Computer Assisted Wagering: 101 for California Stakeholders

Last June, Pat Cummings, executive director of the National Thoroughbred Alliance and former executive director of the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation, issued a stark warning about the encroaching impacts from Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) to the men and women trying to forge a living through horse racing in the Golden State.

CAW players constitute a small group of mostly anonymous, high-volume gamblers with an outsized impact on the betting markets–including in California–due to their use of sophisticated wagering technologies and the inducements offered to them in the form of attractive rates and rebates not available to the average punter.

At the time, CAW play was the main source of handle growth in California, which by extension “is contributing the lowest percentage for purses” and thereby presenting “a serious, long-term concern for California and its horsemen,” wrote Cummings.

Cummings's detailed study appears prescient. Since then, several reports have illustrated the extent of California's purse account woes.

To explain the recent 25% purse cuts at Golden Gate Fields, the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) said the track's purse account was over $3 million in the red. Purse cuts at Santa Anita stem from a near $4-million purse account overpayment. During the January California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) meeting, it was explained that Del Mar's purse account was overpaid by $2.1 million.

Pat Cummings | The Jockey Club

A complicated set of factors determine purse revenues. Field sizes, for example, are arguably the biggest architects of how much is wagered on an individual race. But CAW play has grown exponentially as a percentage of overall handle in recent years, giving it a key role in the sport's future in California. Why?

Unlike other states where purses are supplemented from alternative gaming like slot machines and casinos, California is reliant solely on betting to generate purse revenues. In other words, California more than any other major jurisdiction needs to thoughtfully manage its betting revenues–including from CAW–if it's to remain a healthy enterprise long into the future.

The problem with CAW–like so many aspects of the sport–is that it has long been shrouded in ambiguity.

To help peel back this opaque curtain, the TDN sought answers to some basic questions about how leaders in the Golden State manage such an influential part of the industry:

What CAW-related information is shared between whom? What oversight mechanisms are in place? If the state's horsemen and women feel they aren't getting a fair deal, can they leverage what they see as a better one? And where do state regulators fit into the scheme?

What is CAW?

In short, CAW players–frequently registered in offshore tax havens–use sophisticated digital tools and teams of staff to spot exploitable deficiencies in the betting pools, and to scour reams of betting and past performance data to identify winning opportunities at high rates of success.

Even individually, they can bet huge. Indeed, last year the Financial Times estimated that just two individual CAW players each wager “on the order of $1bn a year” on State-side racing alone.

In the U.S., CAW players largely wager through a handful of CAW agents' betting platforms, which in many ways act as glorified ADWs.

The biggest in terms of handle is the Elite Turf Club, majority owned by The Stronach Group (TSG), which also owns the Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields racetracks in California. The New York Racing Association (NYRA) also owns a portion of Elite Turf Club.

Other key CAW platforms include Racing and Gaming Services (RGS), and Velocity, owned by Churchill Downs.

The bettors who aren't privy to the same rates and rebates as these deep-pocketed gamblers (more on this in a bit) argue that CAW players are driving the average gamblers away from the sport in droves, to the point where it's killing the betting markets and hurting purse revenues. Indeed, if CAW players become too big a percentage of the pools, their impacts become magnified and they essentially “cannibalize” the markets.

TOC president Bill Nader has pinned this tipping point at about 25% of the betting pools. Cummings's June 2023 report found that back then, CAW play in California often surpassed that benchmark.

CAW proponents counter that these well-capitalized gamblers provide vital liquidity and efficiency to the betting pools. Without them, these proponents argue, the sport would be significantly poorer, and that by sheer volume of play, they help prop-up purse accounts.

Indeed, the loss of just one major CAW player could hit a track's handle hard. This also means, however, that the biggest individual CAW players have historically been able to wield no inconsiderable leverage to negotiate their terms of play.

 What Portion of CAW Play Goes to Purses?

To understand what part of the betting dollar goes to purses, there are two terms of note: Host fees and Takeout rates.

“Takeout” is the percentage sliced out of every dollar wagered. This pie is divvied up various ways, including a portion funneled into the purse account. Bets wagered on-track direct the largest slice back into the purse account. Bets wagered through ADW and CAW platforms direct the smallest amounts.

