of the small margins he strives to attain by betting huge amounts at short odds, or, in some cases, simply for the Tote "commission" he gets paid as a prime customer.

It could be argued (and is in many forums) that it is these commissions (or rebates) that greatly disadvantage the smaller punters betting in to the same pools. A TabCorp spokesman stated, in response to media stories, that the corporation "investigated the incidents" and found "no evidence of illegal activity", but reminded that "the offering of tote-odds betting products by corporate bookmakers has inherent pool manipulation risks."

The Herald Sun on May 20 2011 reported that they had "been contacted by several punters angry that one of Australia's biggest professional punters is plonking massive place bets on hot favourites on Tabcorp's SuperTAB to exploit a kickback deal he has with Tote Tasmania. The rebate is as high as 6 or 7 per cent on every dollar bet and works because Tote Tasmania co-mingles with SuperTAB pools. To avoid big losses on the professional punter's horses, costs are being covered by slashing the place odds for punters who have backed other horses."

In 2010, Ranogajec and his Hobart based business partner David Walsh, were reported to have bid for Tote Tasmania when it was being floated as a great privatisation idea by the idea bereft Tasmanian Government before they pulled it off the market in the face of enormous opposition. The Tote was supposedly for sale for $200-300 million and most of the big gambling companies - including Tabcorp, Tattersalls, British firm Ladbrokes and Greek firm Intralot - are believed to have submitted offers.

Ranogajec does not do interviews but "reportedly" employs dozens and dozens of people directly or indirectly to do the form and be "opportunity spotters". It is not known if this true or otherwise. He is also alleged to have an office on the top floor of the Tabcorp Building and at Foxsports headquarters in Pyrmont in Sydney. He also allegedly accounts for about 8% of Tabcorp's annual turnover.rong>

His overall betting operation runs worldwide 24 hours a day, seven days a week. According to "those that know" he chases small margins in pools with a large percentage of "mug money" that swells the pools to bigger than what you would normally expect. By doing this he virtually controls the totes and is one of the reasons why, again according to "those who know", many bigger punters have switched to Betfair and left the totes to the mugs.



An article about him on news.com.au listed his method of winning partly as:

He hires an army of analysts to conduct computer and video analysis of horse racing and other gambling activities. Betting markets anywhere in the world are selected based on large pools where his team can bet unlimited amounts at the last minute

* For horse racing, numerous factors are taken into account before a decision is made on what to back. Horses are divided into two groups: those who can't run a place, and those who can

* Horses are either eliminated or given a weighting based on their odds. His "value pick" system is geared towards looking for horses that are over the odds based on their percentage chance of winning

* Computers linked to the tote allow his team to bet late, preventing average punters from following his bets

* He is believed to operate on low single digit profit margins

Zelko was recently banned in America for pool manipulation.

Just hearing AC in the studio mention there's going to be a press release about todays Clairwood debacle.

Was wondering whether we've ever heard anything back about this situation which Vee assured us we would get answers from Australia for,or is this another 'sweep it under the carpet' event?