Tag: Horseplayers

By Jennie Rees

Phil Lam got the belt.

The 64-year-old from Queens, N.Y., is your 2023 National Turf Handicapping Champion by virtue of having the highest cumulative score after competing in all three stand-alone online tournaments that comprise Kentucky Downs' live-money King of the Turf Handicapping Challenge.

Lam bolted to the lead in the first contest on Aug. 31 with a bankroll of $6,518.35. That proved enough to hold on to win after he finished the second contest on Sept. 3 with 38 cents and then was blanked on the finale Saturday.

Anthony Spinazzola finished second at $5,831.81 and Robert Gianquitti, the second contest winner, was third at $5,231.67. Players had to compete in all three contests to be eligible for the overall prize, with Lam winning a seat in the Breeders' Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC), a $10,000 buy-in, and the instantly iconic Global Tote King of the Turf WWE-style belt trophy. Lam also earned $10,530 in cash plus a seat in the National Horseplayers Championship (NHC) for winning the first contest.

“I've won quite a bit of contests, but this particular one, I've gotten a lot of fanfare from a lot of my constituents,” Lam said by phone Sunday. “It's been a lot of fun. Everybody was texting me from all over, 'Get that belt.' 'Get that belt.' Nobody said, 'Oh, get the BCBC.' 'Get the NHC.' They kept texting, 'Get the belt.'”

Lam said his big play in the first contest was FanDuel Tapit Stakes winner Harlan Estate, who went off at 37-1.

“I liked that horse, and I keyed him in exactas and doubles,” he said. “The funny thing was, when I saw the odds at 30-something to 1, I scaled my bet back. Otherwise I wouldn't have had to sweat (Saturday). I'd have had a bigger lead. But that's what made it fun. The week in between the two other contests, it makes it exciting because you have to sweat it out.

“The second contest I had $300 of my bankroll pretty intact, and I went for it. I decided to go big on a race instead of betting to show or just trying to pad my lead. You really have to try to win these things. But I got blanked. Now I was going to sweat it a full week, and hoped to do well (in the finale). It didn't go well. But I was able to hold on.

“It was really exciting because the guy who won the second contest needed a little over $1,200 to pass me. I saw with three races to go he had (picked up) $1,100. He only needed to get another $100 to his bankroll. He could have just sat on it, because I was done. He played several horses to win, like two horses in each race, and missed on all of them. I actually thought I had lost at that point, when he was only $100 behind.”

Lam said he tapped out with four races to go. “I think it was tough for everyone,” he said. “It was tough for anybody to make any traction the last few races. That's why Kentucky Downs is such a great track — very tough to handicap.”

The last three of six graded stakes were won by Gear Jockey ($48.60), Bay Storm ($7.74), and Get Smokin ($41.14).

Lam lives midway between Aqueduct and Belmont Park and is a longtime racing fan. He said he got into playing handicapping contests when he was at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. “I thought, I'm going to play anyway. Let me play that.' And I wind up winning the contest.”

He got a seat to the World Series of Handicapping. Later that week he saw an online contest, finishing second to win a berth in the NHC. “I was hooked,” he said. “That was about 15 years ago. The people who play are fantastic. You meet a lot of interesting people, a lot of professionals. It's a lot of fun.”

Lam describes himself as a “retired IT guy.”

“So I try to automate things and create models, and that kind of keeps things fun,” he said. “I just retired in June. Through my time off, I said, 'The Kentucky Downs thing, I can never do well. Let me see what this is all about.' I did some studying, looked at past results. It paid off Day 1 anyway.”

Of having only 38 cents to show for the final two contests, he said, “It's just the nature of the game. Even in the NHC, which is a three-day contest, people can do very well or poorly and it turns around quickly. I expected that. I really wasn't disappointed. It's like a relief pitcher. You learn to just forget the bad inning, bad pitches and move on.”

Lam said he played the first two contests at home but on Saturday drove to Delaware Park, which was having a handicapping contest.

“I decided to multi-task,” he said. “A lot of fellow horsemen were there rooting me on. 'Go Phil, go get the belt.' In hindsight, that was a mistake. It was a distraction. I didn't do well in either contest.”

Paul Kirnos easily won Saturday's final tournament with a bankroll of $8,720.68. However, he was not eligible for King of the Turf honors because he did not play in all three tournaments. A total of 129 people played in all three contests.

“The fourth year of the Kentucky Downs King of the Turf Handicapping Challenge proved yet another success with a total of 637 entries in the three contests,” said Tournament Director Brian Skirka. “We saw three incredibly deserving contest winners in Phil Lam, Robert Gianquitti and Paul Kirnos – and it was Phil Lam who was able to hang on to take the overall championship. I've known Phil a long time from our Monmouth Park contests, and I can't think of a more fitting King of the Turf. I look forward to presenting him with his championship belt at the NHC in Las Vegas.