Takeout varies on several things like the host track state and bet type. But takeout is determined by track management and regulators and is non-negotiable. A general rule of thumb is an average 20% blended takeout rate across the different pools.

For CAW play, when the term “rates” are mentioned, what is meant are host fees, and these are negotiable.

Host fees are what any wagering outlet pays to track operators for the contractual right to import a simulcast signal. A wagering outlet could be another racetrack, an ADW platform (like FanDuel) or a CAW platform (like Elite Turf Club).

   TDN spoke with several track and industry executives about the state of CAW play today. These experts said that CAW host fees for the premium tracks typically vary between 6% and 8%.

After breeders' premiums and other minor deductions have been removed, host fees are roughly split 50/50 between the track and the purse account in California.

Therefore, if Santa Anita beamed its signal to a location at a host fee rate of 6%, roughly 3% of the total amount handled on that signal at that location will flow back into Santa Anita's purse account.

Primary Oversight of Agreements

Before the beginning of each meet in California, the tracks present the TOC with a list of individual host fees charged to each location that receives its simulcast signal. For that track's meet to go ahead, the TOC must first sign this document, said Scott Daruty, president of both TSG's Monarch Content Management and of the Elite Turf Club.

“Before the Santa Anita meet opens, we give them a list of every location and price that Santa Anita is sold for,” said Daruty. “They [the TOC] either approve it or they don't.”

The list includes host fees the track charges CAW betting platforms. If the host fee of an individual CAW player deviates from that afforded an overall CAW platform, that too would have to be divulged, said Daruty.

“If there was an individual deal [between a single CAW player and the track], that would have to be disclosed to the TOC,” said Daruty.

Scott Daruty | Horsephotos

TOC president Bill Nader said that he has signed all such agreements since joining the organization in October of 2022.

Nader said he was unable to disclose what the host fees that CAW players receive. All host fees are private (not just for CAW players). But Nader described the negotiation of these fees as a “moving target as to how you get this right and how you get it right across all customer segments.”

Where Do Rebates Come From?

The way Nader and other experts explain it, the amount CAW players are “rebated” can be broadly calculated with this simple equation:

Rebate = Takeout minus Host Fee (plus any other associated minor fees). The smaller the host fee, typically the bigger the rebate.

Let's use the 20% blended takeout rate among the pools. And let's say the host fee (plus other associated fees) that the CAW player pays comes to 5%. The rebated discount for the CAW players, therefore, could be a maximum 15% on every dollar wagered (though more on this in the next section).

It's also important to note that bets with higher takeout rates leave the door open to potentially higher rebates. The seemingly counter-intuitive goal is that this leads to higher overall handle.

Several experts said the most successful CAW players can consistently win at an average rate of around 92%. At that rate, for example, a 15% rebate would see the player enjoy a 7% profit margin. According to Daruty, a 92% win-rate isn't typical.

“That's someone really hitting it out the park,” he said.

The bigger the rebate CAW players receive, therefore, the greater their overall profit. And the greater their overall profit, the more they're likely to wager. As one expert put it, “it's like a high-yield investment account.”

Indeed, former Australian bookmaker Tom Waterhouse recently said he was considering investing venture capital funds into horseracing-focused professional betting syndicates that receive these huge rebates.

“[Gambling] is a three trillion-dollar industry, and most people lose. The edge is against you,” said Waterhouse. “But there are a few groups globally that are able to find an edge.”

These rebates are usually returned daily–typically the following morning, said Scott Finley, former NYRA director of simulcasting with a long career in the pari-mutuel betting industry.

“In some cases, they might be done weekly,” Finley added. “But the general idea is, the quicker you front that money back to the CAW players, they're just going to churn that money and bet more. Remember, there's no credit betting allowed anywhere in the U.S. These are all true advanced deposit wagering accounts.”

The TOC, said Daruty, is not privy to the rebate rates that CAW players receive.

“I'm not sure the TOC has ever made that request,” said Daruty, when asked why this information isn't shared with the organization. “But if they were to make that request, I think our response would be to politely deny it.”

When asked why the TOC hasn't asked Elite for rebate data, Nader said that he can get a “very good idea of what the gross rebate would be” by looking at the takeout on the different bet types. “I can work that out,” he said.

What's in it for Elite?

