Posts Tagged ‘trpb’
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
By Ray Paulick
For the second time in five days, wagering on a horse race at an American racetrack was allowed to continue until after the contest had been run. The latest incident, which involved Wednesday night’s second race at Penn National in Pennsylvania, came on the heels of a tote system failure at Hollywood Park on Saturday.
The Penn National tote failure was similar to the Hollywood Park problem in that a stop-betting signal was not communicated when the race began. United Tote, which has the contract at the Penn National Gaming racetracks, experienced a system-wide failure, allowing on-track and simulcast wagers to continue during and after the running of the race. The Hollywood Park stop-betting signal from Scientific Games Racing tote equipment was not received by 33 simulcast sites.
John Pricci first wrote about the Penn National problem at Horse Race Insider.
United Tote personnel informed track officials about a communications router failure just as the second race was beginning, Chris McErlean, vice president of racing for Penn National, told the Paulick Report. “The stop betting command which is initiated here did not go out on track or anywhere in the network,” McErlean said. “The pools remained open and were opened well past the finish of the race.”
It was apparent wagers were made after the start of the race, but because United Tote cannot see details on every wager made, track officials were unable to segregate the late bets from those made before the race began, McErlean added. “We discussed with them the various scenarios and the best thing we could do was call the race a no-contest,” he said. “We took the position that the pools had been compromised, and based on the information we had at the time we took the most conservative path and made what we thought was the right decision.”
In Hollywood Park’s past-posting incident on Saturday, all wagers from the 33 sites where the stop-betting signal was not received were thrown out of the pari-mutuel pools and the money refunded to bettors who retained their tickets.
A total of $164,000 was wagered on the race, which McErlean said may have been a little higher than normal but not exceedingly so. All wagers were refunded, though horseplayers were kept in the dark for some time as to why the race was not declared official. Those who had losing bets may have discarded their tickets before the race was declared "no contest."
McErlean admitted that the decision was not communicated as well as it should have been across the wagering network. “I will say in terms of communication there was confusion,” he said. “The race was never made official. From a display point of view, the television monitors may have displayed official without tote prices. That was obviously not.”
The Pennsylania Horse Racing Commission and Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau were notified of the problems, McErlean said.
To his knowledge, this was the first time since McErlean joined Penn National Gaming in December 2006 that any of the company’s six tracks have experienced this type of problem. “It appears to be either networking or equipment failure involving a communications router ,” McErlean said. “The issue that has to be discussed and talked about is where is the potential safety valve if one system fails or one part fails. What is the backup or Plan B?”
Good question, and one racing regulators must demand from the tote companies that are jeopardizing the integrity of the wagering systems that are the foundation of this game.
Be sure to vote in today’s Daily Paulick Poll asking whether you have confidence in the security of the U.S. pari-mutuel wagering systems.
Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report
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Tags: chris mcerlean, Hollywood Park, Horse Racing, John Pricci, pari-mutuel wagering, past-post betting, Paulick Report, penn national, pennsylvania horse racing commission, Ray Paulick, scientific games racing, thoroughbred racing protective bureau, tote failures, trpb, united tote
Posted in Regulatory Issues, Tote System, Wagering | 24 Comments »
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
By Ray Paulick
Former jockey Ricardo A. Valdes, one of seven riders banned from Tampa Bay Downs in December 2006, was indicted Wednesday along with two Michigan businessmen on 19 federal counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery, and unlawful use of a facility in interstate commerce—all in connection with a series of alleged race fixing incidents at Tampa Bay Downs in Florida, Delaware Park in Delaware and Great Lakes Downs in Michigan, from December 2005-December 2006.
The other two men indicted, Ghazi Manni, 52, and Mitchell Edward Karam, 76, were named in a separate federal indictment involving a point-shaving scheme that also resulted in charges against six former University of Toledo basketball and football players.
Click here to read the race-fixing indictment.
Click here to read the point-shaving indictment.
The indictment, handed down by assistant U.S. Attorney David Morris in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan’s Southern Division, said Manni, Karam, Valdes and “others known and unknown to the grand jury, “devised and effectuated a scheme to defraud and for obtaining money by ‘fixing’ Thoroughbred horse racing contests.” The trio is charged with using insider information provided by jockeys to help make wagering selections and then “bribing jockeys participating in these contests to give less than their best effort to win and to handle their horses other than for the purpose of winning.”
The indictment states the 43-year-old Valdes “and other persons known and unknown” accepted money and other things of value to “use less than their best efforts to win a race.” Valdes is also charged with “attempting to recruit other Thoroughbred horse jockeys to join the conspiracy.”
If convicted, the three men face up to 25 years in prison and fines of as much as $500,000.
The indictment cites a series of phone calls and voice messages involving the three men, a pari-mutuel clerk at the Northville Downs harness track in Northville, Mich., and an employee of Huntington Bank in Hamtramck, Mich. Federal authorities apparently had wiretaps on the calls.
Listed are four specific races at Tampa Bay Downs in which Valdes rode in January and April 2006.
– In the 10th race on Jan. 10, 2006, Valdes finished sixth with Urilla, the 3-1 second choice in the wagering, Urilla trailed the field for the opening half mile before passing horses late, according to the Equibase chart.
– In the third race on Jan. 29, 2006, Valdes finished second on Cocoa Beach Rocket, the 4-1 third choice who led briefly in the stretch “but hung late,” according to the chart.
– In the eighth race on Jan. 31, 2006, Valdes finished sixth on Sharenski, the 5-1 third choice who trailed the field for the opening half mile.
