Win, Place or Drone

January 16, 2024 12:48 AM

In professional horse racing, it takes a fraction of a second for a race to change course entirely, so if a bettor can spot that a horse in second place is making a late charge before anyone else, they can place a bet on it winning when the odds are more favourable. from The Horse, the Drone and the Epic Fight for Gambling Success [Wired; ungated]
posted by chavenet (12 comments total)

This is like a movie script. McCool indeed.
posted by Literaryhero at 2:19 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]

Things have come a long way since the Yellow Sam sting.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 4:29 AM on January 16 [2 favorites]

I find this really interesting, in part because rules about drones also apply to police drones. So the implementation of new restrictions on drones would also create new restrictions on police drones, which I would welcome. So I say: plan on, McCool, make yourself just annoying enough that laws are created decreeing people own the airspace over their property at low levels.
posted by corb at 4:37 AM on January 16 [4 favorites]

I find this really interesting, in part because rules about drones also apply to police drones

In my observation, oftentimes the laws that apply to everyone else do not in fact apply to police.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:46 AM on January 16 [5 favorites]

[ holds sides in full belly laugh ] When in "remedial driving class" after getting a speeding ticket, I, sassy 20 year old little shit that I was, asked the instructor how was it that off duty cops and friends/family of cops with the cop union stickers on their cars could speed with impunity, and she said it was "a benefit of the job." Ahh, I said, like how bank tellers can pocket 20 dollar bills as a benefit of the job. Reader, I did not get kicked out of "remedial driving class" that day, but it was close.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:02 AM on January 16 [9 favorites]

In other racing news, Macau is shutting down operations.
posted by sardonyx at 7:52 AM on January 16 [2 favorites]

I had no idea you could still place bets after a horse race had started.

The whole thing sounds a bit like high-speed trading where your advantage isn't really in knowing more about the market but in shortening the time it takes your expert systems to react and get a signal back to the stock exchange's trading computers.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:01 AM on January 16 [2 favorites]

That was my reaction as well jacquilynne. I knew there was in-game betting for things like NHL or NBA games, but I never would have suspected such a thing for horse racing. I mean the races themselves are roughly two minutes. It almost takes that long to make a bet.

But then again, I'm the kind of racing fan who can go to the track and not place a single wager.
posted by sardonyx at 9:32 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]

On Matt Levine’s Money Stuff the other day he said it probably wasn’t insider training (not legal advice!) if you’re on a plane where the door pops out and you use the inflight WiFi to short Boeing before anybody else hears about it,
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:42 AM on January 16 [6 favorites]

If you can fuck over bookies and casinos while remaining on the right side of the law/regs, more power to you. They allowed in-play betting and got hoisted by their own petard.
posted by KingEdRa at 2:22 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]

This reads like the high-speed traders in 'Flash Boys'. Gain an advantage by having the information a split second before anyone else.

I wonder how in-play betting works when there is a runaway winner. Wouldn't everyone just pile their money on some horse leading by ten lengths with eleven left to go or do you need a willing seller in order to buy into the leader?
posted by Phreesh at 3:27 PM on January 16

The odds aren't fixed, the more people who bet on a particular horse the lower the payout.

I wonder if this would really work well when betting more than one race on a single bet. If you know the likely winner of the first race it makes it a lot easier to pick a successful combo.
posted by Mitheral at 4:44 PM on January 16