Collusion at the BCBC?
 

http://www.drf.com/news/breeders-cup...hallenge-purse

Would love to hear precisely what is being alleged to have happened here.

The article seems to imply that some of the tournament players feel that there was not a level playing field based on multiple entries being directed from individual players. The complaint letter was indeed signed by Nick Tammaro who might have some interesting insights at some point here on the board.

This is a tough one and I am sure more will come out in the following days, detailing certain events. If nothing here, there will be rule changes moving forward, with stiffer penalties for "skirting" the rules. Tournament play is the most innovative idea to gain new interest in our beloved sport, they cannot let stuff like this continue to dissuade our future players. I do know that I have a MAJOR stake in this as the INQUIRY sign is still flashing so my opinion is probably biased.

On Twitter Sunday there was a number of tweets from a few people I follow that I really did not understand what was meant, but now with this article it seems to be the source.

I always thought it odd that when I looked at this big tourneys the same people participating. In game with a lot of variance I wondered how this was but if there is as much collusion as inferred going on maybe that explains it. I really dont know but would be fascinated to hear what is really happening.

Smart guys found a loophole. Smart guys formed llc. to insulate themselves and effectively announce their intentions. Total dicks but clever. You think the Algo/Rebate guys are the only sharpies?

You dont have to bet you have to deal with the penalty for not betting its not like you lose money for not betting the required amount of races. That's a dumb rule, you are playing for money BUT the penalty is points which hurt your total but not your real money.

Then you have a dude allegedly playing 4 entries as one, BTW you are allowed 2 so he had 2 to 4 times the flexibility the rest had.

Good luck teaching a judge with no clue how they cheated

Reported Wednesday by Pete Fornetale on ATR in Hour 1 and then discussed with Paul Matties in Hour 3: http://stevebyk.com/broadcast/hour-3-paul-matties-2/ (Last 10 minutes or so).

So in a room full of 80 people (just a number) there really is like is something like 10-15 teams and then anyone not teamed is basically a sucker with no shot?

I will listen now.

In Pete's book (The Winning Contest Player), on pages 148-149, Moomey discusses a bit of his live bankroll theory about consolidating entries. His own entries. It seems as though, since publication, he may have expanded his theory to include playing entries under other peoples names. Clearly against tournament rules. It is worth noting because it is exactly what the article said happened with his and Roger Balls entries.

This is clearly not the case. I have lots to say but will wait for all the facts to come out first. But, I can say this for sure. Those “teams” still have to be right with their bets. More often than not, they are wrong and simply contribute to the prize pool for the rest us.

Paul

I wonder if it would make sense to approach those who are not professionals and won some kind of feeder to the tourney to purchase their entry so that you can accumulate a greater number of entries. I dont even know what the prize pool is so that might sound silly.

Again, that only makes sense if your opinions are good. Believe me, it is just as easy to go broke on several entries as it is on one. At the end of the day, you still have to be right.

Paul

multiple entries in and of itself was a mistake on many levels. It was only a matter of time before something like this supposedly happened

The fact that the so called biggest handicapping tournaments allow more than one entry is just plain wrong and unfair to those that have only one entry

Allowing multiple entries was a flaw from day one and all the players and tournament organizers allow it or succumbed to players requesting it for one simple reason. money ! Money trumps the integrity of these tournaments

And if you think any judge isnt going to recognize this simple axiom you are nuts. IMO they should pay the guys or try to settle.

How do you feel of about allowing unlimited entries?

BCBC was trying to be nice by changing the rules regarding missing mandatory races and it was exploited. You get control of enough entries each plunging all in and you are going to eventually score. They need to go back to DQ if you don't get your mandatory bets in. It is not like they are even telling you which races to bet. You have to bet any 5 of 10 on Friday and 5 of 12 on Saturday. If anyone cannot get those in it is clearly on them. Still won't completely close the hole of players colluding though but it will make it a bit harder forcing them to bet earlier and erode their bankroll.

To be fair, the BCBC is a "Betting Challenge" unlike the NHC which is a "Handicapping Championship". The differences between the tournaments is right there in the name. The BCBC, in its original idea, was to crown a more complete player....a handicapper, wagerer, money manager, etc. while the NHC wants to crown a complete handicapper. This is why the NHC uses a wide array of race types and tracks in its mandatories. And why the BCBC uses 2 days worth of top end races, on a top end wagering weekend.

I do agree though that an equal playing field for all would be a truer test, despite what would be an obvious reduction in field size.

I have mixed feelings on this. I never believed that multiple entries is a huge advantage. And since each entry adds to the prize pool where 100% of this money is paid back to the players, more entries is better.

