Two recent takedowns of jackpot pools in California by the operators of computer-assisted wagering programs have swung the spotlight back on an issue that continues to frustrate many horseplayers despite the longtime presence of the programs in parimutuel pools worldwide. The jackpot payouts, at Pleasanton two weeks ago and last Sunday at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, both paid out the entire, single-ticket pool when one CAW operator had the same combination at a multiple of the minimum bet. In the case of Pleasanton, the winning ticket had two of the same combinations at the minimum 20-cent base price, while at Del Mar the winning ticket was bet at an $8 denomination, four times the $2 minimum. For some, the two payouts have rekindled concerns about the influence and access of CAW operators, which receive outsized rebates on their handle and use programs based on sophisticated algorithms to devise deep and expensive wagering plays. The programs typically use direct-data feeds to onload thousands of bets into the pools just before post. :: Want to get your Past Performances for free? Click to learn more. Regulators at the California Horse Racing Board, reacting to conspiratorial talk on social media, reviewed both winning tickets and found them in compliance with the state’s rules for awarding jackpot bets, according to the board’s spokesman, Mike Marten. But the outcry over the bets was so heated that Marten posted a three-part statement on social media Monday night detailing that the Del Mar bet was made by a CAW operators that spent $29,652 on 8,361 combinations. The denominations of the bets ranged from $60 down to the $2 minimum, and the winning bet – which included horses that were logical in every race – was played for $8. CAWs use weighted probabilities to determine the amount of each bet, because the programs are designed to cash bets: With sizeable rebates and enormous daily activity, the programs are merely trying to churn out an annual return in the 2 to 4 percent range. The greater the probability that a wager will be successful, the larger the amount of the bet. :: Play Saratoga with DRF! Visit our Saratoga shop for DRF PPs, Picks, Betting Strategies, and Clocker Reports The $8 denomination of the winning Del Mar bet seemed to be the trigger for the outcry, as many horseplayers asked why a bet at four times the minimum should be deemed a single ticket (since it was a “straight” play, it also harkened back to part of the structure of the fraudulent Breeders’ Cup pick-six ticket in 2002). Pat Cummings, the executive director of a racing advocacy group, the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation, said that many horseplayers were “only just finding out” that bets made at greater than the minimum play qualified as a single bet for the jackpot, even if that was the case all along. “Almost all of these people have been told to play at the lowest denomination,” Cummings said. “That is how the bet has been sold to them.” That is a reflection of the strategies many horseplayers have adopted in an era in which multi-leg wagers have grown in popularity, in part because of a consistent move by racetracks to lower the minimum wager. For most players, it’s far more important to cover more combinations than to try to generate winning tickets at higher denominations than the minimum. Since CAWs became commonplace in pools around the world in the past 20 years, a debate has raged over whether the programs receive unfair advantages, either because of their direct link to the pools or because of the size of the rebates they receive. But those debates seem somewhat outdated in the present-day, when most sophisticated bettors receive rebates on their handle and account-wagering companies provide customers with the ability to batch their own bets (It needs to be noted that non-CAW players generally receive lower rebates than CAW operators, and that their ability to batch bets is far more limited). Jackpot bets have played a large role in renewing the controversy. Dismissed as inefficient gimmicks by many horseplayers, jackpot bets award a portion of the pool when the sequence is hit by multiple players while reserving a separate portion for a carryover. That allows the carryover pool to build rapidly, sometimes for weeks. The entire pool is only awarded when a single player has a winning ticket, or on a day designated by the track for a mandatory payout. The “single bettor” or “single ticket” definition has created controversy in the recent past. Just this past spring, a bettor, Jeff Arthur, was denied the full jackpot at Remington Park when a dead heat created two winning combinations on his single ticket, a decision that sparked a full-throated outcry among the horse racing community and led the Oklahoma Racing Commission to order Remington to suspend the bet. The Association of Racing Commissioners International has a model rule that directs any ticket to be treated as a single ticket for jackpot purposes in the event of dead heats or scratches, a rule that is in place for Pleasanton and Del Mar but not universally adopted by all tracks across the U.S. While CAW programs are active in nearly every sizeable pool in racing, there are some exceptions. Exotic bets that have low takeout rates are rarely targeted to a significant degree by CAW programs, because as takeouts go down, account-wagering operators that cater to CAW programs have less room to award rebates. That cuts into the programs’ ability to generate positive returns without an exceptional win rate. And then there is the late pick 5 offered by the New York Racing Association, with a 50-cent minimum and 15 percent takeout. :: DRF's Del Mar headquarters – Stakes schedule, previews, recaps, past performances, and more Launched in the summer of 2017, the bet was first made available only to customers of NYRA Bets, which did not take on CAW operators as customers. It has since been expanded to all NYRA customers – but the bet still does not allow CAW operators in the pools. A late pick 5 offered on Saturday linking NYRA races with those at other tracks also does not allow CAW activity. The bets are not advertised as being “CAW-free,” reflecting the caution exhibited by many racetrack operators when dealing with CAW activity. By drawing attention to the exception, racetrack operators are fearful that everyday bettors might begin to look askance at all the other pools in which CAW activity usually hits 30 percent of the betting. NYRA officials are counting on the late pick 5 to generate data on the win rates of CAW operators and whether those win rates are cutting into non-CAW handle. Unfortunately, this year’s data will be specious: The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown so many new variables into betting models that conclusions based on 2020 data will be suspect. For those troubled by the participation of CAW operators in the pools, it would be wrong to conclude they are going away. Programs similar to those used by CAW operators are ingrained in every financial market in the world, and the beleaguered racing industry is looking for every dollar it can get. “They’re obviously very big customers who generate a lot of revenue for the sport,” said one racetrack operator who did not want to be identified because of the backlash he might face.