 

All of which begs the question: What's in it for a CAW platform like the Elite Turf Club?

According to Finley, CAW platforms typically retain between 0.5% and 1.25% as a commission from the amount their players wager.

“It's all based on individual contracts between the [CAW platform] and their player teams,” Finley explained, about how these commissions are negotiated.

As an idea of what kind of number this commission might generate, Elite Turf Club handled over $180 million on Santa Anita's races during 2022, according to the CHRB's statistical opersion reports. At Del Mar during 2022, Elite handled just over $146 million.

Daruty said he was not at liberty to comment on the Elite Turf Club's commission rate.

When asked how, between the host fee and the CAW commission, it appeared that TSG was essentially double-dipping, Daruty said the company's tracks and Elite Turf Club performed two separate functions.

“It's only double-dipping if you're getting paid twice for doing the same thing. This isn't double-dipping because it's two completely different services. In fact, I think it's to the horsemen's benefit that we're operating Elite because they're getting more visibility and more knowledge,” said Daruty.

“If it was a third-party operator, they might not be getting that, but they'd still be paying the same fee,” Daruty added.

Individual Deals with the Tracks

At last year's Global Symposium on Racing in Arizona, Cummings raised the issue of individual players and their representatives negotiating directly with the tracks to receive favorable host fee rates. Some of these deals were negotiated years ago.

“There is undoubtedly a concern when one or two of the biggest players in the sport go door to door across this country and ask a track operator for a discount. Not a rebate–a discount on the host fee,” said Cummings.

John Woodford, chief executive of GWG Group, a Las Vegas-based LLC that provides domestic and international services to CAW players, said that while GWG does not have any such “bespoke” deals for its individual players, such agreements are unsurprising given the amounts sometimes wagered.

“It's the same for other industries,” explained Woodford, “if you're a significant contributor or participant.”

Last year, the Financial Times reported that just two individual CAW players that wager through the Elite Turf Club–Elite 17 and Elite 2–had significantly increased their wagering on California horse racing over the past 15 years.

Since that story came out, the CHRB stopped publishing wagering data showing individual CAW accounts–which it had done since 2008–and now pools these numbers together under the CAW platform. In fairness to the CHRB, however, no other jurisdiction publicly discloses this individual information either.

In this vacuum of individual player data, however, it begs the question: Are any CAW players still privy to favorable deals directly negotiated with California racetracks? Several sources consulted for this story said that at least one player still enjoys such a deal.

Nader declined to answer the question directly, but said that discussions with the tracks are ongoing, and that over the past year, the TOC had successfully negotiated better rates for its constituents. “Everything is a work in progress,” he said.

TOC Leverage?

If the TOC believes the horsemen and women don't receive a fair deal in these negotiations, it can refuse to sign the document authorizing tracks to send out their signals, essentially causing a simulcasting blackout. Nader calls this threat the “nuclear option.”

When asked if during his time the TOC has considered using this option during CAW negotiations, Nader responded that it should be used only as a “last resort.”

“You never really want to do that. If there's a complete breakdown, perhaps. But it should never come to that,” said Nader.

The TOC has deployed this “nuclear option” before in contentious simulcasting disputes. Back in 2008, the TOC withheld Hollywood Park's signal over multiple weeks to increase the amount ADWs were contributing to the purse account.

Bill Nader | HKIR

The move–which reportedly cost Hollywood Park some $500,000 a day in lost revenues–was deeply unpopular with both the ADW platforms and the tracks.

“It didn't make me the most popular guy in racing to the effect I got death threats against me and my family,” said then TOC president Drew Couto, who explained that during the simulcasting blackout, TVG repeatedly shared on-air his personal and home telephone numbers.

“They encouraged their disgruntled viewers to call and let their disappointment be known,” said Couto. “It also led to several death threats being called into the offices. The TOC had to close down for a few days while we addressed the security issues.”

But the TOC's hard-line stance in 2008 ultimately led to a better rate for the state's horsemen and women.

“They came around because we cut off the signal,” said Couto. “You have to have a strong board that says, 'we will weather the storm. But at the end of that, we will come out with better rates.' And those better rates will help us put on a better product. And that better product will hopefully appeal to players who want to bet eight-horse fields rather than four-horse fields.”