Where it becomes problematic is when multiple entries collude to combine into one. Take an example used in the article. If someone has two entries and brings another person to control two more while working as a team, this is an issue.

Then take a race with a big field and a 9-2 favorite. This allows them to bet all in on four different horses. On Friday, they were right and turned four $7,500 entries into one with over $50,000.

On the other hand, I have seen them employ the same strategy and be wrong, lose everything, and be out of the contest.

Bottom line-in the end, you have to have a good opinion. Multiple entries with bad handicapping opinions only mean bigger losses.

I played one entry and feel like I absolutely can complete. My track record in this contest over the years demonstrates that fact. But people will always look for loopholes and to exploit them. It is up to contest officials to look out for the player and make the field as level as possible for all.

Paul

Agree for the most part Paul. Moomey has gone on record saying this technique works for him 83% of the time. While individuals like yourself and many other astute players can "compete", the deck is stacked against on the "win" end. The playing field is not level. This is especially pertinent in the ever popular "live money" tournaments. They just need to try and consolidate to win, not even profit to win. Whereas guys that are individuals often need 10x starting bankroll or more. If his 83% number is accurate, then 83% of the time we are up against it. And when there are several groups playing with a similar structure there is almost a certainty that one or more will move forward with it within a given tournament making the 83% seem more like 99%. Good luck to us.

Eric, like all players, lose far more often than they win. No player wins any bet 83% of the time. Not defending him or his "strategy". Just pointing out the obvious.

If you look at the number of entries he plays in his own name and the number of wins he has, this is quite clearly not true.

Paul

I understand that he doesn't win his bet 83% of the time. His gambit of finding a race that is wide open, playing 4 different horses, if he is manipulating 4 entries say, means he plays 7500 per, all in an effort to get 30000 on to one ticket, not 7500x4. Or even 8 horses at 3750, or some variant depending on the odds more likely.

One entry with 30000 on it is more powerful than 4 with 7500 each. His gambit of consolidating works at a high percentage. He needn't be very clever...I mean a 3-1 would get it consolidated.

If there are several guys or groups employing this tactic, say 10...even if they fail at a 50% clip, its still stands to reason that half will be successful in the consolidation process. Making those entries tough to beat.

Yes, some will zero out to our benefit. I still believe that it is easier to beat 4 entries that have 7500 than one that has 30000. The consolidating is a great strategy. Just not when you are employing tickets NOT yours to get this accomplished. That's what makes it awful.

I agree with this.

Paul

FORNATALE ~ RACE PASSING DISCUSSION: http://www.drf.com/news/bcbc-rule-ch...nning-strategy

At the heart of the controversy surrounding the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, which has held up the distribution of purses pending an investigation, is a rule change. But first, you need to understand something about the BCBC and why it was invented.

Ken Kirchner, who was the founder of the BCBC and a wagering consultant for the event from 2009-15, explained, “The purpose of the tournament is to have players bet. The whole point of the BCBC was not just to reward horseplayers with the biggest live-money tournament in racing … it was also to drive parimutuel handle.”

He also pointed out that asking players to bet $7,500 over the weekend isn’t exactly a hardship.

“You’ve got 13 Breeders’ Cup races plus full fields on the undercards,” he said. “It’s not a burden to ask players to bet on 10 of those 22 races when you’re betting on the best of the best.”

Back in 2015, rules regarding minimum wagers were strict. A player missing a minimum bet on Friday ($600 on five races) would receive a 5,000-point penalty off of his or her final score. If one missed a Saturday minimum ($900 on five races), that would be cause for disqualification. This rule cost Nisan Gabbay – this year’s unofficial winner – back in 2015.

Gabbay failed to get a bet in for the Juvenile on Saturday, in a year when he said he planned to make a significant final bet on an exacta in the Classic with American Pharoah on top of Effinex, an exacta that would eventually pay $76.40.

“I would have won the tournament,” Gabbay said. “Instead, I got shut out in the line. That’s where that largely came from. We didn’t think you should be DQ’ed just because of bad luck.”

Gabbay also said that he and his partner Kevin McFarland believed that players should be freed up to pass races so that they could make sizable bets late in the tournament without risking their bankrolls with spot plays at the minimum earlier on the card.

“You should be able to bet the entire amount [of your bankroll] on the last few races,” he said.

Kirchner said that since the tournament’s inception different groups of players had lobbied for different rule changes – the addition of horizontal bets, for example. A small group of players, including McFarland and Christian Hellmers, had been lobbying for a removal of minimum bets as far back as 2012. He added that the more stringent rules were in place despite the knowledge “that there was already a body of evidence out there that the winning strategy might be to sit on a bankroll to make big plays at the end.”

