Question of the Day - 01 March 2022

1. A losing ticket on Mandaloun might be valuable, in that it would serve as a reminder to never again bet on a crooked sport.

2. They obviously ran out of good names for horses some time ago.

Some horseplayers have started a class action lawsuit to get paid for bets on Mandaloun.  Whenever I see stories like this, I always wonder how much the plaintiffs cashed on the horse that was later disqualified.

Are they going to give back what they were paid on Medina Spirit if they are paid for Mandaloun?

Football included, this past year really proved it. The outcome of many games was known in advance before they were ever played, the NFL and the bookies knew who they wanted to win and by how big of a point spread

Unless they plan to keep all the players and their families in a bubble any sport with a human element can/will become corrupt. 

Threats to the family, extended family, pictures with someone not your wife, Coaches, Trainers, can be bribed, the list is endless.

The universal truth is that Greed is limitless. Be it gambling, art fraud, wine fraud, if money is involved someone is scheming.

The only reason Vegas ever existed is that you could get an honest game - even if the odds were not in your favor. A dealer that gets a rake on every hand is not typically in cahoots with a player, and if they are they get swapped out at regular intervals so it limits the corruption, they change out the cards at regular intervals. Eye in the sky looks for card mechanics. Its not perfect but it provides a sanitary enough environment.

If you want an honest horse race - submit the animal for holding 3 days before the race and assign random jockeys at race time. Not likely to every happen. 

HOW MANY PRO-FOOTBALL GAMES ARE DECIDED (WON OR LOST) BY THE PEOPLE WEARING STRIPES !  

This forum has gotten way off-track. (No pun intended.) This event doesn't have anything to do with corruption in this sport. It's an unusual situation; it's only the 2nd time in the history of the Derby that a horse has been disqualified because of the amount of a substance in the winner. I don't know if it's even possible to get blood tests done on a winner within 5 minutes, which is the only way we could clear the winner and pay the bettors quickly. If bettors could not get paid within 5 or 10 minutes, the sport would not work so well and betting would be less, thus negatively affecting the sport. What COULD happen in theory is implied insurance for all bettors in case something like this happens; those who bet on the horse who became the winner via disqualification would get paid from the excess profit that the race track has made via "breakage" on all past races (e.g., when Show bettors should be paid $2.39 but are only paid $2.20). But major changes are very hard to implement.

I also want to separate horse racing from scandals in other sports such as that in pro baseball around World War I and the giving of the Gold Medal victory to the Russian men's basketball team in 1972. Long before we had instant reply in football and court-side TV reviews by referees in basketball games, horse racing filmed/photoed the finish of every race so that the winner was verified by visual science, not by some guy's guess. And the sport has had slow-motion videotaping for ages, for determining whether interference occurred during a race. Winning horses are tested for drugs; players on winning teams in the major human sports are not tested for drugs after each victory. Horse racing probably has more controls in effect than any other sport. But there is no single, central governing body like in pro football. The long delay in this Derby ruling was done by the State of Kentucky's board. I don't know why it took so long, but I don't think any of its members profited by the delay.

Kentucky Administrative Regulations, Title 810, Chapter 6, Regulation 30, Section 10.2: "Payment of valid pari-mutuel tickets shall be made on the basis of the order of finish as declared "official" by the stewards or judges. A subsequent change in the order of finish or award of purse money that could result from a subsequent ruling by the stewards, judges, or commission shall not affect the pari-mutuel payout."

As for whether or not Nevada sports books have to follow those guidelines, that appears to be up to each book. William Hill, for example, has a specific rule that says the official result at the track (in this case, Medina Spirit) is the only one used. This also applies for "futures bets" on the Derby winner.

Thank you, AL and That Don Guy for getting back on subject. But explaining the rules and laws to the conspiracy theorists on the site is an exercise in futility. I actually thought that the original question was due to the fact that Vegas sports books were not tied into the pari-mutuel system because of their ongoing fight with Churchhill Downs, Inc. and therefore booked the race themselves. The track(s) made the same amount of money no matter who won the race, and like in other sports, there are always people trying to cheat. But as AL pointed out, there are more controls to try to stop cheating and catch those who try than in any other sport. Now that legalized sports betting is allowed in many states, maybe the temptation to cheat in other sports will be greater and therefore those sports will need to put better controls in. 

I'm glad Ray posted, because he brought up something that I'm not aware of: the possibility that Las Vegas sports books might be conducting their own parimutuel pools, totally disconnected from Churchill Downs. I had never heard of the sports books having a problem with C.D. and thereby not participating in C.D.'s parimutuel pool. If you can verify this, I'm interested in knowing, but right now, I'm doubting that it's true, because the TV screen will show the payouts soon after the race is over, and if some winning bettors at a sports book got paid less than the amount that the TV shows was paid out at the track, the bettors would raise a big stink and maybe threaten to file a complaint with the Gaming Control Board. It's been a while since I last played the horses at a sports book, but I was always paid the same as what the track paid. I'd never heard anything contradicting that until today.

About the possibility that people could try to sell their (now) willing tickets for Mandaloun on eBay: I say, don't expect much, so I wouldn't bother trying to do that now. This horse simply has not caught the nation's eye; he hasn't excelled, and he doesn't have a story that endears him to people like California Chrome and American Pharoah did. There just would not be any demand for a WIN ticket on him. The only thing that could happen would be if he miraculously got super-good in a year or two and became a "monster"; only THEN would there be a demand. So you should hold on to your ticket if you have one.

It is my understanding that if a race book is not part of the pari-mutuel pool, they do not have their own pari-mutuel pool. They just pay winners the same payouts they would have gotten in the pari mutuel pool, at least for smaller amounts. For large wagers, or very large payouts on exotics, they limit the amount of money you can win. Some bettors might not realize there are limits, but the race book has to post these rules somewhere.