Rainy afternoon on Cape Cod and I had a few minutes to kill, so flipped the channel to TVG for a quick flutter. I selected the filly Just Like Magic, approaching the gate at 7-5 as the recipient of a $10 win wager in the 3rd race Oaklawn (3/28).

She charged up the rail and won. Final odds were 3-5. WTF. Sorry for the crudeness.

Racing will never engage the next generation of punters with 15-27% takeout and NO fixed odds, when they can bet on sports with a 4% vig and wagers that are fixed.

In the UK, an extremely sophisticated betting market, exchange wagering in its 20-year history now handles 85% of wagers, plus or minus.

Further exacerbating the industry's vulnerability is the contents of this article. My takeaway from this article is that Stronach and his friends:

• Own racetracks
• Own offshore betting hubs for friends
• From these hubs, friends receive substantial discounts to wager into onshore pools
• And we can assume the friends are getting late, direct access to track pools… and perhaps entering the pool after the start

Now the late betting is speculation on my part. It feels like it happens. And from the first four bullets, it seems suspiciously like that might be happening.

This insider activity stinks to high heaven, not just regular heaven.

This beautiful sport is bucking these horrific headwinds of scandal and a less-than-competitive product. Yet racing will always have tremendous potential.

But what is the point of one laboring all night on PPs to arrive at a horse that one feels should be 6-5 or 7-5, only to see that selection drop to 3-5 at the quarter pole?

My introduction to racing was with Win Elliot, the Schaefer Circle of Sports, and Fred Capossella. Old timers can place an era on those names. My first Racing Form cost me 50 cents; what are they now, $10? I can make an informed wager on the Red Sox without that surcharge.

Sadly I am not sure that I'm going to ever see the industry make any real progress making horse racing as competitive and accessible as other wagering products.

Thanks for reading.

The post Letter to the Editor: CAW ‘Activity Stinks to High Heaven’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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But for every good story there seemed to be 10 bad ones.

With the animal rights community and some portions of the media putting unrelenting pressure on the sport, there's never a good time to go through a rash of breakdowns, but for it to happen surrounding the running of the GI Kentucky Derby was bad timing at its worst. There were 12 deaths at Churchill Downs crammed into just a few weeks and it got so bad that racetrack management decided to pull the plug on the remainder of the meet and move everything to Ellis Park.

Then Saratoga happened. When New York Thunder (Nyquist) broke down strides before the wire in the GI H. Allen Jerkens Memorial S. the number of horse fatalities at the meet had soared to 12. It was a horrible sight to behold for a national television audience and the 48,292 in attendance. And it was a ghastly reminder of what happened three weeks earlier to Maple Leaf Mel (Cross Traffic) in the GI Test S. She, too, broke down right before the wire in a spill that was as ugly as it gets.

The Breeders' Cup was not immune to tragedy. Though no one was seriously injured on the day of the races, Geaux Rocket Ride (Candy Ride {Arg}) and broke down and had to be euthanized and Practical Move (Practical Joke) suffered an apparent heart attack and died, both while training for the GI Breeders' Cup Classic.

The fatalities obviously caught the attention of 60 Minutes, which, in November, aired a story that focused on the breakdowns and the sport's doping problems while casting a brutally negative light on the sport. Then we learned that we will get more of the same sometime in 2024. In December, FX, a subsidiary of Disney Entertainment, announced that there would be an upcoming documentary, “The New York Times Presents: Broken Horses,” which it said would examine “systemic issues, questionable practices and urgent calls for change that have shaken horse racing to its core.”

When it comes to the economics of the sport, there was more troubling news. Through November, handle was down nearly $500 million on the year or 4.39%. That means we are on our way to seeing the steepest declines in handle, outside of the COVID year of 2020, since 2011. Does that have anything to do with the computer-assisted wagering (CAW) players? Probably. They have tilted the pari-mutuel pools to a point where the regular horseplayer is getting killed and getting out.