Couto said the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978 gives the TOC the authority to dictate rates and fees.

“The TOC has used that structure in the past to set the rates, to set access, to determine who has access, and to control the use of our product,” said Couto. “It's not the racetrack's product.”

When asked about this authority apparently afforded the TOC through the Act, Nader stressed the ecosystem nature of the industry.

“I would see it more as a 50-50 partnership between the tracks and the horsemen, especially in a state where there's no other purse-enhancing supplements. That's how the tracks get paid as well,” Nader said.

“I think what makes this sport so uniquely spectacular is the competition on the track and the competition on the Tote,” Nader added. “For us, it's more finding the right balance across all segments.”

CHRB'S Role

The TOC isn't the only guardrail to ensure that CAW fee agreements are drafted with horse racing's long-term interests front and center.

While the CHRB does not routinely see those documents, “The CHRB has full legal authority to review any agreement if that were to become warranted,” wrote CHRB spokesperson Mike Marten in written responses to several questions.

The CHRB, wrote Marten, has not yet exercised that legal authority.

In response to questions concerning betting integrity, Marten wrote that, “We understand that Monarch pays special attention to CAW companies (i.e. Elite and RGS) whereby each of the CAW players undergoes repeated, extensive background checks every six months.”

Marten added that the Thoroughbred Racing and Protective Bureau–a subsidiary of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America–has “performed a thorough investigation of many wagering sites, including Elite and RGS, as part of its service to the racing associations.”

The CHRB, Marten wrote, “also has access to those reports if warranted.” And he added how, “sparked by concerns about the individual locations/operators,” the CHRB “some years ago” obtained an unspecified number of these TRPB reports from its client racetracks.

The review resolved any concerns, “so no was action taken,” he added.

Conflicts of Interest?

Eagle-eyed observers of California's racing product and betting markets might have noticed the ownership makeup of recent GII San Pasqual S. winner, Newgrange.

Since at least September of 2022, Newgrange has been owned by a group that includes Little Red Feather, Rockingham Ranch and David Bernsen.

Bernsen is the founder of GWG Group. One part of Bernsen's role at the GWG Group has been to represent individual CAW players in their negotiations with the tracks, but Woodford said that Bernsen hasn't run or managed the company for the past couple of years, and is now focused on industry initiatives “outside of the CAW sector,” including racehorse ownership.  Little Red Feather's managing partner is TOC chairman, Gary Fenton. Bernsen and Fenton, therefore, appear to sit on opposite sides of the CAW table. Does their ownership connection in Newgrange rise to a conflict of interest on the part of the TOC chairman?

Both Nader and Fenton said it doesn't. Nevertheless, Fenton said that he has recused himself from all CAW-related matters before the TOC since April of 2023 to avoid the appearance of any conflict of interest.

“Incidental co-ownership of a horse isn't considered a conflict by the TOC, but I made sure Bill and members of the board were aware. Still, due to the sensitive nature of simulcast rates, and out of an abundance of caution, when a matter connected with David [Bernsen] came up for the first time, I recused myself. Virtually all owners who serve on industry boards face similar instances,” wrote Fenton, in a statement.

Several experts interviewed for this story described TSG's ownership of both Elite Turf Club and two of the state's racetracks as a dynamic that does indeed rise to that level.

Daruty, however, refuted any conflict-of-interest accusations, and pointed to the historical ownership relationship between tracks and wagering outlets.

Though the nature of these “betting platforms” has evolved over the years–from on-track Tote windows to off-track-betting hubs to ADWs–the racetracks have always been part of the ownership mix, he said.

Daruty added, “This is just one more example of that.”

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Pat Cummings Joins the ‘TDN Writers’ Room’ Podcast to Discuss the National Thoroughbred Alliance

In late October, prominent and outspoken owner Mile Repole announced that he was launching something he called the National Thoroughbred Alliance (NTA). Repole's goal is to shake things up in the industry and makes changes for the better. That will be the goal, too, of his right hand man, Pat Cummings, who came over from the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation to serve as Repole's executive director. On this week's TDN Writers' Room sponsored by Keeneland, Cummings was asked about the goals for the Alliance, how he can build consensus in a sport famous for infighting and how the group can make changes when it doesn't have any regulatory power. Cummings was the Green Group Guest of the Week.

