recurring dream

[jim]

a big whale sucking up my [our] money as he lazily swims around a tipless iceberg in the north dakota ocean.

[TGJB]

Not bad. I have it on pretty good authority that all hell is going to break loose this week. I was not given details.

[JimP]

Was that \'all hell breaking loose\' or did you expect more last week?

[TGJB]

My source says that is what he was referring to. I was expecting more, am still hoping for more, and trying to make it happen-- gently so far, in pretty much the same way Mall has, different route.

Premises:

Guliani is a head (and headline) hunter.

Guliani is tremendously political, was hired by \"the industry\", which needs to come out of this looking good and restoring customer confidence.

Conclusion:

Short Autotote.

[Catalin]

Unfortunately (for all of us)Guliani has a terrible reputation with certain industry headliners.  Additionaly, he continues to piss off most of the politicos. This will limit his ability to do much of anything.  He hasn\'t been able to do much for Merrill with Eliot Spitzer either.

NYRA (for one)has no interest in anything he has to say.  In fact Guliani\'s made so many enemies in Albany it virtually assures that there will be no action re Catskill OTB.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

[jim]

my version of common sense is still telling me that there was scamming at any point in the process where delays occur-- wether 4 races or 4 seconds.
the total lack of concern and/or contrition over faulty timing at gp, haw, etc in recent memory is sign enough that rudy\'s chore will be confined to having all buy in on dirty deeds only occurring at auto & otb

[TGJB]

From Hegarty\'s column in Wed. DRF:

\"Mutuel managers, tote officials and racing executives have said that no one is placing bets after the race has started, pointing to the electronic time stamps that mark the exact time a wager is placed\".

Yup, that proves it.

[Mall]

In the event you missed it, Ray Paulick\'s column in the 11/23 B-H contained an item that might be support for your argument, and which strikes me as suspicious in any event. Paulick says that daily settlements with one specific but unidentified offshore site has the winningest horseplayers in the business. In addition to not identifying the site, Paulick does not indicate how long this has been true, or how much the players at this site are exceeding the average. As one who is not inclined to believe in unlikely coincidences, this may very well be due to some advantage, though whether or not the advantage is past posting remains to be seen.

[TGJB]

I saw it. And since you mention Paulick, whom I know and usually like:

He wrote an editorial a couple of weeks ago, the gist of which was that rebate shops were handling more and more money, and therefore should be shut down by the tracks. I wrote a letter to the editor suggesting, among other things, that the estimated 1 billion dollar annual handle of the rebate shops was proof that big players are takeout sensitive, and that the tracks would be wise to give rebates themselves, and cut out the middle men. Instead of running the letter and letting me, and as it turned out others, make our cases, he distilled our arguments into a couple of sentences, re-cast them, and dismissed them within another editorial of his own. He ran none of the letters. Nice.

[Catalin]

JB:

NYRA floated just such a proposal about 18 months ago.  In fact, I saw the rebate structure.  While it wasn\'t quite on par with what some of the offshore guys do, it may have been enough to get back Ernie Dahlman(and his $20mm handle).  Unfortunately the NYSRWB shot it down.  The party line was that it \"discriminated against the little guy\" but in reality the state was in no position to give up the income stream.  For all we know, there are other tracks with the same predicament.

[TGJB]

The state THOUGHT it\'s income stream would be reduced. The point of my letter to Bloodhorse was that it was not true. Top pros, betting into racetrack takeouts, were working on about 2-3% of handle, and churning their stack many times over the course of the year. Those guys are now making much more, so they are betting much more. Now, there aren\'t too many of those guys, although they bet a lot of money. But  there are a lot of guys who were between break even and say 5% losers, who are now winning. Which means they have more money to bet, and reason to bet it-- over and over again, over the course of the year.

The NYRA reduction has been a success, despite playing against a stacked deck-- big players can get bigger rebates elsewhere.

[Mall]

Impeccable logic with which I agree, but that\'s not the reason for my post. I meant to mention that I had the same idea of shorting Autotote, thinking it might be an easy way to parlay my info re how badly it is run into a score. What I learned or was told/understood was that Scientific Games makes the lion\'s share of its profits from the lottery business(probably bad), that there is a small days to cover ratio(good), that the daily volume is low(bad), that a high percentage of ownership is in friendly hands(very bad), and that there were previous discussion re sale of the tote business with IBM(worst of all if SG decided to sell out even at fire sale prices). Based on my performance over the last yr or so, I\'m pretty sure you don\'t want to take any investment advice from me, but there seem to be a few posters who are knowledgeable on the subject, and you might want to consult with them before you do anything. What I think I learned overall was that it would be a very risky play even if the analysis of the co was right, and the stock in fact has not moved much since I looked into it.

[Catalin]

JB:

I don\'t disagree with your thinking at all.  The NYSRWB wouldn\'t listen to ANY of NYRA\'s arguments.  In fact if I recall, they dismissed it off hand with one of these \"nahh, we\'re not going to give out rebates.  Next item on the agenda.\"

My point was that there are probably other track operators in the same bind.

[derby1592]

At the risk of touching off yet another non-racing debate and recognizing that both TGJB and Catalin already understand this, I have to chime in and say that the NYRA logic is another example of the  misconception that tax cuts reduce revenue and favor the rich guy. In reality such cuts typically do neither. In fact, they are usually a win-win all around for all but a few with a vested interest in the status quo.

\"There are different kinds of leaders... Those interested in the flock and those interested in the fleece.\" R. Lewis Bowman

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Chris

[Alydar in California]

Chris wrote: \"In fact, [tax cuts] are usually a win-win all around for all but a few with a vested interest in the status quo.\"

    Happy Thanksgiving, Chris.