Big hooray for Maloney if he gets this done.
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From The Thoroughbred Times
Tracks take on past-posting, late shifts in odds
by Frank Angst
Leading tracks have committed to improvements in tote security that would provide near real-time information they hope will eliminate problems, real and perceived, such as past-posting and late odds shifts by 2012.
The board of directors for the Thoroughbred Racing Associations, which represents 41 North American tracks, unanimously approved a plan by its Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau (TRPB) subsidiary to implement its Tote Security System. The system pulls key information from the tote for bettors, tracks, and regulators while also adding protocols to assure wagering ends when the race begins.
The TRPB hopes to launch a pilot program within 18 months followed by full implementation in 2012. The Tote Security System is a parallel network communications infrastructure designed to transmit specific tote data independently from the current Inter-Tote System Protocol (ITSP) used for all wagering data communication.
“The TRPB Tote Security System is a measured, reasoned, and realistic response to communication failures and late odds shifts which have fueled a lack of public confidence in the current tote system,” said TRPB President Frank Fabian. “These measures vastly improve tote security by enabling host track managers far greater visibility to activity within their pools at the click of a keyboard. And, no less important, it will enable the pari-mutuel industry to better serve its wagering public.”
For bettors, the system will allow participating tracks to include real-time decimal odds that would be updated every two seconds in their video display to customers. The decimal odds would allow a horse that is 2.60-to-1 to actually be listed as 2.60-to-1. Currently, a horse that is 2.60-to-1 is listed as 5-to-2. If that horse’s odds fall to 2.40-to-1, it currently is listed as 2-to-1, which creates the perception of a more dramatic odds change that what actually occurred. The system initially will focus on win odds but plans would allow for the eventual addition of other pools.
Besides that advantage for customers, the Tote Security System will provide real-time monitoring of pools for tracks and regulators, including:
· An improved, standardized stop-betting device and process, which will ensure betting has ceased at every retail network on the TRPB Tote Security System at the start of every race upon the stop betting command being issued by the host;
· The ability for a host racetrack association to identify and authenticate each simulcast retailer’s participation in the host’s races, ensuring only authorized access to its pools;
· The ability for a host racetrack to verify essential control functions occurring within the host’s network, such as pool participation, inter-tote system protocol information, cancel-delay time, currency, and minimum bet values;
· The ability for a host racetrack to audit wagering transaction detail on “pick-n” pools on a leg-by-leg basis; and
· An increased capability for participating host racetracks to hasten development of new wagering opportunities and expand betting markets.
Top players like Mike Maloney, who is based at Keeneland Race Course and has participated in a Kentucky Horse Racing Commission committee on wagering security, said these problems, real or perceived, have created a lack of confidence in pools with some players that has contributed to decreased pari-mutuel wagering.
Participating outlets will be charged a fee for the service. Non-track outlets that wish to carry the signals of the participating tracks will need to carry the Tote Security System. This will allow the cost of the system to be spread through all pari-mutuel outlets. It also will allow tracks to observe what outlets are entering their pools.
In turn, participating pari-mutuel outlets will be allowed to offer the racing signals of all participating tracks.
Thoroughbred Racing Associations Executive Vice President Chris Scherf noted that the industry has grappled with tote security issues for years. While many solutions have focused on additions to the tote system, the Tote Security System will pull key information from those pools and provide it to customers, tracks, and regulators.
“This is an effective refinement of the distribution of data that would not be possible without significant redesign of the current tote system, which was not initially engineered for multiple sources of wagering,” said Thoroughbred Racing Associations Executive Vice President Chris Scherf. “The tote companies have been vital contributors to the concept and design of the TRPB Tote Security System.”
Important features of the TRPB Tote Security System can be accessed and viewed by the host track representatives and their authorized regulators through a secure web-based portal, which also will make available a variety of other wagering integrity tools currently utilized by TRPB in analyzing wagering data.
Vendors partnering with TRPB in the development of the Tote Security System include Jockey Club subsidiaries The Jockey Club Technology Services and InCompass Solutions, and Roberts Communications Network. Senior technical representatives of AmTote International, United Tote Company, Sportech, and Las Vegas Dissemination Company also worked extensively with TRPB.
Frank Angst is a Thoroughbred Times senior staff writer