The new rules allowed players such as Gabbay and Hellmers and approximately 10 others to sit on their bankrolls on Day 1 for an insignificant penalty of 1,000 points per race to be deducted from their final score. On Day 2, players missing minimums were deducted just 2,000 points per race from their final scores. Many tournament players assumed that the money also was deducted from their active bankrolls, but it was not. As the current rule is written, to not play on Day 1 is an advantage (note that second-place finisher Ron Ferrise also didn’t wager on Day 1). And with so few in the field understanding the new rule, the advantage was outsized.

Breeders’ Cup officials did not return calls Friday seeking comment on how the rule changes impacted the tournament.

National Horseplayers Championship Hall of Famer Paul Shurman, one of the most respected tournament players in the game, emphasized that the new rule’s meaning wasn’t clear, in part because it was so antithetical to the entire raison d’etre of live-bank tournament play.

“The entire premise of BCBC is that you have to bet $600 on at least five races on Day 1 and at least $900 on at least five races on Day 2,” Shurman said. “That’s what players understood the requirements were and that’s how players handicapped and played the contest.”

He estimated that 98 percent of the players in the BCBC played the contest as it was initially intended. “Many played races they didn’t like just to try to get the requirements out of the way. How many players lost $600 or $900 playing that amount of money on odds-on favorite to show and lost it because the horse ran out of the money?”

The presumption that players had to make those wagers was reinforced by the fact that “after penalty” scores posted on the BCBC leaderboard at the beginning of Day 2 showed players who made no bets with $2,500.

“Why would anyone assume, and how would anyone know, that those players actually had $7,500 to bet with, not just $2,500?,” Shurman said.

That presumption was of course also reinforced by the fact that the new rule runs directly contrary to the interests of the BCBC.

“It doesn’t make sense that the BCBC would institute a rule that would decrease the amount of money a player had to wager,” Shurman continued. “Theoretically, nobody had to make a wager on Day 1 or until the end of Day 2. There is really no penalty.”

In the end, a small group of advantage players lobbied for a rule change that they then exploited to win more than $500,000 at the world’s richest live-bankroll tournament.

That attitude seems to be the prevailing one, with more players questioning the way the contest was run as opposed to the validity of Gabbay’s win.

Professional horseplayer Sean Boarman was playing in just his second live-bankroll tournament.

“I’m done with these things unless something big changes,” he said. “It’s a million-dollar tournament, and they run it like a neighborhood poker game.”

– additional reporting by Matt Hegarty

Sorry Bud... There will be many people not happy with this outcome.

http://www.drf.com/news/two-players-...collusion-bcbc

I work with a guy whose is good friends with Moomey, one of the few local people I know that I can have a interactive conversation about racing.
The guy on the bubble is probably one of the happy ones, Jim....

I am team Ed Peters here. Offer stands if you are in Vegas either for last chance or NHC I got you covered for Pappy Van Winkle flght at Arias. I plan on working remotely from Vegas during the week.

you are awesome Jim...I am still working on the house post Harvey....would love to be there and share a whiskey or three with you....maybe next year my friend:tro:

Their conclusion that because they EACH only had 1 entry, and therefore it was the same as one person having 2 is kind of bogus. The difference is obvious....they are 2 people, NOT 1. Collusion, by legal definition, cannot be done by one person, only 2 or more. You cannot collude with yourself. They for sure got away with a rules violation here. No doubt.

So if Moomey and Ball each had 1 entry and employed their same tactics that it would have been fine? Because it seems that is what they are implying.

At least this should eliminate the majority of the group play and start to level the playing field off a bit.

I don't know....on to the next one I guess.

This explanation is an ill-conceived legal argument add in they have played under an LLC for the propose of competing jointly and you have further hurdles to overcome. Let's get on with it give them their bounty and make some more cogent rules that aren't contradictory.

And publish the details so we can see if others involved. Are players competing against a “Relay team” in these big money events? Sure seems like you see some well know players often bust out really early. Why would that be? It is all a game of math. If I hit a certain bet 10% of the time and have 2 entries and recruit 4 friends who also hit at that clip and they have 2 entries each and we each go ALL IN on that bet. How often does our team put themselves in position for a major score? All the more profitable if you are able to get some entries on the cheap via qualifiers or are backed by investors. Do I know this is happening NO but I would be the least suprised person in the room if it comes to light that it is. I didn't spend a dime this year trying to qualify for other reasons and looks like I was lucky I didnt.

Wondering who will be paying for the pending legal battle? Lawyers don't work for free.