Computer-Robotic Wagering

[FrankD.]

Hi Mike,

I hope all is well in Miff land?

I\'ve had this conversation and opinion for a number of years: which has made me an 85% horizontal player. My only \"opinion\" on whether or not they reach into pick 3,4,5 and 6 pools is if they had a program that would fill in the blanks with something like a thoro pattern reaching out past the rolling doubles into logical numerical contenders? My personal feeling is that is far too random for the computer geeks!

The best example of pools being destroyed and I\'m sure our resident pool watcher Boscar will confirm are the exacta and tri pools at Gulf in the winter. The inner tube has become a joke for most, Cali doesn\'t start until later in the day, Fair Grounds short fields and turf course issues the last couple of winters along with Tampa simply being the land of Ness have made Gulf the winter track de jour and the exacta and tri payoffs the past couple of years are simply pathetic with the usual suspects! Toss in the move up colony and they have ruined what was once a very profitable venture for MOI causing me to significantly pull back on my wagering at my 2nd favorite venue.

Bot wagering, pool integrity and drugs are and have chased real handicappers who love the game, the intellectual challenge of trying to beat a mathematical anomaly away and offer little allure to the younger numbers savy gamblers!

Frank D.

[Boscar Obarra]

I\'m really not sure where to come down on this  issue.

  Payoffs have been crushed late in all the visible pools since long before CRW existed.  Attributing that phenom to computer access is mostly hype.

  Yes, they have an edge over anyone manually trying to make many different bets at the last minute. Same edge anyone using technology has over doing it the \'old fashioned way\'.

  But I\'m reasonably certain, that you would not be getting much better odds on most winners , even if you cut all the CRW\'s off tommorow.  Yes, maybe some exacta pays 300 instead of 270 once in a while if they miss betting something at the bell, but your garden variety winner, the money will get in no matter how they have to do it.

 As for integrity, I\'d hope they aren\'t letting  anyone bet after the bell, or cancel bets randomly, and frankly, I\'ve seen no evidence  of past posting at the tracks I look at.   Believe me, if I saw something suspicous, I\'d be the first to call attention to it.

[Fairmount1]

When I read the doom and gloom articles about CRW and average gamblers failing, my initial response is that they have an unfair advantage over me.  But then after I consider it every time, I come back to the fact they are merely trying to squeeze out a profit every time and over the long term.  In doing so, they make wagers knowing what the odds will calculate out to with their investment included.  They might be off a miniscule amount but with their ulitimately late action, they are usually pretty close on their calculations.  In any case, I look at computers a little bit like the knucklehead I see at the window betting 4 different horses to win.  It might be a profitable move but they aren\'t taking down the entire pool.

They are squeezing out 1 percent profit let\'s say, wagering as much as possible, and getting the rebate percentage to make huge profits.  That\'s what I\'m seeing.

As for beating the game being mathematically impossible, I\'d love to hear if Mike Maloney or our mjellish would agree with that sentiment.  It might extraordinarily difficult but it isn\'t impossible.

[Boscar Obarra]

Even with  a rebate, unless the win vs the exacta vs double pools are totally out of whack, there is no \'mathematical\' way to profit, not with a 15-20 takeout.

 There must be some \'handicapping\' involved.

 If anyone disagrees,  I\'d love to hear why.

[Fairmount1]

Sorry if my post came across to you that the computers are just calculating out a way to win without handicapping.  These decision models involve hundreds of handicapping factors as part of the algorithms as I\'m sure you know.  

My \"mathematically impossible\" comment was in connection with jbelfior\'s post (citing a comment from the original story).

[Boscar Obarra]

I addressed that claim only because I\'ve heard it many times before, not because of your post.

  Many naive players mistakenly believe that because \'they\' use computers and bet late, that they are somehow, magically , guaranteeing  a profit, at their expense.  At least that\'s what their postings seem to indicate.

[TempletonPeck]

Short answer: absolutely not.

TL;DR: no, because the CRW only makes a bet when it calculates an inefficiency in the tote odds. In other words, it calculates what the odds of each bet \"should\" be, given the other information available on the tote board. When it finds a bet that is overlaid, it bets. So, if there are nothing but CRW\'s in the pool, then they all sit there staring at each other and the 0\'s on the board. If there were some catalyst (i.e. if the pools were seeded with some money, or if possibly even a single bet were made), then they may go to war with each other, depending on those at the controls. But, without a match, no fire.