In July, 1/ST Racing announced that Golden Gate Fields would be shutting down for good at the end of the year, throwing the Northern California circuit into chaos. The track got a reprieve, but a brief one. It is now scheduled to cease operations on June 11. That's when it will join Arlington Park, Calder, Hollywood Park, Bay Meadows and others that couldn't make it to the finish line. Some wonder whether Santa Anita, which sits on property that is estimated to be worth $1 billion, will someday join them.

Racing can't afford to have another year like this. Things need to change. While there are no magic bullets, here are what I believe are some practical and common sense solutions to some of the problems.

The sport needs to fully embrace StrideSAFE. StrideSAFE is a biometric sensor mechanism that slips into the saddle cloth to detect minute changes in a horses' gait at high speed. Those changes can, and often do, signal that a horse is in the early stages of having a problem that could lead to a fatal injury. The technology has been around since 2011 and, while it has been experimented with here and there, it remains largely absent from the backstretch of America's racetracks. Why? There's no doubt that widespread employment of StrideSAFE will cut down on the number of horses that break down and there's no excuse for the sport to continue to drag its feet when it comes to embracing the concept.

The CAW factor is a major issue that's not going to go away, no matter what harm it might be doing to the overall health of the sport. It has become an unmanageable runaway train, with these players betting so much money that no track is going to turn away their business. But some guardrails would help. More tracks need to do what NYRA has done. They have effectively closed the CAW players out of the win pool by no longer allowing them to place bets at the very last second. They have also been excluded from NYRA's Late Pick 5 and the Cross Country Pick 5.

The betting product also needs to be better and more geared toward the booming market that is made up of sports bettors. The sport has not been nearly aggressive enough when it comes to getting the on-line sports betting websites to start accepting bets on racing. To date, the only one that has been signed up is FanDuel. That also means adopting fixed-odds wagers, which are what the sports bettors know. Only Monmouth Park has gone down this road and two years after it was implemented in New Jersey the concept is limping along. No other tracks or states have tried fixed-odds betting and, in New Jersey, only the second-level tracks are available to the fixed odds bettors.

The takeout remains too high. With betting on a horse race often involving a rake of around 20%, the game is always going to have a tough time competing with other forms of gambling, where the effective takeout rate is lower. We're seeing some progress in this area, with a number of tracks lowering the takeout on horizontal wagers like the Pick Four and Pick Five. In 2023, Hawthorne took a major step in the right direction by lowering its takeout on win, place and show wagers to 12%. But we need a lot more of the same. With so much of purse money now coming from alternative sources like slot machines, there's no reason why tracks in places like New York and Kentucky can't at least experiment with reduced takeout rates.

Fix the Triple Crown. It needs it. The GI Preakness S. is no longer coveted by the sport's major trainers and has become a weak link in the Triple Crown. Everyone wants to run in the Derby and then they scramble, some pointing for the GI Belmont S., some ready to put their horses on the shelf until the big summer races. The 2022 Derby winner, Rich Strike (Keen Ice) passed on the Preakness and, this year, Derby winner Mage (Good Magic) was the only horse to go in the first two legs of the Triple Crown. The result is that the Preakness is less important than it has ever been and that only weakens the Triple Crown as a whole. When 1/ST floated the idea of running the Preakness four weeks after the Derby, NYRA reacted by announcing that it had no intention of moving the date of the Belmont. Yes, a Belmont run five weeks after the Derby works well for NYRA, but it needs to put its self interests aside and do what's best for the sport and shift the Belmont to late June or early July.

While we're at it, the purses for the Triple Crown races are too small. In this day and age, the $1.5-million purse for the Preakness is not going to motivate anyone to run. These are supposed to be the most important races in the sport and their purses should reflect as much. For all three races, the purses should be raised immediately to $3 million with the goal of eventually making them $5-million races.

These are things that can be done. Let's not let another year go by in which the sport embraces the status quo while the outlook for its future continues to get worse. The year 2024 is upon us, let it be the year where the sport takes much needed steps in the right direction.