Cummings, who describes the project as a work in progress, said one frustrating factor he has run into so far is that the fiefdoms don't want to make sacrifices for the greater good of the sport, a problem that has been around as long as the sport has.

“One of the things we found, and I think a lot of people would agree with this, is that if you started having a conversation with people in many different streams of the sport, the racing space, aftercare, the wagering side, when you're talking about kind of the big issues in racing, most people are going to agree about many of those things,” Cummimgs said. “And we've had some tremendous calls in the first couple of months with different organizations, leaders, individuals in every space of the business. And what we have found is that there's a tremendous amount of commonality. Our interests in improving the sport are shared. But when you start to poke into areas that directly impact certain individuals, the pushback starts to come and it's like, well, I agree on 90% over here, but on this 10%, which directly affects me, maybe I'm not so interested in changing all of a sudden, or maybe I don't want to go about rethinking the way in which my business generates revenue or how my members are impacted one way or another. So we are finding that there's a lot of openness to change, but there's a lot of potentially, you know, door closing that goes on when you suggest that change might need to affect everybody in some way, shape or form.”

Cummings said there will be eight key areas that the NTA will focus on.

“The way we see it, racing aftercare, education, sales, wagering, PR, marketing, breeding and then horsemen support rather generic catch all about the way in which we help not just owners and trainers individually, but their staffs and how they work and operate within our business,” he said. “If we have aligned that, there are these eight key areas that all need an element of focus and we have identified some opportunity areas within each of them.”

But without any authority or power, which rests now with the racetracks, racing commissions, HISA, The Jockey Club, horsemen's groups and others how can you usher in changes?

“I didn't have any authority with Thoroughbred Idea Foundation either,” he said. “But we inspired folks, we educated, we advocated and we did help get some things done and even some of those things that we did help facilitate getting done. They haven't always gone smoothly either, you know. So even when you do have that authority, it doesn't mean it's going to go off smoothly. When we set out five years ago and said, let's write a paper about breakage saying, 'Oh yeah, that's cute, that's nice and it's a problem and we need to fix it.' Well, yeah. So let's put a plan together to try and work on that. And we did. We had to get our law changed here in Kentucky. We tried to work with some other states. We realized some of those doors weren't open. We weren't able to work in New York, for example, on that particular topic. But maybe New York will focus on it in 2024. They've given some indications that there's a chance to do that. And if we saw New York adopt pending breakage in 2024, that be a huge win that I never saw coming.”

Also on the show the hosts discussed the Coolmore Stallion of the Week, Jack Christopher. By Munnings, Jack Christopher was 5-for-5 around one turn, including three Grade I wins, in the Woody Stephens by 10, the Allen Jerkens by 1 3/4, and the Champagne by 2 3/4 lengths–all that after his eight-plus length 'TDN Rising Star' debut at Saratoga.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Elite Power, WinStar Farm, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, 1/ST Racing, the KTA & KTOB, West Point Thoroughbreds, and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss and Bill Finley took a look back at 2023 and a look ahead to 2024. The consensus was that 2023, for numerous reasons was not a good year for the sport. To make things better we offered solutions for 2024. Finley advocated for the SafeSTRIDE technology, which has proven it can cause a significant cut in breakdowns to become a regular fixture at the track. “What are we waiting for?” he said. But Moss warned that as long as breeders don't focus on soundness and durability and continue to breed to fast horses who had brief careers and soundness issues, then nothing would change. The team also took a look at their Eclipse Award selections, and they largely agreed on all the categories. The exception was the Filly & Mare Sprint, where Moss is casting his vote for Echo Zulu (Gun Runner), while Finley and Zoe Cadman said they voted for Goodnight Olive (Ghostzapper). All three also cast their votes for Bill Mott for champion trainer.

Click here for the audio-only podcast and click here to watch the podcast.

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Repole Announces Formation of National Thoroughbred Alliance, Hires Cummings as Executive Director

Owner Mike Repole's efforts to form a group that he hopes can help solve some of the sport's problems and create growth in an industry that has been in a downward spiral for decades took a step forward Thursday with Repole announcing that he has formed what he is calling the National Thoroughbred Alliance (NTA). Pat Cummings, who has headed the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation, has been hired as the alliance's executive director.

