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Message: 1<br />
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2017 10:54:41 +1100<br />
From: "Rob Waterhouse" <robbie@robwaterhouse.com><br />
To: "'AusRace Racing Discussion List'" <racing@ausrace.com><br />
Subject: Re: [AusRace] Calculating deductions from payouts in cases of<br />
horses scratched at the barrier<br /><br /><br />
The new way of calculating is a source of contention and hated by on-course bookies and ignored by the betting firms and TABs, notwithstanding it is intellectually sound..<br /><br /><br /><br />
This ?new way? is a black box (meaning it?s algorithm is secret) answers, cleverly, the question: what would a new market look like after a scratching?<br /><br /><br /><br />
It has faults. Firstly, people don?t understand it. Secondly, an eccentric bookmaker who only lays long-priced runners is very short-changed. Thirdly, it answers the wrong question, which should be how should the bookmaker be compensated for the loss of field money on the scratching. Fourthly, through no fault of the ?new way? the deductions are based on the large-percentage corporate betting market rather than the razor sharp, low-margin on-course market. Fifthly, when a horse is being considered to be scratched, it blows with the corporates, and the deduction isn?t based on the price it was averagely traded.<br /><br /><br />
Rob W<br /><br /></p><p><font size="2">TA: Thanks Rob. Everything you have said above accords with my experience, including and particularly the reference to it as a 'secret algorithm'. I popped in on the betting steward </font></p><p><font size="2">to ask a question or 2 and the first thing he did was lower the lid of his notebook to hide the Excel spreadsheet from my prying eyes... not that I would have had the capacity to remember an</font></p><p><font size="2">algorithm even if it were visible. </font></p><p><font size="2">I don't disagree with the deduction made from my bet, I'd just wanted to know how it was arrived at, because it differered significantly from the fixed odds TAB bet deduction. </font></p><p><font size="2">In fact I think the bookie I wagered with was being looked after by the betting stewards' formula </font><font size="2">for exactly the reasons you state </font><font size="2">...the bookie would be the epitome of one of </font></p><p><font size="2">the "...razor sharp, low-margin on-course market" framers...</font></p><p><font size="2">He took my (place) bet which was at $5.00 place... even on my crude knowledge of how the deduction process works I understood it had to be more than the 8c/in$1 of the win deduction </font></p><p><font size="2">(the scratched horse was $12.00 when scratched) to </font><font size="2">cover 3 </font><font size="2">place payouts at his mediumish-long prices. What was annoying initially was that the TAB fixed odds service, which I think is </font></p><p><font size="2">provided by William Hill to WATAB, paid the </font><font size="2">deduction as less 8c/$1 the win </font><font size="2">and same for the place for all 3 places... On turnover they can probably offset losses from other bets. The small </font></p><p><font size="2">bookie is vulnerable when the longer/medium priced ones get up if a few punters jag a result. </font></p><p>-------------------------</p><p><br /><br /><br /></p></blockquote></body></html>