Author Weighs in on Pick 6 Scandal
Jim Quinn, a horseplayer and handicapping author who, like many, was convinced the industry had a "drop dead" attitude toward its customers, feels the recent Breeders' Cup betting scandal could be the necessary slap in the face for an industry in need of a turnaround.
The Pick 6 scandal was a badly needed wakeup call for an industry that is determined to correct all security lapses, expose whatever frauds may have taken place in the past and is finally ready to treat its customers with more respect and take care of their needs, he said.
Quinn, better than anyone, understands all sides and every aspect of the integrity issues the racing industry has had to deal with since the fiasco rocked the sport. He is part of the NTRA's newly formed Wagering Technology Working Group, which was put together by the NTRA to delve into security and consumer confidence problems.
"I have been very impressed with the leadership and what [NTRA head] Tim Smith has done and with the changes that have already been made," Quinn said recently on the Daily Racing Form's Web site. "This has been a positive experience for me, and by extension, the players. They have listened to my views and they have responded to them."
Quinn was happy to help when asked to join the industry task force, but the invitation didn't ease his skepticism. Cynicism and playing the horses go together like salt and pepper; the bettors largely believe the industry doesn't care about them, and they haven't necessarily been wrong.
But there's nothing quite like a crisis to slap some sense into people, Quinn said. Consumer confidence became a vital issue the second it was revealed that Derrick Davis' Pick 6 bets may have been bogus.
The industry could have told everyone that things were fine, that the Breeders' Cup Pick Six was an isolated and fixable problem and then done nothing to ferret out any other cases of bet tampering. Quinn said they figured out very fast that wasn't the thing to do.
"They hired Powell Tate, which is a crisis management firm, and they got some good advice from them," Quinn said. "One of the basic principles of crisis management is to get all the information out. Tim Smith made it clear that that's the way it was going to be done and it's been happening that way."
The NTRA and member racetracks have put the wheels in motion to eliminate the security gaps that Autotote computer programmer Chris Harn admittedly took advantage of to rig the Pick 6 wager. In the near future, tote companies will no longer be able to transmit Pick 6 information after four or five of the races in the wager have already been run and no betting outlet will be allowed to accept touch tone telephone bets without have a recording device in place. It's also certain that the tote companies will keep far better tabs on their employees.
Having done that, it would have been easy to say that all the problems have been solved, but that wouldn't have been enough to calm consumer suspicions that people were routinely being scammed by rogues other than Harn and his accomplices. The NTRA intends to find out.
According to Quinn, a comprehensive review of winning Pick 6 wagers placed in 2002 is underway and it will cost the NTRA between $3 million and $4 million to take this much needed look back. Rudy Giuliani's group will do much of that work, but Quinn himself has already been busily studying stacks of tickets from players who had five of six winners on their Breeders' Cup Pick 6 tickets.
"I am not so naive to believe that there have not been any other examples of fraud or efforts to manipulate the system," he said.
As Quinn sees it, these efforts are necessary, but not nearly enough. There are still dozens of issues beyond the Pick 6 scandal that rankle horseplayers that need to be addressed.
Harness Racing's Take
Racing's reactions to the Drexel Boys Pick 6 scandal have been quick, but far from uniform, and some of them create problems that may need equally quick attention by harness racing. The sport may have to carve out its own positions, or at least make certain that regulatory bodies consider them, before being caught up in the rush to new rules that may work well for one sport but not for another.
Two distinctly separate issues are at play: One is closing technological and personnel security loopholes that allowed Chris Harn and his Drexel frat brothers Glen DaSilva and Derrick Davis to run wild on Breeders' Cup Day, and before that with tickets doctored to pass automatic tellers. The other is the perception of past posting.
The first is of obvious and serious concern to harness racing in all of its ramifications.
At least one harness track, Balmoral Park, was the site of Harniganism, and others may have been. Whatever can be done to plug this hole clearly is every bit as applicable to harness racing as to the thoroughbreds. On the separate issue of late odds changes, some of the measures introduced to try to quell the perception of past posting require more attention, and differentiation.
If harness racing is forced to go along with a one-to-two-minute close of betting before off time, it could impact the sport heavily, perhaps, according to some mutual experts, as much as a 20 percent loss of handle.
Starting horses in a rolling start behind a mobile gate, as opposed to loading them in a stationery thoroughbred gate, presents different issues that need thought. A zero minutes-to-post stop bet would deprive harness fans of seeing how their horses are gaited and acting behind the moving gate, and if not adopted universally it could lead to a shifting of action to tracks that stop bet later.
Early stop betting also presents disadvantages in cancellation of bets for a gate scratch, and late post parades can create time problems for last minute bettors.
On the issue of late odds changes, Steven Mitchell of Woodbine Entertainment (in a highly interesting presentation on Fact vs. Perception in Late Odds Changes at the Racing Symposium in Tucson last week) said the majority of races in a study done at Woodbine and Mohawk did not show a reduction in odds, which would be evident if past posting occurred, but rather found many races where final odds were unacceptably late. These issues were discussed by racing leaders and tote company technicians and officials at a meeting in Kentucky almost two years ago, but obviously the problems were not solved and remain with the industry, now more pronounced than ever.
Barry Schwartz of NYRA recently eliminated all cancel delays, saying, "We have to worry more about protecting the public than about protecting the tellers."
Schwartz said the cancel delay "just didn’t make sense."
Other steps need to be taken, according to Harness racing insiders.
Attheraces Hopes to Land Irish Racing Deal
Attheraces pledged to show more Irish racing if its media rights tender to Horse Race Ireland is successful.
Both Attheraces and the Racing Channel have been given the rights to show Irish racing free of charge since the beginning of May but the free period runs out at the end of the month and HRI's Media Rights Committee meets on Friday to discuss the competing bids.
Attheraces communications director Simon Cooper feels that winning the bid could open up a great deal of business for his company.
"We have used Irish racing on a very limited basis up to now and have cherry-picked the best races," he said. "Usually Group 1 events on Sundays, but we will show much more if we can come to an agreement with HRI. Irish racing is a big product in Britain and an attractive one for punters, and we intend to schedule it as much as we can. Any races we couldn't show live, we would probably show on a recorded basis."
Cooper added that Attheraces has submitted proposals both for exclusive and non-exclusive rights while Terry Ellis of SIS said that the Racing Channel's tender has been submitted through TRNi which provides its American racing.
Irish racing has been an integral part of the Racing Channel's coverage since May and the loss of it would make a big hole in its schedules.
Japanese Racing Officials Leary of Internet Betting
The Japanese Racing Association warned recently that it is losing betting business due to competition from online gambling sites.
According to a report on Asahi.com, an official with the JRA has expressed surprise at the number of Internet gambling sites that court Japanese bettors. The JRA is the world's wealthiest racing organization, taking in about 3.2 trillion yen per year in sales; it estimates that it loses about 14 billion yen annually to online betting.
"We bear the huge cost of raising horses, offering prize money and maintaining racecourses," the official said. "We even pay the state 10 percent of our revenue. The Net bookmakers are raking in all they can without bearing any of the cost." The organization said it wants to "tackle the freeloaders by all means possible."