The post The Week in Review: In 2024, the Sport Needs to Do Better appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Panels at the 2023 Symposium will include:

• Computer Assisted Wagering–The Good, The Bad, and The Future
• Out of the Shadows–Shining a Spotlight on Mental Health and Emotional Wellness
• The Path Forward–Race Track Safety and the Anti-Doping & Medication Control Program
• Strengthening Your Simulcast Content–Maximizing Handle in Diverse International Betting Markets
• From Data to Dollars–Understanding Horse Racing's Economic Impact as Racing's Future is Questioned
• Land for Sale. How Will Race Track Closures Impact the Industry's Long-Term Sustainability?

One of the highlights of the Symposium will be the “Legends of the Game–Racing's Iconic Turf Writers” featuring esteemed journalists Steve Crist, Andy Beyer and Jay Privman.

Pre-conference sessions will set the stage for the Syposium's opening evening reception on Dec. 4 and will include:

• HISA Workshop for State Regulators and Stewards
• 3rd Annual Racing Secretaries Summit
• Track Surface Regulatory Requirements
• NTRA Handicapping Contest Workshop

Prospective attendees are encouraged to register by Nov. 17 to take advantage of a $100 discount and Ventana Canyon is offering reduced room rates of $189 for attendees. Registration for the Symposium and hotel reservations can be completed at RacingSymposium.com, where a list of the speakers may also be found.

The post 60 Speakers Announced For Global Symposium on Racing appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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But the game he was playing in 2013 is nothing like the game being played today. That, he says, is because of the proliferation of the Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) players. He's found that he can't compete against them, their algorithms, their ability to bet huge amounts at the very last second and their huge rebates.

In a Tweet posted Sunday, Sumja announced that he was walking away. “They (CAW players) have infiltrated every last pool and after 40+ years I am done feeling and being duped by sketchy practices,” he wrote. “Going to concentrate on other sports I am excited about. They ruined horse racing.”

Ironically, the decision came after he made a winning bet on the 20-cent jackpot Pick Six at Del Mar. The winners paid $5.40, $14, $5.20, $56.80, $6.60 and $4.40 and the bet paid $3,216. Sumja is convinced it should have paid more and that the reason it didn't is because the CAW players swooped in and took home most of the pool.

“It's been a culmination of years of just feeling like something is going on that makes me feel that I am not playing on a level field because of the computer players,” he said. “I don't understand technology, so I don't know how they are doing it. But I do know that when you see late odds changes and they are correct way too often in terms of them winning it seems not possible. It gives me a feeling that I am playing in a game that is stacked against me. You know the old adage, when you feel like you are the sucker at the table it's time to get up. I have read what Jerry Brown wrote in the Thoroughbred Daily News and have followed all the numbers Pat Cummings has been coming up with. It's made me realize I have no edge anymore. If I can't beat the computer players why should I play?”

Sumja said he had been wagering about $500,000 a year and worked with two other horseplayers, one betting $2 million a year, the other $1 million. Both partners have also quit wagering on racing. Sumja's wagering dollars are now devoted to sports betting.

“We're all out, but I don't think the tracks care,” he said.

As is the case with many horseplayers, Sumja got tired of watching the horse he wagered on at 4-1 30 seconds before the race break on top and go down to 8-5. Even when those horses won, it left a bad taste in his mouth and he can't understand why the horses whose odds take a late plunge seem to win far more than their fair share. He is not willing to concede that maybe that's because the CAW players' algorithms are so good that they usually come up with the winner.

“I'm not going with the company line that they are just great handicappers. I don't buy it,” he said.

Sumja wants the tracks to close the pools well before the race starts.

“They have to close the pools off significantly ahead of the first horses going into the gate,” he said. “That would take away the feeling that something isn't quite right. You bet on sports and you take a team at +$350, the game ends and you win you get paid +$350. If you take a team getting four points and if they cover the spread you win. What horse racing is doing would be like them telling you with a football bet we'll let you know what the spread is after the game has started. You might have plus three or plus six. We'll let you know during or after the game. Why would you play that? You wouldn't. Shut the pools down three minutes to post. Shut everything down. Let every player see what odds they are really getting.”

Sumja understands why the tracks willingly accept wagers from CAW players. By some estimates they now account for one-third of all the dollars wagered on U.S. racing or about $4 billion annually. The tracks have made a business decision that it's in their best interests to take their bets. Sumja counters, saying that a lot of players are now doing the same, making a business decision that because of the CAW players it is not in their best interests to continue betting on the sport.