“Thanks goes out first and foremost to all the players who supported these three handicapping contests. I'd also like to thank Ted Nicholson and his team for having me as part of one of the most unique contests of the year. Congrats to all the winners and I'm already looking forward to Year 5 of King of the Turf in 2024.”

The post Lam Captures Kentucky Downs’ King Of The Turf Handicapping Challenge appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Bettors seeking to land big scores through offshore bet-takers seem to have successfully manipulated betting pools at Iowa's Prairie Meadows at least three times in the last eight race days.

Daily double pools on September 4 (Races 2/3), September 1 (Races 6/7) and August 25 (Races 5/6) were subject to massive bets on combinations the manipulator/s expected to lose. In each case, the bets were made in the final betting cycle when projected payouts for each combination are not updated until the race was underway.

The Thoroughbred Idea Foundation (TIF) has drawn attention to such incidents, and the problems they create, at other U.S. tracks in the past. Most notably, Gulfstream Park eliminated its quinella pools after a significant manipulation event was detected in November 2022.

“These incidents at Prairie Meadows have all the hallmarks of pool manipulation based on TIF's multi-year focus and every time they occur, it calls into question the outcomes of the races involved,” said TIF executive director Patrick Cummings.

“Integrity is paramount and when pools are manipulated like this, bettors are rightly confused and can lose confidence that races are run fairly and the betting pools are operated fairly.

“We have tracked dozens of incidents of pool manipulation in the last three years. It is paramount that track operators, stewards and racing commissions act in tandem to uphold the integrity of the sport.”

Cummings spoke on the topic of pool manipulation at the 2022 University of Arizona Global Symposium on Racing. A replay of that session is below.

Pool manipulation can be challenging to police.

For the host track on whose races the manipulation occurred, the big bets manipulating the pool are new handle. The same applies for the manipulator's legal bet-taker, which has often been an advanced deposit wagering (ADW) outlet. For all other bettors on a race, an incident of manipulation often yields a payout far higher than they expected.

“If executed successfully, the track operator, bet-taker and bettor all feel like they've experienced some sort of minor windfall. They've all received more than they expected in handle, commissions or winnings,” Cummings said.

“In such cases, it's not easy to convince someone you have a problem.”

In these recent Prairie Meadows incidents, prior to the manipulation and just seconds before the start of the race, the eventual $1 winning double combinations were projected to pay $11.00 (9/4 incident – actually paid $27.40), $17.10 (9/1 incident – actually paid $89.60) and $5.80 (8/25 incident – actually paid $25.90), respectively. The average handle of the three double pools which were manipulated was over $4,950 while the average of all other double pools on those three race cards was just over $1,570.

The second-to-last and final betting cycles of the manipulated double pool from September 1 are reflected below.

The horse the manipulator needed to lose in the September 1 case was #2 Hoppin John, ridden by journeyman Ken Tohill for trainer Randy Morse. Hoppin John was sent postward at 10-1 in a six-horse field and finished fifth, beaten less that four lengths. The horse seemed to be racing into contention approaching the stretch.

When contacted by TIF, Brian Ohorilko, administrator of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission indicated the organization is attentive to these recent incidents.

“It is uncommon for us to have situations where we think there is suspicious betting but when it happens, we are in contact with the operator, tote companies and the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau,” Ohorilko said.

“Once we fully understand what happens, we will pursue the best course of action which could include limiting betting into certain pools, the types of markets offered and potentially eliminating betting from hubs where these bets originated.”

The Asian Racing Federation's Council on Anti-Illegal Betting and Related Financial Crime addressed incidents of pool manipulation in a 2022 publication, which TIF highlighted at the time. A segment from TIF's past coverage is reprinted below.

“ARF Council member Thomas Chignell added insight on pool manipulation in a bulletin released concurrently with the Council's recent report:

“The bets placed into the tote are placed upon selections which are highly likely to lose and not on the most likely winning selection. The bets are large relative to the tote pool size and significantly shorten the odds on those selections, and in doing so, inflate the final dividend of the most likely winning selection which is subject to much larger bets with illegal betting operators.

“Incidents of dramatic, and often unexplained market movement, can cause confusion with regular bettors and undermine the public's confidence in the sport and the betting markets. Even if a racing authority does not operate the local tote betting, it is in the interest of the sport that customers believe the betting markets are fair and transparent.”

The post TIF: Prairie Meadows Hit By Spate Of Pool Manipulations appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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