TRPB seeks extra safeguard to close betting pools
By Matt Hegarty
http://www.drf.com/news/article/109604.html
The Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, an investigative arm of the racing industry owned by racetracks, plans to develop a mechanism to ensure that betting closes prior to a race starting, the organization announced on Thursday.
The mechanism would act as an additional safeguard to existing policies and protocols that close betting pools at the start of the race, said TRPB president Frank Fabian. The board of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations, which owns the TRPB, voted on Thursday to endorse the concept and provide funding to fully develop and implement the mechanism, according to the organization.
A further safeguard against pools remaining open after the start of a race would allow the racing industry to address serious concerns of many gamblers who have been critical of the bet-processing network over the past several years. Although many racing officials contend that the failures are extremely rare, any failure is typically portrayed by critics as being representative of a network that has glaring security gaps.
The stop-betting command is typically issued by a steward who pushes a button at the moment the gates open for the race, an action that transmits an electronic signal throughout the nationwide simulcast network. Occasionally, a communications failure between two sites in the network can result in the pools staying open for the race as it is being run at the sites affected by the failure.