Question of the Day - 21 May 2021

The doping, which is apparently as common as, well, steroid use in baseball, makes a mockery of the "sport" of horse racing and suggests that the entire sport is corrupt and races are rigged. If you bet on a horse, you're not betting that it will run the best race; you're betting that it will receive the best drugs.

Just another corrupt sucker game where everyone cheats and the little guy has no clue as to what is going on. Capitalism at its finest. So very American.

Fortunately, Medina Spirit and the others have horse sense, so they’re smart enough to avoid placing bets on people.

...but does it apply to futures bets (with fixed odds) as well? Do sports books rules say that futures bet results are based on "the official result on the day of the race"?

Any time you have betting on people or animals some one wants to rig the game, it comes down to pure greed.

Want a hockey/football/soccer/baseball team to lose, just kidnap a key players family member ? 

You could limit the size of a bet through official channels - the underground bookies would love this or the play would move off shore. Others would use shills to bet for them. 

Why do you think Casino tables have so many cameras - they only need to worry about a dealer and 6-10 players. Compare that to a horse race - you have Jockeys, trainers, nutritionists, spiritual councilors, S*it shovelers, race officials, owners, many many more opportunities and very low oversite in comparison.   

Every time somebody is accused of cheating in ANY venture, the typical reaction is that everybody cheats. All of you who are commenting that way are just plain stupid (or intentionally bitchy). But, letting that go for now, the question about payoffs is an important one. It's not just the nightmare of reversing payoffs, it's what it does to those who cashed the tickets. There are so many examples in ALL sports that show that there must be a final gambling determination as to who to pay or not to pay. The simplest example is the George Brett pine tar incident. The umpire called him out on a home run after Billy Martin complained about the amount of pine tar on Brett's bat. That ended the game with the Yankees winning. All Sports bets were paid on that basis. Later, on appeal, the commissioner reinstated the home run and the Royals took the lead on it and finished the game (weeks later) and won. But nobody had to return the payoff,

would be people who bet on the Tour de France only to have the winner disqualified years later, or people who bet on Olympic events only to have the winner disqualified days, weeks, or months later.  The only fair thing is to have a set time to determine the winner and payoff, which is what the sports books do.  While those who bet on the eventual winner may be disappointed, those who bet on the original winner are pretty happy.  Since racing is pari-mutual it's the same amount of money distributed, just to different people.  Everyone know going in that this is a rare, but real possibility.

So...I never thought of this before. What I believe I am learning is that horse racing establishments have a system/algorithm that calculates every single possible payout combination on a race to determine the "odds" that will be paid out from the available payout pool. I understand the statistical approach of having 20 variables, but when you add in the odds and associated dollar amount for each probability (WPS, Exacta, Quinella, Trifecta, Daily Doubles,....quite an accomplishment for a field of 20 horses. Thanks for the education.

Several years ago I has a buddy bet on the Derby the day before when he was at Churchill. I won the trifecta. So the next week on Thursday I left work early and went to the track. I cashed my ticket and there was two races left. I bet on the second from last and won. Then they put up the odds for the last race. One horse was 1-5 so super favorite. I looked in the program and that horse had never won and the last race was DNF Did Not Finish. The race before last by 20 lengths, before that DNF, before that last by 30 lengths. Looking at the win pool the horse had 5000 bet on him. Slowly money came in on other horses and the odds went up to 1-1 then 2-1 and finally 20-1. The race is run and the horse wins. So someone one knew something and put 5000 on him early in the day. Which is why he was the super favorite when the pool started. Not sure if there was cheating or if the found out what was wrong with the horse and fixed it. But it was the oddest thing I ever sen at the track. 

The answer, it seems to me, is to make drugging the horses legal. Then, the race would be about which drugged horse was faster than the other drugged horses. Who was best at medicating a horse would be a new variable that horse handicappers would have to consider.

Animal cruelty should not be an issue. These horses are extremely valuable, so harming them by over-medicating them would be limited by the universal human motivations of self-interest and greed.

1. I have to take exception with the phrase "a horse that allegedly was higher than Willie Nelson on a tour bus." Says WHO? The drug in Medina Spirit was not a stimulant or mind-altering drug (what Willie Nelson would get high on), nor was it a performance-enhancing drug. It was essentially a painkiller that merely enabled the horse to be equally competitive as the other horses, nor more juiced up than them.
2. Yes, lots of horses are given lots of drugs, just like lots of humans take them. Which drugs, and in which amounts, are legal is something that is universally known, and abuse is relatively rare. The sport is not a free-for-all like the crime situation in Chicago in the 1920's/1930's.
3. It's better to avoid using the word "doping" generally.  "Doping" is a specific practice in which a human has some of his blood withdrawn, then his system replenishes it, and then the removed blood is injected back into the person, causing extra-rich blood. This was not done to Medina Spirit.

4. To address what one poster said: There is not just 1 single pool out of which all bets (Win, Place, Show, Exactas, etc.) are paid. Each kind of bet has its own pool. There is a Win Pool, a Place Pool, a Show Pool, an Exacta Pool, a Trifecta Pool, a Superfecta Pool, pools for Daily Doubles, and separate pools for any other kind of bet.
5. Most betting nowadays is not done at the track, but through the Internet (most common) or smartphone app or telephone call to the racing company. So most bettors don't have physical tickets to deal with. All bets made via one of those 3 other ways are recorded on computer right when they are made, so refunds, grab-backs, later payouts, etc. are all possible. What could happen is all payouts could be put "in escrow" until post-race drug testing is done. This would require the betting companies to set up such a system, and the bettors to agree to the program. I personally doubt that this will happen, but it's possible and it would solve this problem.

The separate prize pools make more sense and would be a lot more manageable to predict.

So..if if I bet 1-4-7 Trifecta box at $1.00, I get X odds. But if I bet 1-4-7 Trifecta box at $2.00, do I not get twice the payout wothout doubling the payout pool?