[metroj]

Seems if Gulfstream exotics are, more often than not, pathetic in the eye of the bettor they would be pathetic to the mathematics of the CRWs too.   It is value they are looking for after all.   Once fair value had been exhausted wouldn\'t the CRWs stop wagering and exotic payoffs look more in-line over the long run?

[TempletonPeck]

If either of you, or both of you, or anyone else thinks that the computer-derived advantage these CRW operations have is anything less than *massive* you are out of your mind.

One of the biggest unknowns in the horse betting game is the fact that the final odds are unknown. Do you not see that knowing the odds would be a massive advantage?

Consider this example: you regularly make bets with a bookie on NFL games. The rules are that every Friday night, you call him and he gives you the lines, and you give him your bets. But, your bets aren\'t locked in at the Friday night line. Your bets are settled according to the kickoff-time line! Now imagine that he has another player, who bets 1000x as much as you. He lets that player bet Sunday morning, right up until the time the kicker raises his hand to signal he\'s about to kick off (and once in awhile the guy even sneaks one past the bookie, and gets to bet after he sees whether the kickoff results in a touchback). Do you think that other player has an advantage over you? Do you think you\'d continue betting with that bookie?

Furthermore, to address the idea that the rebate isn\'t that significant. Consider that in every gambling game in every casino, the rake/vig/hold/edge/call-it-what-you-want is typically between .5-10%. Every bookie in the world makes himself rich at -110. Every blackjack game sits somewhere between .5% and 5%, dice games between .5% and 10% depending on a player\'s bets, slot machines 1-10%, video poker 0ish-10ish% the list goes on. So don\'t think that \"it\'s only 1-2-x%\" means that it isn\'t meaningful! Steve Wynn, Sheldon Adelson, etc., have built empires on those 1-2-3% edges. On the other side of the coin, a handful of sports bettors, blackjack players, and video poker sharps have made themselves a handsome sum getting that 1-2-3% onto their side of the table!

Now consider that because of the pari-mutuel system, the CRW\'s are the ones you are playing against. Effectively, the CRW\'s are the house! What\'s worse, YOU are paying the racetrack/ADW so that they can in turn give the CRW\'s a rebate! The CRW is an additional drag/rake on the pools. Remember, you are paying 15-25% to bet on horse races, or between 2 and 50x the amount people are paying in Vegas-type games! How much easier would it be with 2-3-4-X% added back into the pools that is presently effectively being taken out by the CRW\'s, AND without them crippling the odds on advantage bets that you might otherwise have profited from?

[TempletonPeck]

2 points here:

1) CRW\'s are very likely the ones crippling the payoffs

2) they\'re getting X% rebate, so they are making money breaking even, or even losing. In other words, they aren\'t concerned with making the best possible bets, they\'re concerned with making the most money. For them, it\'s entirely possible that means betting more and more money until the bet is unprofitable.

This is something that I think the once-a-month gambler/player doesn\'t realize: these guys aren\'t betting a couple twenty\'s, or even a couple grand - they\'re betting literally as much as the pools will hold, every day, on every race they can find at any track where the pools are big enough. They are doing calculations like this: is it better to bet $100mm/year and lose 0.5% or bet $120mm/year and lose 0.6%?

[RICH]

your post leads me to believe that fixed odds on horseracing would be a pretty good place to start, why can\'t we get the posted odds when we make a bet?

[JimP]

Well said. And this is why I stopped playing long ago. I still enjoy following the sport. But when it became impossible to even approximate the final odds, the betting aspect of the game became too frustrating. I found myself sitting on too many bets that I never would have played at the odds.

[BitPlayer]

One of the things I have learned reading from this board (more specifically Mathcapper) is how useful daily double will-pays can be in estimating what the final odds will be.  When betting a track that offers rolling doubles, the first thing I do when betting opens on a race is use the DD will-pays (or if the winner of the first leg was a longshot, then the probables from the favorite in the first leg) to estimate the win odds.  It doesn\'t make me a winner (I consider a break-even year to be a success), but it reduces the frustration of watching the odds plummet after my money is down.

[TempletonPeck]

Because of the pari-mutuel system of wagering, racetracks can\'t give you fixed odds on horses because they may not have enough to pay off all the bets that get made. That\'s why the odds rise and fall as others make their bets.

If you want fixed odds, you need bookies. Go to a track in England or Ireland, and you will have your choice of at least 4 or 5 bookies, even at the tiny tracks.

At those tracks there is a relatively small amount of pari-mutuel wagering, most money is bet with the bookies.

[miff]

When and if Exchange Wagering is permitted, there will be options allowing players to lock in a wager or prop at a fixed price.