Harness: Odds should be set in stone when the starter says "GO"

They say seeing is believing. If that is the case then the opposite would be if you can’t see something you shouldn’t believe or trust it.

That’s exactly where I find myself in the bewildering lack of substance behind the betting lines. We’ve been told to trust the system and that system includes money passed between betting houses clearly after the racing has begun. The shifting of odds happens behind the scenes and those of us watching the races and odds changing simultaneously are left to wonder if all bets were in fact completed before the start or seconds after the start of a race.

Over the last few months I’ve witnessed some incredibly short exacta prices where a simple box exacta of horses leaving the gate would have been sufficient to hit the wager. In most of these cases longshot leavers were the inspiration for what should have been extreme payouts. The grim reality of the results was low payoffs and the question of impropriety.

Since The Meadowlands is the leader in handle for harness racing, I reached out to management, who assured me that no bets were placed after the start of the race and that while the payoffs were short, it wasn’t due to anyone garnering advantage at the outset of the race.

While the answer may have been satisfactory in this one particular incidence, it hardly relieves those watching and wagering from afar from the prospect that some people can and do wager at the last minute and beyond.

There is a broad reason for this and one I feel needs to be curtailed in the near term. You see in most cases the pool totals grow exponentially on the last flash (the one that happens while the race is already in progress). What’s impossible for the average player to understand is where the money is coming from and the overpowering impact in many cases this “flash” creates in changing the prices a player saw when he bet two minutes to post compared to the one he actually collects afterwards.

In times when racetracks were filled with players and all parties were subject to finish wagering prior to the bell ringing, there was never a concern that some people could gain advantage over others. Though I know of people who were able to bet the “Bell” at Roosevelt Raceway and then cancel wagers once the race began, eventually that loophole was removed.

But in current times, since wagering outlets of varied classifications have direct access to the same machinery once occupied by individual tellers, it’s virtually impossible to know exactly when everyone is truly cut off from placing wagers. The fact that odds change when horses hit the quarter pole only gives rise to the belief that gathering of wagers and recalibrating the odds is more time consuming than we’d like to think and opens the door to potential wrongdoing.

If we are truly a sport concerned with integrity and that means not just integrity of those taking care of our horses but those handling the wagering money, then we must be wary of the gigantic loophole the current system has created. What bothers me more than anything of the potential damage here is that with post time “drags” going for as long as 10 minutes sometimes, why is there such and overriding concern to let wagers go right up to post time? Exactly how much time does the betting public require to place a wager?

A simple answer that would curtail any speculation of “past-posting” activity going onward would be to close the betting windows in advance of the horses moving behind the starting gate. If it takes 30 seconds for all bets to be sent from all locations then I would suggest closing the windows 35 seconds before the start of each race.

To me the best form of integrity is for every player to know exactly what he/she is going to receive in mutuel benefits before the actual race begins. Then there would be zero questions of impropriety.

I find it difficult to comprehend why all harness tracks haven’t imposed this kind of deadline already.

If the counter-argument is the potential loss of betting dollars, one has to wonder what type of player might be weeded out by this change in timing. In other words, what player must make wagers at the very last second. If no one truly knows what the actual odds are going to be no matter how long they wait to bet, what advantage would disappear if betting closed in advance of post time? The short answer is the edge that perhaps some players have of watching the horses behind the gate right up to the start or moments after it. As far as I can see there’s no reason to accommodate these people if all players aren’t fitted with the same ability. That’s what integrity truly means, offering a so-called level playing field for all customers, not just those in close proximity to wagering hubs.

I’m not a big fan of banning certain individuals and allowing others to participate. In effect that suggests it’s possible to know with specificity who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. To me that opens the door to favoritism and the very same corruption one is trying to root out. The same goes for wagering hubs created specifically for big players. In the short run added wagering may seem like a great idea, but in the long run those with extreme advantages will do a lot more harm to decimate the smaller players and at the end of the day pools will shrink.

It’s time to think of the small guy. It’s time to certify the product and the authenticity of the wagering pools in a way that makes it impossible, not just improbable, for cheating to take place. With all of the advance time allotted to place wagers there’s just no reason to feed into potential bad behavior.

All bettors should expect that host tracks have their back.

Start the countdown clock 35 seconds earlier then post FINAL odds before every race starts.