“If that's what racetracks want, to cater to CAW players, that's fine,” he said. “But you have a choice not to play nowadays. There are so many other types of wagering available. I've been making my own football line since I was 15. I love betting on sports. And when I make a sports bet that is paying 7-2 I get 7-2 if it wins and not 6-5. It's a refreshing feeling.

“In his article, Jerry Brown wrote about the myth that horse racing won't make it without the money being bet by CAWS. Horse racing made it for 100 years before anyone ever heard of CAW. I understand games change. If racetracks feel this is what they need to do to maintain their business that's what they're going to do. It also comes to a point where you make your own decisions and when you realize you're in a bad spot you've got to stop playing. That's my position. I'm not playing anymore. Neither are my friends.”

Sumja said that after he posted his tweet he heard from dozens of people who said they also have quit betting on racing and that they were happy that he spoke out. The horse racing industry used to get $500,000 a year in handle from Brent Sumja. Now it gets none. How much longer can this keep happening and how many more Brent Sumjas can it afford to lose before real and lasting harm is done to the sport? These are real problems and so far the sport hasn't been able to offer any serious solutions.

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1-First, the basics. Betting handle is the lifeblood of our industry. It directly funds purses, creates all the jobs in our business, and indirectly funds the commercial bloodstock industry—no (or less) purse money to run for, and eventually yearlings will have the market value of show horses, and stud fees will follow them down.

2–The parimutuel pools are a market; horseplayers compete against each other, not the house. CAW is not just someone using a computer to handicap. Yes, there is a handicapping element, and if someone creates a good handicapping model, good for them. But the important part is this—CAW “players” are being given a massive advantage over regular horseplayers. They get electronic access and a last split-second look at the pools, which gives their computers the ability to assess the situation in a microsecond, and automatically make hundreds of targeted and incremental bets, totaling tens of thousands of dollars per “player,” right at the bell. No human can do that, or compete with it.

3–Because CAW is responsible for so much handle, and because many of the CAW “players” have banded together to negotiate, they receive gigantic rebates. So in effect, they are playing into a much lower takeout than the general public, and that, combined with the advantage they have been given, enables them to basically vacuum the pools. And since it's a market, if they're siphoning off money, someone else is losing it. More on that in a moment.

4–In our industry, we publish handle figures, not profit and loss. But remember: CAW “players” get gigantic rebates. That means the industry gets to keep much less of every dollar they bet—roughly speaking, it takes $3 of CAW handle to equal $1 bet in the backyard at Saratoga. So if overall handle stays the same, but CAW handle is replacing non-CAW handle, for purses, and for everyone else in the industry, it's like handle going down. And CAW is now responsible for about one-third of national handle.

5–The overall retail blended takeout on racing is normally about 20%. But with the CAW “players” making money as a group, it means the horseplayers who make up the other two-thirds of the pools are in effect paying the entire takeout. So for them, the takeout is up to roughly an onerous 30%. Now, horseplayers are not like the people who buy expensive yearlings. They generally work for a living, and as a group have a finite amount they can lose over the course of a year, or lifetime. So as the takeout has gone dramatically up, one of three things has to happen:

A) Horseplayers bet the same amount, and tap out faster. That reduces churn on handle, and handle overall goes down.

B) Horseplayers reduce what they bet as they lose more, to make their money last longer. Handle goes down.

C) Horseplayers stop betting or switch to legal sports betting, which has a takeout of between 5-10% (and no learning curve, since most of us grew up with these games, and there are no odds changes after you bet). Handle goes WAY down.

In other words, CAW isn't just disguising the drop in non-CAW handle, it is CAUSING it.

I know many serious, lifelong horseplayers who now only play on big days, or who have quit the game entirely.

6–So here it is; figures courtesy of Pat Cummings:

As CAW handle has gone from about eight percent of the pools to about a third over the last 20 years, non-CAW handle has nosedived. To give you an idea of how short a time period we're talking about, Smarty Jones won the Derby in 2004.

ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION, ORDINARY (NON-CAW) HANDLE IS ABOUT ONE-THIRD OF WHAT IT WAS JUST 20 YEARS AGO.

Do I have your attention now?

Almost all of that drop came before the advent of legal sports betting. And remember, the non-CAW handle is the oxygen-rich blood that nourishes everything. CAW is not just taking money out of the pockets of ordinary horseplayers; it's killing horsemen and the industry as a whole.

This is an existential crisis, without exaggeration. Since only handle figures are published, the picture has been obscured to the public, but we are not talking about a long horizon–I think major cracks will start becoming visible within the next year or so, because the downward spiral is accelerating rapidly now that there's sports betting. And as ordinary handle goes down, CAW will as well–the robots adjust their bet size to the size of the pools, so that they aren't killing their own prices. These guys aren't in our game for fun, like horseplayers are, they're here to suck money out of the pools. And when they no longer can, they will leave.

7-So, what can be done? Finally, some good news: because the industry makes so little from a dollar of CAW, eliminating a portion of their handle will not have anywhere near the same effect as eliminating the same amount of ordinary handle.

The first thing that has to happen is that the unfair advantage has to be taken away from the CAW players. Their special access to the pools has to be shut off with three minutes to post, like NYRA did with their win pool. But it can't be just cosmetic. It has to happen in all pools.

The second thing is to reduce their rebates. If you make twice as much from each dollar bet, even if CAW handle is cut in half, it's a wash. And if those two actions erode their edge to the point where they bet much less, good; that's the idea. We need to knock that third of the pools figure down by quite a bit, to salvage what's left of the non-CAW handle, and hopefully create more.

I'm using “salvage” advisedly, because we are hemorrhaging customers, and once they are gone, it is hard to get them back. Since I wrote the first draft of this letter one of those cracks has appeared. Golden Gate is closing, in an attempt to triage California racing. We need to stop the bleeding. And we need to do it right now.

Jerry Brown is the president of Thoro-Graph, Inc. 

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“I've spent over 40 years of in and out of government, thinking about and writing about the gaming and horse racing industry,” said Brown, a former advisor to New York's Governor Mario Cuomo and an attorney that lives just south of Albany. “I want everyone to come away from this conference having learned something interesting, but most of all, I want them to have fun.”

As the director of the what will be the third installment of this hybrid conference that will be held at the Hilton in Saratoga Springs, New York from Aug. 14-16, Brown and his planning committee have put forth yet another stellar card. Once again, those in attendance will take in cutting-edge topics under the umbrella of racing and gaming with an ambitious schedule just out this week.

This year's slate runs the gambit when it comes to angles and there is something for everyone that is interested in the intersection between these two worlds. “We've got something for lawyers, thorny issues, where the little guy fits in and how technology shapes and impacts the racetrack and the casino,” said Brown.

After an opening reception at the Adelphi Hotel on Monday, Aug. 14, the conference shifts into high gear Tuesday with experts that will speak on the following topics:

• New York Casino Expansion to New York City and Surrounding Counties: Is the Finish Line in Sight?
• Consolidation of Gaming: Status and Implications
• Tribal Digital Gaming: Has the Moment Finally Arrived?
• Technology and Gaming: New Challenges, New Solutions
• The Implications of Exclusion for Racetracks and Casinos
• Consumer Protections and the Federalization of Gaming

Pat Brown | courtesy of Brown and Weintraub

“We want this conference to not be so New York-centric,” said Brown. “The way you do that is by thinking broadly and topics like tribal gaming, regulatory issues and legal questions like exclusion, are all applicable across state lines.”

Sandwiched within day one is a lunch lineup which includes an address by Stacie Clark Rogers of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance and a keynote delivered by Joe Asher, President of IGT Sports Betting. “Joe's is coming to keep us energized, entertained because I think lunch needs to give everyone a break from the conference,” Brown said.