Repole said he picked the name because he thought using the term alliance sent a message that the organization would be inclusive and because he is an admirer of the original NTA, also known as the National Thoroughbred Association. That organization was founded in the early 90s by Fred Pope and Repole's NTA shares some of the same goals of its predecessor.

“I've reached out to Fred and had a couple of great conversations with him,” Repole said. “What Fred's vision was 30 years ago for the sport was amazing and is a lot of what we need today.”

Repole said he will fund the new organization himself and said he is prepared to spend “millions” to see it succeed.

Even though he is among the most successful owners in the sport and a major buyer each year at the sales, Repole has been open about his frustrations with the industry and his fears that it isn't that far removed from extinction.

“Yes, we have survived, but that still means we've gone from 35,000 mares to 18,000 mares and all these tracks have closed,” he said. “You can call that survival and we have survived over the last 30 years. But there's no way racing will exist in another 15-20 years if we don't make changes now. It's easy for me to say I'll be out of the game in five years because everybody's going to be out in 10 years because it probably won't exist in 10 years.”

Repole said much of racing's problems can be attributed to the fact that no one involved in the industry seems to have a vision or strategy about how to grow the sport as a whole. It is vital, he said, for groups to put aside their self interests and begin to make decisions that will benefit the entire industry.

“This is a sport that has gone from growth to stagnant to now a massive decline,” he said. “How do we now go from keeping the status quo to improvement and then growth? Every successful business has a vision. There isn't anybody that has a vision for this sport. On top of vision, there is also no strategy. You can survive with strategy and no vision. You can't survive with no vision and no strategy.”

Repole is aware that his organization will launch with a distinct disadvantage, in that it will have no power to make any changes on its own and will be trying to make fixes in a sport filled with individual fiefdoms that traditionally look out for nothing more than their own special interests. The key to making progress, Repole said, is getting the various stakeholders to realize the sport will be better off overall if people are aligned and united and that a thriving sport is good for all involved.

“This is about unity, this is about improvement, this is about trying a different take to get everybody to work together,” he said. “This isn't going to be the Mike Repole vision. It's going to be a shared vision. This is a vision of listening, of talking to others. Maybe when they share their vision, which might be selfish, and we then tell them why the other nine spokes on the wheel won't work, we're hoping they'll say 'Now I get it. This doesn't work for the industry.' Once there's an understanding of what's working and what's not working, then we can figure out what we need to do better.

“Over the next 12 months we're going to see who cares about the industry and who cares just about themselves. Getting this sport united and aligned with a vision of what we want this sport to be is going to be so important.”

Repole said the first step toward getting industry leaders unified is to get them all in the same room.

“We need to bring people to the table,” he said. “If you get people together they will help each other. 'How did you handle that problem?' 'Well, this is what we did.' 'What worked here?' 'How did you do this?' The formation of great ideas happens with brainstorming.”

Repole said he had never met Cummings before he began to go to work on forming the NTA, but added that he was immediately impressed by his knowledge and enthusiasm.

“Pat has the compassion and the inspiration to fix this but obviously not the resources,” Repole said. “He's not one of the top owners or someone who invests a lot of money in the sport, which makes it tougher. But he still has the energy and passion. We hit it off right away. He's the perfect guy to lead this initiative.”

Repole's one-hour conference call with racing reporters was part doom and gloom, with just enough optimism sprinkled in that it's clear Repole is very dedicated to this project and passionate about racing's future.

“It's time to turn racing from the Flintstones to the Jetsons,” he said.

But he was not able to offer a lot of specifics concerning the formation of the alliance and just how it could twist enough arms that the changes Repole says the sport desperately needs can come to fruition. He's confident he can figure that out.

“When you're building this new brand or entity, you don't really know what you need or who you need until after you get started,” he said, referring to his creating and then selling the brands VitaminWater and BodyArmour.

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TIF Reports Prairie Meadows Hit By Pool Manipulations

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission is investigating a spate of pool manipulation incidents which seem to have occurred on three races run at Prairie Meadows in the last eight race days, the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation (TIF) said in a release Friday morning.

Daily double pools on Sept. 4 (Races 2/3), Sept. 1 (Races 6/7) and Aug. 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.

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.”

Click here for more on this story.

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