I agree that no matter what time is set as the final closing time for betting, money is going to come in bundles right up until the off. If you are smarter than I am, or start with more money than I do, or some combination of the two or some other factor leads you to handicap better or bet more efficiently than I do, I can live with it. The unfairness is exactly as TGJB said – apparently direct access to pools and the ability to see the odds and place bets (robotically) far closer to the off than a non-robotic bettor could dream of. That the size of one's bets dictates that one gets privileged access that others do not (and indeed the efforts made to keep hushed up the very fact that this privileged access is provided) is what is unfair. How many milliseconds does it take between the time the starter's finger starts to press down on the gate opening button and the time his finger is fully pressed and the gate opens? How many bets can the CRW lot get down in that time? Changes in the odds couldn't be displayed to the public anywhere near that fast, let alone a bet be put through.
And it is not just here. Obviously, most of the money bet on Irish and British racing is done via bookmakers or on the exchanges, but we here can only bet via their Tote systems. (The only place where I routinely do not see the big late fluctuations is on the French tote.) The proportion of money bet too late to be reflected in the posted odds in Irish and British races until after the race starts is such that using the posted tote odds at any time during the run-up to the race to assess the betting is useless (especially in Ireland where there is less liquidity). One has to approach the race assuming that the bookmaker odds shown by Oddschecker or at the Racing Post or other media will be generally reflected in the closing tote odds, except that short-priced favorites will generally be bet down shorter. I have assumed that this is bookmakers using the tote to cover their liabilities, the same way they do on the exchanges. But are CRW teams actively betting on racing there? The conditions (horse population and movement between courses, ground conditions, course layouts) are less static there than anywhere else, but there is plenty of money being bet.
And that's not to mention the issues they've had over there with bettors flying drones over and near racecourses in an effort to get live pictures to beat the delayed feed shown on their TV channels. Doesn't TVG / Betfair offer in-running betting on their New Jersey exchange? (Is this connected or pooled together with the main exchange in Britain?) Since the TVG feed on my TV is always a second or two behind the track feeds shown on the NYRA website, I assume that someone must be cleaning up pretty handsomely.
Apologies if this is too far off-topic. Good luck to anyone playing Royal Ascot this week.