On day two, the conference concludes with four sessions that deal with aspects of racing and wagering, including:

• Harness Racing: An Industry in Decline–or in Transformation?
• Historical Horse Racing Machines: The Tail Wagging the Horse?
• HISA–Legal Limbo and Regulatory Reluctance
• Racing's Changing Customer Base, CRWs and the Future of Betting

Each of these hot-button issues draw from an arc of past precedent and are extremely significant to the future of the horse racing industry. “Not everything is about Thoroughbreds,” said Brown, who has also owned shares in racehorses. “We want to expand the vision to harness racing because it has much to teach us about statutory issues concerning aspects like the minimum number of race days.”

Brown knows that a panel concerning HISA is important, but he wanted to find a way to zero in on something specific. How state regulators are handling the current situation seemed appropriate. He also understands that conference attendees will be particularly keen to hear about the impact of Historical Horse Racing Machines and the power behind Computerized Robotic Wagering groups. “I have no doubt that those sessions will generate some interesting questions and debate, especially when everyone is talking about the impact on track handle,” said Brown.

Wrapping up the conference, some 50 attendees who purchase tickets will have the opportunity to take in the Saratoga meet along The Spa Veranda. Pat Brown's idea of fun, indeed.

Click here for more information concerning registration and hotel information for The Racing & Gaming Conference at Saratoga.

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“The Thoroughbred Idea Foundation's analysis of data from Del Mar between 2018 and 2022 showed on an inflation-adjusted basis, per-race (or per-opportunity basis for certain bet types) CAW betting, from what is believed to be 17 accounts, has grown tremendously in the last five years-up 46% in the superfecta pool, 49% in trifectas, 78% in pick fives, 128% in the show pool and a staggering 403% in the pick six pool,” reads the report, concluding, “The trend for all other customers is disturbing.”

This trend is problematic; the report concludes that major problems is that the increases in CAW betting, due to rebates, does not make up for the handle decline from other sources. That has a deleterious effect on purses, whose soul source of funding in California is through wagering.

The report, “Sharks & Minnows–Managing the Growing Imbalance in Racing Wagering Markets,” is available on the TIF website, racingthinktank.com.

CAW bettors receive rebates on the takeout because of the large volumes they bet, but they quote Del Mar president Josh Rubenstein as saying that those rebates will be limited at the Del Mar summer meet–at least in the win pool.

“We get that late odds fluctuation is frustrating to players,” Rubinstein said, referring to the fact that CAW players place their bets based on their perceived value in the odds close to post time, which creates major odds shifts–often after the horses have left the gate.

“Beginning with our upcoming summer meet, [we] will be implementing new protocols for CAW players that are designed to limit participation in the win pools at two minutes to post. Based on what we've monitored and analyzed from other tracks, we believe these protocols will reduce late odds changes.” TIF reported that the largest rebates will be given to bets made with more than three minutes to post, a smaller amount at two minutes, and the smallest rebate at under two minutes. Non-rebated customers pay 15.43%, the report says.

“Limiting CAW guardrails to merely a rebate change in the win pool, while potentially helpful in reducing some late odds changes, amounts to little more than window dressing for mainstream customers,” TIF concludes. “CAW betting in Del Mar's exotic pari-mutuel pools, particularly the trifecta, superfecta, pick three, four, five and six pools has been substantial. Play from Elite (Turf Club, a top CAW) and RGS (Racing and Gaming Services, another) customers exceeded 32% of total handle in each of those bet types last year and was 38% of pick five handle.

“CHRB data does not delineate how much is staked on the early pick five, with its friendly 14% takeout to mainstream bettors, and how much is on the high takeout late pick five, with a 23.68% takeout rate. It is reasonable to expect the percentage of CAW play reflects their enormous pricing advantage over the public on the late pick five. Total handle figures do not tell the most accurate story. In nearly every pool offered by Del Mar, all non-Elite and RGS handle is declining.”

To read the full report, click here.

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It's not often in this sport that John Q. Horseplayer gets a break, but that's exactly what happened last week when it was revealed that NYRA was no longer accepting bets from the so-called computer-assisted wagering (CAW) players on its Empire Six wager. The Empire Six wager joined the Cross Country Pick 5 and the late Pick 5 as NYRA wagers that are no longer available to the CAW players.

