While the title is an homage to the soon-to-be-classic film, "I Love You, Man," our topic today is not bromances (sorry, Paul Rudd fans) but instead, the pari-mutuel tote system.
Our speaker this week in the Equine Business program at the University of Louisville was David Ruffra, vice president of sales for United Tote, one of the three companies that process the bets made on U.S. horse racing every day.
The tote system gets its share of criticism, and I'll address that in a moment, plus we'll look at some of the fancy new wagering gadgets the company has developed, but first, let's discuss how the tote (totalisator) system actually works.
When you hand your two bucks to the teller at the track or feed it into the self-service machine or click the mouse at Twinspires.com, your money is transmitted electronically into a complex web of switches, routers, hubs and redundancies. It looks something like this:
Each track controls how often the system is "refreshed" for bettors. United Tote has the capacity to update the odds every second of every race, but at the track, that would look like the tote board was exploding or maybe like Joshua's video meltdown in the 1983 movie, War Games.
Instead, the pools are refreshed every 20 to 30 seconds, so you can actually read the odds. Each odds update is known as a "flash."
The stewards at a given track also have control over when the betting stops. Each stewards' room has a symbolic, if not literal, "red button," which instantaneously ends the wagering. This is why at some tracks, you'll notice you can bet right up until the gates open and at other tracks, you get shut out while they're still loading. It all depends on when the stewards press that button.
You've probably also noticed that the odds change after the race has started. Example: They're running down the backstretch, and the 2-1 favorite suddenly becomes 8-5. This is not because people bet after the gates opened. That is the final 20-30 second "flash." Those wagers came in before the stewards pushed the red button.
However, in very rare cases, the pools are accidentally left open too long. I frequently read criticism by bettors and other parties who seem to think this is a significant, common problem. But the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau's Wagering Security Office screened more than 88,000 races over a year and a half and found 16 examples of past posting, mostly the result of operator error (someone forgetting to push the button or not pushing it hard enough). While one instance is too many, that issue is way overblown by some people.
It could certainly be resolved by every racing jurisdiction agreeing to stop wagering as soon as the first horse loads into the gate. So, at every track, the wagering would stop at precisely the same moment. But there would be none of this waiting until just before the gates open to bet. Is that what bettors want? I'm guessing a lot of bettors like throwing their wagers down just before the gates open. You can't have it both ways. If you don't have a uniform pool closure time set well before the gates open, there will always be the rare mistake that leaves the pools open too long.
I also hear people calling for a complete overhaul of the tote, with a goal of combining all of the tote companies, all of the ADW's like Twinspires and many other functions into one gigantic system. It sounds great in theory to streamline things, but any call for eliminating competition and creating ONE of anything kicks my monopoly/anti-trust radar into high gear.
Our speaker, David Ruffra, made some interesting points. He said the tote companies have the capacity to do virtually anything the industry wants. Whether it's adding proposition betting, "rolling odds" (wagering while the race is going on), instant rebates - the tote companies can do it right now. Ruffra said United is operating at a maximum of seven percent of its CPU capacity. It has 93% left! But any major changes to the way the tote system works will have to be approved by the states. The tote companies have no say in that stuff.
But they are creating new technologies, designed to make the racetrack a more pleasant experience for bettors or to increase security and integrity.
At one point, Ruffra said: "In this business, everyone, given a chance, will steal from you." That's why United Tote has developed biometric recognition software for the teller machines at racetracks. Under this system, the teller must press their thumb into the machine to log on. When they take a break, they give another thumbprint to log off and no one else in the world can log on to that machine. This safety measure was clearly created because the old system left things wide open for pilfering, and when you're handling thousands (or millions) of dollars in wagers a day, it can be awfully tempting for some people.
Another new technology that hasn't even hit the track yet is the Quick Jack Ez Tote. This is for cashing out. Finally, you won't have to stand in a teller line to cash your winning tickets. Just slide them into the Quick Jack and out comes your money.
The newest self-service betting machines recognize when a person is standing in front of it. They also now show the win bet payouts, as opposed to just the odds, as you see below. Those red and green arrows tell bettors how that horse is trending in the last 30 seconds. In this example, when the next flash comes, Shescominumdone will likely be 3-1, while Toby's Baby will probably be 10-1.
When Keeneland opens Friday, United Tote will be testing a new application called FastBet, which helps people wager on their smart phones. Because Apple still doesn't allow gambling "apps," FastBet will work more like a website than the applications you find in the apps store. Ruffra said his company is trying to convince Apple to allow straight-up betting applications, but so far, they haven't budged.
The goal of these technologies is to get with the times and reduce lines at the betting windows. Bet from your seat, instead. Cash out at an automated kiosk. Swipe a card. Ruffra says one of the Churchill Downs tracks, probably Fair Grounds, will be fully automated in the not-too-distant future.
One difficulty the company has had is getting racetrack patrons to sign up for "loyalty cards," which may be a requirement for using some of this new technology. Ruffra says, for some reason, racing patrons don't seem to trust the card system, while bettors in other gambling forums have no problem with it. Paranoia and the racetrack tend to go hand-in-hand, I guess.
Slowly, but surely, though, racetrack wagering technology seems to be headed in the right direction.
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