– In the third race on April 15, 2006, Valdes ran last aboard Chalk Chalk, a 12-1 longshot who showed early speed on a turf route but bore out on the first turn and faded quickly.
The other jockeys banned by Tampa Bay Downs in December 2006 were Terry Houghton, Joseph Judice, Derek Bell, Jorge Bracho, Luis Castillo and Jose Delgado. Of that group, only Houghton and Bell rode in any of the races cited in the indictment. Bell finished seventh in the Jan. 29 race on Greatest Creation, who showed early speed at 8-1 odds. Houghton finished third Jan. 31 on Camilles Castle, a 6-1 shot who “chased the leaders but failed to respond in the drive,” according to the chart.
Bell told the Thoroughbred Times in January 2007 he was questioned by the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau about the Jan. 29, 2006, race in question but denied any wrongdoing.
None of the other jockeys banned by Tampa Bay was named in the indictment. The Tampa Bay ban on all seven jockeys still stands.
Peter Berube, the Tampa Bay Downs vice president and general manager, declined to comment on the indictment, which provided no specific details about alleged race fixing at Delaware Park or Great Lakes Downs.
Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report
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Tags: chalk chalk, cocoa beach rocket, derek bell, ghazi manni, Horse Racing, jorge bracho, jose delgado, joseph judice, luis castillo, mitchell edward karam, northville downs, Paulick Report, peter berube, point shaving, race fixing, Ray Paulick, ricardo a. valdes, sharenski, tampa bay downs, terry houghton, thoroughbred racing protective bureau, trpb, university of toledo, urilla
Posted in Jockeys | 19 Comments »
Monday, July 7th, 2008
The fourth race at Philadelphia Park June 28 was just a run-of-the-mill claiming contest until the Scientific Games totalizator system malfunctioned shortly after Magical American crossed the finish line as the winner. The top three finishers (4-2-3) were put on the board, but the problems with the tote delayed Philadelphia Park from making the race official and posting the payoffs. The fifth race at the Pennsylvania track was run without betting.
A little over a thousand miles away at Tampa Bay Downs on Florida’s Gulf Coast, some horseplayers became curious about what impact the tote failure had on the AmTote wagering machines there.
Lo and behold, they discovered wagers made on the winning horses in Philadelphia Park’s fourth race were still being accepted. The Paulick Report has learned that players started punching out win tickets, exactas and trifectas. The delay, from the time the Philadelphia Park race was run until someone in the Tampa Bay mutuels department realized there was a problem, was about 10 minutes, at which time betting was halted. It was nearly 15 minutes from the time the race was run until the Florida track received a stop betting order from Scientific Games (formerly Autotote).
In the meantime, a considerable amount of money was bet on what can only be described as a horseplayer’s dream: a “sure thing.” It was free money.
One player bet $1,000 on his own: $500 to win and a $500 exacta. He got a tidy return of $8,100 when the system was up and running later that afternoon. In all, Tampa Bay took in $2,000 in wagers on the race and paid out more than $13,000 to the lucky (if somewhat dishonest) fans.
The past-post wagers went into the betting pools at Philadelphia Park, shortening payoffs for those who picked the winning combinations honestly. Though the size of the pools for the race were not unusually large, it appears the winner’s odds were driven down by the past-post bets.
One bet that would not be affected was the daily double on races three and four, which paid $32.40 after a 7-10 odds-on favorite won the third race. (Bets on the daily double would have been made prior to the third race.) That payoff suggests Magical American should have gone off at odds of about 8-1. But when the payoffs were posted, Magical American paid only $9.20 on a $2 win bet.
“We are aware of the situation,” Curtis Linnell, director of wagering analysis for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, told the Paulick Report. “It looks like it may have been isolated to Tampa. It didn’t look like it was widespread.”
Linnell said he could not comment further because the circumstances are under review.
The stop betting signal is part of the standard protocol established for pari-mutuel wagering, according to Linnell. The signal goes from the host track to other hubs or tote systems handling wagers going into the host track pool. He said a “break” in the communications signals could prevent the stop betting signal from going out.
“That situation can happen, and in very isolated situations it has,” Linnell said.
Joe Wilson, the chief operating officer of Philadelphia Park, did not return phone calls to the Paulick Report seeking comment. A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission said the matter is being investigated.
This issue begs the question of who is minding the tote, a patchwork, less-than-state-of-the-art wagering network that handles the approximate $15-billion in bets each year and flows through racetracks, hubs, guest hubs, off-track betting sites, account wagering systems, and off-shore rebate shops?
State racing commissions look into these matters, but in this case the wagers were made across state lines. The TRPB has an investigative branch, but it is more concerned with tracking wagering patterns that could suggest race-fixing by racing participants. The National Thoroughbred Racing Association did have its focus on wagering integrity, particularly after the Breeders’ Cup Pick Six scandal of 2002. Plans were announced by the NTRA to staff an Office of Wagering Integrity, but those plans went by the wayside when the industry could not reach a consensus on what to do.
Alex Waldrop, the current head of the NTRA, said during a recent Congressional hearing that racing is not a rudderless ship. But there doesn’t appear to be anyone with his hands on the wheel of the most important boat in the racing industry’s fleet – the tote system.
By Ray Paulick
Copyright ©2008, The Paulick Report
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Tags: alex waldrop, amtote, curtis linnell, National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Paulick Report, pennsylvania horse racing commission, Philadelphia park, Ray Paulick, scientific games, tampa bay downs, thoroughbred racing protective bureau, totalizator, Tote System, trpb
Posted in Regulatory Issues, Tote System, Wagering | 8 Comments »
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