RaceCafe..#1...Tipsters Thread.... Share Your Fancies For Fun...Lets See Who The Best Tipsters Here Are.
john legend

tab con ?

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  •   has anyone else noticed how the indicitave return on the tote can fluctuate wildly even after startime. nearly every race changes show the balancing between fixed odds and the tote must be the TAB laying off into their own systems. It is very disappointing to be expecting say 3.00 return when it changes during the race and 2.00 is declared. We al hear the huge bets going on fixed (which are prob more than 50% of total turnover ) which obviously. are a risk and its not laying off that is a problem but it is suspicious when changes are made after the first 800 metres run ???????????????:mellow:

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This has been going on for a long time but has got worse in recent months. It is absolute murder for place punters with $1.80 dropping to $1.10 or $1.20 quite often. It appears that the tab hold back turnover to keep a favourite showing a good value price early to tempt punters into backing it at the last minute. This held back money then goes on during the race.  At the same time the fixed odds value will be very low, so taking that is not worth while.

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In the pre-fixed odds era where eveything was done manually, certainly before anything was available online, they used to announce that the "Tote was closed" prior to race start. Races used to run predictably late, but the odds you saw on the board were almost exactly what you got.

But today with everything done by computers, it's possible to process thousands of transactions in a fraction of a second. On the customer side, this allows for more last moment bets, but more significantly, on the administrative side, it allows for a lot more "balancing of the books", especially now that fixed odds is a big part of the picture.

I'd imagine as part of their system the TAB are able to monitor their overall position on any event or race in real time, and have the ability to mitigate that risk by offloading to their own or outside betting pools almost instantly. And this would all happen in the final seconds of betting, hence the odds being updated a minute into the race.

In the "old days" when you bet on the TAB you were just battling other punters. These days you are almost certainly also battling a lightning fast computer algorithm designed to minimise the TAB's fixed odds liabilities.

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I agree with flagship.Not sure whether what you are saying makes any sense to me. Your talking about place betting on favourites.   Why would our tab lay off substantial amounts onto the tote for a place to cover any loses they may incur on the fixed odds. The simple reason this makes no sense is because their return from laying off large amounts on a favourite for a place on the tote would be so minimal, especially if they reduce the price to $1.10 or $1.20  as quoted earlier. It does not change the liability they have on the fixed odds already.  I can understand if they had taken a bit of money on a longshot,but not the favourites.   

I follow the aussie dogs sometimes. Their odds change dramatically at the end sometimes.   My theory on why this happens is that some aussie bookmakers must pay out on the tote odds, thus  if said bookmaker has what looks like a large liability coming up then they reduce that by putting some of the money on the tote to reduce the odds they will pay out.  Not sure,but don't some of those aussie bookies pay out on the middle  of prices of the totes they have over there.? maybe they are the ones doing the same here? Only a theory,but it makes more sense to me. Also could just be bulk of money goes on at end anyway. 

Would be nice to see the breakdown of when and what bets were laid. Why cant someone ask our tab and they could tell us.

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My guess at how the TAB use high tech solutions to manage their risk is just that - a guess. But I'd be surprised if they aren't using something along the lines of what I suggested.

It's much the same principle as that used by power companies to "load balance" depending on where the greatest power demand is, or webhosting companies having automated systems to balance the load on their servers depending on which websites are using the most resources.

It's not a big stretch to imagine that the TAB are "optimising their fixed odds position" by offloading some funds into the tote pools to offset a certain amout of risk when necessary.

For a one-off race it mightn't make a huge difference to their bottom line, but when you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of a year, a small percentage improvement in their margin can add up to a lot of money.

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11 hours ago, JackSprat said:

My guess at how the TAB use high tech solutions to manage their risk is just that - a guess. But I'd be surprised if they aren't using something along the lines of what I suggested.

It's much the same principle as that used by power companies to "load balance" depending on where the greatest power demand is, or webhosting companies having automated systems to balance the load on their servers depending on which websites are using the most resources.

It's not a big stretch to imagine that the TAB are "optimising their fixed odds position" by offloading some funds into the tote pools to offset a certain amout of risk when necessary.

For a one-off race it mightn't make a huge difference to their bottom line, but when you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of a year, a small percentage improvement in their margin can add up to a lot of money.

Most of the tote money goes on in the last 30 secs and quite a bit of that from favorite backers including those from overseas. The TAB system is that slow that I would say it is playing catch up in those last few seconds. They need to update their system so it is not third world.

 

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It's not third world - it's fourth world and in danger of slipping to fifth world,      Not much if anything we can do - we all know about monopolies!      Like it or lump it - and the majority of us (especially the smaller punter)  will shrug our shoulders and reluctantly go along with the status quo.

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1 hour ago, eljay said:

It's not third world - it's fourth world and in danger of slipping to fifth world,      Not much if anything we can do - we all know about monopolies!      Like it or lump it - and the majority of us (especially the smaller punter)  will shrug our shoulders and reluctantly go along with the status quo.

That is true to a degree but I probably fit into the category of a small punter, I use to place bet on the Aussie dogs and Aussie Harness at night but I have given up as the prices fluctuate so wildly from the close of the race, particularly on the dogs. I got sick of thinking I was getting one price only for it to be something completely different, usually less. I am not suggesting anything untoward was going on other a slow system but it's very frustrating. I realise some would say that the fixed odds but they are often slow to be put up and unappealing. Between the price movements and the comingling debacle I don't really bet during the week at all.   

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I call it false and misleading, I rang the TAB many years ago about this as I backed a dog paying $5 a place and that was the only reason I backed it, because I thought it was a good return, at the end of the race div came up at $2.50. 

False advertising, imagine if you went into a shop and bought something of the shelf that said $25 and by the time you got to the counter, it had gone up to $40. You would be pissed off.

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3 hours ago, 45yearsofharness said:

I call it false and misleading, I rang the TAB many years ago about this as I backed a dog paying $5 a place and that was the only reason I backed it, because I thought it was a good return, at the end of the race div came up at $2.50. 

False advertising, imagine if you went into a shop and bought something of the shelf that said $25 and by the time you got to the counter, it had gone up to $40. You would be pissed off.

You don't suck at ridiculous comparisons do you.

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On 21/06/2017 at 11:03 AM, Flagship uberalles said:

All I can think is the all up money is not put into the pool until after the race has started or the system is so fricken old it can't keep up.

Former defies logic on multiple counts so can't be ruled out entirely :rolleyes:

Latter is the well worn excuse for many things.

Can it not be last second bets and last minute co mingled bets from Australia ?

Quaddie & First Four pools seem to get a large boost real late.

 

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The TAB don't want you to bet.

This morning trying to get my multi on, tells me the odds have changed but don"t give me the new odds. TAB  15 minutes and counting is too long for getting a bet on.

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