Strange tote movements

Very interesting Observer..I dont get opportunity to watch the tote..however what you and others say does make sense..either that or overseas punters know our horses better than we do.

I went to bed 3 hours ago thinking about this problem only to be woken up with a moment of clarity. It amazing how the brain solves problems whilst you're asleep.

Some observations -

1. Co-mingling is a scam or a lame excuse that even the employees of the operator are buying into unawares
2. www.phumelela.com/Operations/Internation...abid/84/Default.aspx thanks for this link Don - Posters please go and read what the definition of co-mingling is. My understanding is that it is a two way relationship (bullsh#$%^)!!!
Reasons?
i. Greg you call for a boycott of the tote yet we have been co-mingling with the UK for a long time now without such drastic results. The pound is even stronger than the Ausie dollar and the poms should be hitting our pools even harder - problem 1
ii. Why if co-mingling is reciprocal are we betting into zero pools in the Ausie donkey cart racing and Toowomba? Hard to believe that saffers are the only ones stupid enough to bet on this?. Same applies for Hong Kong and Singapore. Seems like the worlds gamblers specifically the Ausies can deplete our pools but we do not have access to theirs. One way agreement? Problem 2
3. Seems to me as though we punters are easily distracted or at least the operator believes so as an excuse is thrown out there and we latch on and almost accept without looking at all the scenarios - dont just accept everything you are told. Look at it from 360 degrees.
4. In years to follow the truth of the matter may be revealed and it may be too late for SA racing. Question everything.
5. If the UK pools can effectively be comingled with ours without delays or hitches why should it be any diffrent with Aus? The operator has gained the experience through comingling UK pools.
6. I'm sorry I am not convinced by this excuse - either reveal the truth or get rid of this Ausie comingling. At the moment it screams scam, lame excuse or even worse a legal way to avoid exchange controlls and a shift of money from one country to another or laundering.

Ok then something for you all to contemplate - Im going back to bed - Goodnight.

Good morning Al, hope you had a good nights sleep and food for thought, must say the "blind" tote is out of hand and out of control, bad for punters.

Al,I also found myself trying to hypothecate this issue and I give you a possible answer...Plausible?...you be the judge!
It is a FACT that all TAB agency outlets have an"after the jump" errors and omissions period(an operator punches in 10,000 wins instead of 1,000 on the jump,it can be rectified)We need to know what this period is.
Now for the conspiracy theory:a party within the the bowels of the tote has the technical ability to increase this to a "window of opportunity" of 120 seconds.This now caters for all races up to at least a mile.An accomplice finds a "one machine outlet"with one operator and co-opts the operator and we now have this gang of three.
Using my previous example of El Kapitaine,as they pass the post , some 60 seconds after the "OFF",R20,000 is wagered on the winner.The payout reduces to R3.50 from the expected R6.50(11/2 on the books)The "gang" has stolen R50000,being the profit
Some points to ponder:1)The theft is not from the operator,but from the legitimate backers of the winner,so not a loss that would be highlighted in the operators balances.No apparent leakages to investigate.
2)Because these wagers are so late we have assumed it to be a result of co-mingling...it could be from Blikkiesdorp!
3)It probably started at smaller bets of say R2000,on 2 races per meeting...nobody notices the change in dividend and they nett +-R10,000 per meeting which equates to between R300,000 and R500,000 per month.
4)Natural greed dictates that if you increase the bets to R20,000,the monthly profit increases to R3-R5m .Very tidy sum to be shared by a handful,but the resultant changes in dividends becomes apparent.
Is this so far fetched....maybe...maybe not! SOME VARIATION of this scenario would certainly explain the sudden phenomena!

Morning Rob, here is an extract from my tote visit on the "timing" aspect


So back to the burning question "how does the prices and dividends change after the off"?

The first race I watched, a harness race from Australia, race was closed about 5 secs before the off.

The race time was 10.00.59 when the outgoing transmission report is sent to Aus and then they add the hold from overseas and it came back at 10.01.57, basically 58 secs later and the race finished another minute after this.

As far as cancelled bets, all bets of R500 and over have to get an authorization number and it has a grace of 20 seconds into the race, in Australia they have 55 secs, so hope they have no Divine Acts and Tommy Hotspurs running?

The co mingling from Aus, is on W/P, exacta, doubles and the stand alone is swingers and trifectas

From UK its W/P swingers and exactas and the stand alone is trifectas, quartet, jackpot and PA.

Sweden is W/P and Doubles and stand alone is swingers, exacta and trifecta.

Max tote bet is R2,000 win, so if you ask for R10,000 you get 5 tickets, if its a call bet the operator punches 5 different transactions.

You can`t cancel bets via the Internet, only by phone or by being at a terminal.

So the bottom line is YES the TOTE does change after the off and if you consider comingling movements in and out both ways, bets being cancelled 20 secs after the off, and in some cases can be "substantial" and can be located via branch and Investigations carried out. I cannot really comment on the detail, but would say that a few "punters" have probably found out how to manipulate the TOTE to the best of their advantages.

I give you this feedback as an observer as I am no IT specialist but would like to thank all the people I met for the hospitality and transparency.

scotia

Fair and well does not explain the one way co-mingling. Why are we betting into zero pools yet they are looting our pools? something very wrong here and the pools money is being drained out of SA at no expense to owner or operator as money is secured through commission and stakes are paid from this commission. The payouts are irrelevant to them but are killing the life blood of the SA racing industry (punters)

Scotia,I have just got off the phone to a mate who has a TAB agency to run my hypothesis passed him.His comment is that it is probably some variation of that theory,and by the way with my "plan" no cancellations are necessary!
Also what you were shown is the perfect situation....what I am talking about is a small "illegal"override.I would not expect it to become apparent in demo's,with all due respect!

Dave surely the tote operator knows where the bets are taken ie from which machine

Why not ask them for a printout on this horse that was paying R6.50 at the off but then was declared a win dividend of R 3.40 as to where and what time all win bets were made on the horse?

If there is nothing to hide then they should not have a problem giving you that info.

Agree with oscar, surely can't be that difficult to track; AW all along said that the way to trace this, is through the 'audit trail'

Al,has it been proven that it is co-mingling that is looting our pools,or just a convenient guess by presenters?

"So the bottom line is YES the TOTE does change after the off and if you consider comingling movements in and out both ways, bets being cancelled 20 secs after the off, and in some cases can be "substantial" and can be located via branch and Investigations carried out. I cannot really comment on the detail, but would say that a few "punters" have probably found out how to manipulate the TOTE to the best of their advantages. "

If you can locate where the bets are being cancelled from then surely those operators that are helping to create this ongoing fraud should be fired afterall they are taking turnover away from shareholders to facilitate "cheats". Perhaps Phumelela could as a PR exercise release a breakdown of winning tickets on El Kapitaine or another such horse(there was a 16-1 earlier in the week that paid R6-90) cant take more than a few minutes but could keep a few weary customers in the game for longer or will it be the usual who cares let them eat cake senario? Rome is burning gentlemen you have a responsibility to protect the sport not a mandate to destroy it.

Morning Oscar, they can located the terminals that the big cancelled bets are from.
However not sure with regards the co-mingled side, maybe larger bets are being done and cancelled from the overseas side, before the final dividend is cleared.
Will try and arrange another more detailed visit

calling AndreWest