TRPB Targets Enhanced Network Efficiency With Comprehensive Tote Security System

The Thoroughbred Racing Associations (TRA) Board of Directors has voted unanimously to support development by the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau (TRPB) of a tote security system to ensure the close of betting throughout the pari-mutuel network and eliminate dramatic shifts in

final odds through the production and dissemination of real-time decimal odds to participating host racetracks for use in their video display.

The TRPB Tote Security System (TSS) is a parallel network communications infrastructure designed to transmit specific tote data independently from the current Inter-Tote System Protocol (ITSP) used for all data communication.

Upon implementation within 18-24 months, TSS will provide to participating racetracks and wagering outlets the following improvements and enhancements in the transmission of tote system data:

• Real-time decimal odds, initially in the win pool, which will provide more timely and accurate information for bettors to calculate expected payouts.
• An improved, standardized stop-betting device and process, which will ensure betting has ceased at every retail network on the TRPB Tote Security System at the start of every race upon the stop betting command being issued by the host.
• The ability for a host racetrack association to identify and authenticate each simulcast retailer’s participation in the host’s races, ensuring only authorized access to its pools.
• The ability for a host racetrack to verify essential control functions occurring within the host’s network, such as pool participation, ITSP information, cancel delay time, currency, and minimum bet values.
• The ability for a host racetrack to audit wagering transaction detail on Pick-n pools on a leg-by-leg basis.
• An increased capability for participating host racetracks to hasten development of new wagering opportunities and expand betting markets.

Important features of the TRPB Tote Security System can be accessed and viewed by the host track representatives and their authorized regulators through a secure web-based portal, which also will make available a variety of other wagering integrity tools currently utilized by TRPB in analyzing wagering data.

“The TRPB Tote Security System is a measured, reasoned, and realistic response to communication failures and late odds shifts which have fueled a lack of public confidence in the current tote system,” stated TRPB President Frank Fabian. “These measures vastly improve tote security by enabling host track managers far greater visibility to activity within their pools at the click of a keyboard. And, no less important, it will enable the pari-mutuel industry to better serve its wagering public.”

“This is an effective refinement of the distribution of data that would not be possible without significant redesign of the current tote system, which was not initially engineered for multiple sources of wagering,” TRA Executive Vice President Chris Scherf said. “The tote companies have been vital contributors to the concept and design of the TRPB Tote Security System.”

Vendors partnering with TRPB in the development of the Tote Security System include The Jockey Club Technology Services, Inc. and InCompass Solutions, Inc., (both wholly-owned subsidiaries of The Jockey Club), and Roberts Communications Network, Inc. Senior technical representatives of AmTote International, United Tote Company, Sportech, Inc., and Las Vegas Dissemination Company also have worked extensively with TRPB.

The TRPB, incorporated in 1946 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America, provides security, investigative, and analytic services to its corporate owners and the horseracing industry. Its mandate is to expose and investigate all activity prejudicial to horseracing and to maintain public confidence in the sport of Thoroughbred racing.

(TRA)