(2021) - this is part of a broader attempt at arbitrage in horse racing by front-running broadcast delays to give an edge on "in-play" (real time) betting. Drones are cheaper and more efficient than sending staff to sit trackside at every event ("court siding") and don't come with as much risk of getting banned from the event.
They can't stop you doing that, and I've been to races years ago where people were on their mobile bellowing out a horse number to their mate on the other end, who is sitting ready to place a bet on the supposed winner. But that's not a very fine-grained way to bet, it relies on the person on the track getting things exactly right and having the correct viewing position at the critical moment.
Can they stop you? No. If they catch you (usually doing something more large-scale and real time, like having a camera pointed at the track), can they ban you? Yes, they can certainly try.
It's sort of a cat-and-mouse game. I think this is the fun of in-play betting for some people. At the individual level, you organize your friends with a cell or have the guy who knows the guy at the race and it makes you and feel like you have an edge against the other bettors and the house odds. Of course you don't, really, just like most gambling. At the larger scale it's old school time arbitrage, HFT style stuff. At that point it's about trying to have the best strategy and shave time off of whatever your opponents are doing.
Honest question from someone who's less familiar: why would the track even care? Rather than surveilling the track for violators, can't they stop taking bets prior to the start of the race? And having done that, why would they care what happens off track, to someone else's betting operation?
why would the track even care? ... why would they care what happens off track, to someone else's betting operation?
The track exists, more or less, because of betting, and not just at the track. At least someone sees it as a threat to betting: "[Barry Orr, Betfair’s head of racing PR] worries that the imbalance in information across different bettors could lead to the demise of gambling on horse racing." If this is a legitimate concern, then it is in the track's best interest to make people think everyone has equal info, or else people will stop betting: "Martin Hughes, a longtime gambler based in the northeast of England who is a member of the Horseracing Bettors’ Forum, a voluntary body of gamblers, “I more or less stopped betting, because I'm so far behind it is pointless, really.”"
Rather than surveilling the track for violators, can't they stop taking bets prior to the start of the race?
This is interesting. More questions. (from someone who obviously doesn't know about this stuff)
> The track exists, more or less, because of betting, and not just at the track.
Does the track hosting the race get a cut of OTB operations or sell bookies who are working remotely a data feed? So what we're really talking about is the track's CCTV having to compete with some random person's cell phone video or drone video, all of which might be streaming to a casino in Vegas or something?
It seems like that Vegas casino which is hosting gamblers and taking bets also has an incentive to kick somebody out if they see that they're looking at a remote data stream and placing bets, rather than looking at the casino's televisions or whatever. Does that happen?
>> Rather than surveilling the track for violators, can't they stop taking bets prior to the start of the race?
> Well, that would make them less money.
This is the part I don't get. If people are betting in real time during the race, isn't the human bookie a terrible bottleneck in the observe race/adjust odds/take new bets loop the bookie is engaged in? (even if he's just pushing a few buttons on a computer as quickly as possible) I can see how people would want to game this system.
The game is only fun if the wagering and outcomes follow a normal distribution. If "one guy" starts turning a profit, its only a matter of time before his method is discovered and replicated. Over time, this decreases the payouts for all the other bettors, removing the enjoyment of sometimes winning.
Reason #2 is if they see someone consistently making money, they have to assume that person is rigging the race somehow, even if they can't prove it. Sure they want you to play, win, and have fun. But they dont want you to do it as a career. That exposes them to liability: say a jockey/owner/trainer sues the track after rigged races were discovered. They could point to a professional gambler and say "you should have known that this guy was involved because he turned an enormous profit over time. You turned a blind eye to fraud, profited from it, at our expense. we want damages".
Third reason is they dont want people selling their "systems", which only leads to problems and fraud. Someone who won a lot (or appeared to always win) could show others at the track and say "I'll let you in on this system too, for a price".
Fourth reason would be anti-money-laundering. Even if you (somehow) found some rinky-dink "system" that made a nominal amount of money, higher-level criminals would absolutely jump on it to launder drug proceeds.
Either security theatre, it makes the naive gambler think they have an edge so they bet more, or they have vested interest/stake in offsite betting platforms
According to the article, they are betting on Betfair. When the race starts, you have a delay in placing new bets (5-10 seconds) but no delay in cancelling bets. Given they are ahead of the official live feed by just few seconds, it should leave enough time for a misplaced bet to be cancelled before they can take it. I am quite surprised they have an edge here, I might miss something.
The delay is 1s for placing bets inplay on racing, you are correct in regards to zero delay on cancellations. The advantage is simply down to latency and being ahead of everyone (except GPS users) in an event where probabilities move very fast. A lot (maybe the majority) is liquidity provided by automated systems or ’keep’ bets placed before the race where the user has no intention to cancel.
One angle that isn't mentioned in the article is that there are companies that now stream live GNSS/GPS data from horse races, so the drone users are competing against 'official' feeds of in-running data, e.g. https://www.totalperformancedata.com/
This is a clever move from the racetracks: they can sell this data, there are customers for it, and it saves them from fruitlessly trying to stop the drones.
However, the data is expensive, and if you are buying it then you are going to be competing against the other buyers of it, who will be trying to place the same bets as you, so the edge isn't going to be too great. Kind of like HFT, where everyone races to keep up with the technology spending of their competitors.
I don't understand why you'd need drone footage to do this. If the purpose of the drone is to give you live footage of the race to update your bet, wouldn't a cell phone let you do the same thing from a seat in the stands? Obviously not, and I'm missing something, but I didn't get it from the article. Is it that he's making money by providing an alternate feed of the race to other gamblers, not from placing bets himself?
1. You won't get as good and clear view from the stands, and the betting is going on throughout the race, not just at the end where you might have a clear-ish view. You could sit in the stands and point your phone at the big screen TVs showing the race to the crowd, but that stream is delayed somewhat anyway, losing you some advantage.
2. He might be selling the footage, but doesn't want to admit to doing so (since that would be more likely to get him into trouble)
They sell the video streams. The drone guys are not finding gold, they are selling picks and shovels. These courses are on Sky Attheraces in the UK - 15 second delay to overcome. RacingTV is less than 2 seconds but the angle can be head-on only at some courses.
In play betting for a horse race is the stupidest idea ever. It's a good idea for various other sports but in horse racing it just lends itself to bad behavior.