The computer players use algorithms that predict the probability of a particular outcome. If their programs tell them that a horse has a 50-50 chance of winning and is 3-1 they will bet accordingly. They use the same methods for most pools and bet huge amounts of money. Because they receive rebates in the neighborhood of 10%, they don't even have to show a profit on their bets, just as long as their rebates are bigger than their losses.

The number of bettors out there using these methods is minimal, no more than six or seven groups. But they bet so much money that they can severely tilt the pools and drive down prices by significant numbers. The Thoroughbred Idea Foundation estimates that CAW play accounts for as much as 35% of all monies wagered on U.S. racing. That would mean their annual handle is about $3.5 billion.

Not that they are doing anything wrong or breaking any rules. These are very smart and innovative people who are willing to risk huge sums of money and have designed computer programs that put them several steps ahead of the average player. A case can be made that they deserve every last nickel they have made betting on racing, not just in the U.S. but around the globe.

CAW players are, for obvious reasons, coveted by most American tracks. Tracks make money off of their percentage of the betting handle. Taking a micro view of how the business of racing works, why would any track turn away customers that might be betting tens of millions of dollars every year on their product?

If only it were that simple.

This is pari-mutuel wagering, gambling's version of survival of the fittest. The successful bettors are taking advantage of the unsuccessful ones. It's their money that they are winning, not the house's money. With the CAW phenomenon, which appears to be growing all the time, betting on the horses has turned into a matter of the whales vs. minnows. The whales have been gobbling up the minnows and after a while all the minnows will be gone.

It's already happening. The CAW players are pumping billions into the pools across the country, which is a fairly recent phenomenon, yet handle has been stagnant over recent years when it comes to real numbers and has declined sharply when adjusting for inflation. That can only mean that a lot of those who might bet $20 on a race, $200 on a card and play the races once or twice a week have been driven out of the game. Horseplayers only have so much money to spend on the sport and once you tap them out they are going to move on.

The regular players are getting particularly hurt in the jackpot wagers. The pools build up on their losing dollars and are too often scooped up by the CAW players, sometimes on a mandatory payout date.

NYRA took a look at this and, obviously, had some concerns.

“We are trying to level the playing field with these particular multi-race wagers so it's not tilted towards those folks with distinct advantages, meaning complicated algorithmic trading tools and an extremely high volume,” NYRA spokesman Pat McKenna told Steve Byk on his “At the Races” radio show.

McKenna noted that NYRA can operate differently from other tracks because it is a not-for-profit and doesn't always have to adhere to the bottom line. It would be far more difficult for a Churchill Downs track or a Stronach Group track to turn away the CAW money. But even NYRA hasn't gone so far as to ban the CAW players all together. They are still welcome in all other pools and they are the reason why so many horses go into the gate at 4-1 and drop to 8-5 during the running of the race, which is a terrible look for the sport. CAW wagers go directly into the pools and can be played at the very last second.

The status quo is not sustainable. Every day that this persists, another casual horseplayer gives up on the game. Racing cannot do without these everyday players. After a while, you're going to have nothing left but whales vs. whales.

But good luck trying to get a for-profit track to turn away bettors willing to wager millions on their product. Probably the best anyone can hope for would be for NYRA to extend the exclusion into other pools and for other non-profit tracks like Del Mar and Keeneland to also experiment by barring CAW players from some pools.

This is a serious problem for the sport and it's not going away. At least NYRA is trying to make a bad situation better.

Dream Shake Impresses

There were expectations that a star would emerge from Sunday's fifth race at Santa Anita, a maiden special weight going 6 1/2 furlongs. It happened, but just not with the horse everyone was expecting to win.

Sent off at 20-1, 'TDN Rising Star' Dream Shake (Twirling Candy) turned in what might have been the most impressive 3-year-old debut so far this year. Trained by Peter Eurton and ridden by Joel Rosario, he kicked into high gear in the stretch and won going away, by 4 3/4 lengths.

Eurton admitted that he never envisioned such a performance.

“He went way beyond my expectations,” he said. “I had never really challenged him whatsoever. He was an unknown. For him to have closed and ran fourth with a nice finish and a nice gallop-out would have been satisfying, especially against the field of horse we were facing. There were a lot of horses in there that people thought highly of.”

