The Million $ Question for Derby Day
 

Will XpressBet actually work this year?

Will TwinSpires and United Tote not crash this year?

Will it take until 2:00 EDT for you to find something to bi.tch about?

I guess that is a legit question. I have used youbet for many years and never had any kind of problem.....Hopefull ex bet will be up to the task of getting all this new action from the former youbet people.....

I guess there needs to be a reminder that the Oregon hub -- NOT THE ADW's -- was the source of the problem...


AmTote Hub Locked Up Twice Before Derby
By Eric Mitchell

Posted: Monday, May 3, 2010 3:46 PM

Some bettors across the country nearly got shut out of the May 1 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) when AmTote International’s multi-jurisdictional wagering hub in Portland, Ore., locked up twice within 50 minutes of the Derby’s post time. The outage affected the advanced deposit wagering platforms TwinsSpires.com and XpressBet, in addition to Arlington Park and Fair Grounds Race Course.

A couple of executives for affected ADWs said it’s hard to estimate how much Kentucky Derby handle was lost during the 22 minutes customers could not place wagers. Despite the system lock-up, the all-sources handle for the Derby improved 7.8% to $112.7 million compared with $104.6 million last year, according to Churchill Downs.

AmTote statement on Twin Spires, Xpress, AP, FG 'lockup'

May 1st 2010 Oregon Incident

This is a preliminary technical report of AmTote International’s May 1, 2010 service outages on the Oregon Hub. The first outage occurred from 14:11:18 until 14:19:07 PDT. The second occurred from 15:08:56 until 15:21:50 PDT. In both cases, the service outage was caused by a controlled system shutdown and restart which was required to reset the system because a key software component became locked due to transaction volumes.

AmTote has identified a remedy to this locking issue and the remedy will be implemented no later than May 4, 2010. In both cases, AmTote has not identified any wagers occurring after pool close on races hosted on the Oregon hub. No other AmTote hub facilities were affected by this locking issue.

AmTote conducts rigorous testing of all software it deploys including a volume stress test which was conducted on the Oregon system prior to May 1, 2010. This stress test did not identify any issues with the system. The software version running on the Oregon hub had been in place for 28 weeks prior to May 1, 2010, with no issues occurring.

bet early and often. no whining.

If you hire a third party contractor to perform work for you and that contractor fails to do so correctly, you are the responsible party not the contractor you hired. While they may ultimately be to blame, the issue affects the clients of the ADW and the ADW directly. I understand the technology and the situation but the question is still on my mind and hopefully everyone else too as the day approaches.

I will be wagering early, no whining. Just a question.

You are right but the relationship between Xpressbet and AmTote is not a "third party contractor hired by Xpressbet." They are the vehicle for which wagers are entered into the pool. These things happen, they're unfortunate when they do, but it was out of Xpressbet and Twinspires' control. All they can do is check with AmTote to ensure a similar situation doesn't occur in the future.

In 2008 I sat like an idiot in the Hilton Racebook and watched the first four races from CD with no ability to wager. It wasn't the fault of the Hilton, the Las Vegas Simulcasting Co. was down. Sort of the same thing.

That is just torture!
You would expect to get teased in Vegas but, come on.

I was at the Orleans that year dealing with the exact same issue, the problem was rolling though the said. We missed races 4-8 if I remember correctly.

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/nat...lm-system.aspx

This makes me feel better.