All indications are that the horse will be even better when stretching out.

“He acts like, to me, a two-turn horse,” Eurton said. “He's not ultra quick but neither is he slow. Once he gets going, he covers quite a bit of ground. Going two turns is, hopefully, in the cards for his next race.”

Eurton said he has not picked out the next start for Dream Shake but said a stakes race is a possibility.

The same race included a rare bad showing from the Bob Baffert barn. He entered two highly regarded first time starters in Bezos (Empire Maker), the 3-5 favorite, and Tivoli Twirl (Twirling Candy) only to have them both get beaten by 15-plus lengths. That was bad news for the people who foolishly bet on Bezos in the Derby Future wager before he had even had a start, sending him off at 26-1. The Baffert horses deserve a second shot, but it seems highly unlikely now that either one will make the GI Kentucky Derby.

The Katie Davis Saga

Earlier this week, we wrote about Katie Davis's unhappiness over the New York Gaming Commission's coupled entries rule.

The real point of the story is that she is being penalized by what is quite possibly the silliest, most out-of-touch rule on the books over at the Gaming Commission. There's no valid reason why her mounts must run as an entry with husband Trevor McCarthy's mounts when the two are in the same race. Protecting the betting public is one thing, but it's completely unnecessary in this situation.

This is hurting Davis. It is hurting McCarthy. And it's cutting into NYRA's handle. It's well past the point where the Gaming Commission should have revisited the rule and taken it off the books.

The post NYRA Looks Out for Its Customer; Good for Them appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The Empire Six joins NYRA's Late Pick 5 and the Cross Country Pick 5 as pools that are now closed to a group of bettors who use computer algorithms to place their wagers and are known for betting huge amounts, particularly when there is a large carryover in a pool or a mandatory payout day.

This was the second step in a process that began Jan. 1 when NYRA eliminated the jackpot portion of the Pick Six wager. No matter how many winning tickets are sold on the bet, which costs 20 cents, the entire pool is now paid out every racing day.

With its new policies, NYRA is attempting to deal with what is becoming a growing problem for the sport in general. It is hard for tracks to turn down the business from CAW players because of the substantial contributions they make to handle.  However, the computer players are generally so successful that their winning wagers cut substantially into payoffs, penalizing players who don't enjoy the same advantages. Over time, catering to CAW players runs the risk of emptying the pockets of a track's regular players.

The computer players have also been known to scoop up entire pools of wagers like jackpot Pick Sixes on the mandatory payout day. On Nov. 30, the Empire Six at Aqueduct paid $482,817. There was only one winning ticket on the bet and it was sold by the Elite Turf Club, which caters to large volume, computer players.

“What we have seen with the Empire Six is that the jackpot pool is built and supported largely by the everyday horseplayers,” NYRA spokesperson Pat McKenna said. “When it comes to mandatory payout days, there tends to be an unequal playing field.”

McKenna said that the move to keep the large players out of the Empire Six came after NYRA began analyzing its wagering menu and what impact the CAW players were having on ordinary customers.

He also acknowledged that NYRA can more easily turn away handle from the computer bettors than most tracks because it is a non-profit. He said it was “likely” that handle would decline because of the steps NYRA has taken.

“The fact that NYRA is organized as a not-for-profit with the clear goal of supporting thoroughbred racing in New York state puts us in an advantageous position in that this is not strictly about the bottom line,” McKenna said. “It is about supporting our everyday horseplayers who are consistently wagering day in and day out.”

On Thursday, $53,362 was bet on the Empire Six, a bit more than what was bet the prior Thursday when $51,598 was wagered.

NYRA still accepts wagers from CAW players in all pools excepting the Empire Six, the late Pick 5 and the Cross Country Pick 5. Like most tracks, it is not unusual to see a horse at Aqueduct go into the gate at one price and then have the odds on it drop precipitously during a race. In such cases, it is normally the result of CAW players making large, last-second bets on a horse.

The post NYRA Excludes Computer Players from Pick Six Pool appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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