Is the Tote being manipulated ?

I have no problem when they cancell a ticket....BUT BEFORE THE JUMP..
TOTE OPERATORS MUST BE ABLE TO CANCELL TICKETS if customer cannot produce cash
THE TOTE IS CLOSED FOR TRANSACTIONS WHEN THEY JUMP...

THE ISSUE IS>>
WHILE THE RACE IS RUNNING..BETS ARE BEING TAKEN AND CANCELLED.......

Maybe..the tote is ahead of BETFAIR...IN RUNNING BETTING............

I am an auditor myself and would therefore give some light on this topic.

Funny enough the document that everyone looks for in a set of financial statements is the audit report. If it is an unqualified opinion, the investors therefore rely on the fact that the accounts are not materially mistated.

One of the issues here is that Phumelela is a company listed on the JSE. They therefore have to strive for good governance and try and keep the company as squeeky clean as possible. Therefore unqualified opinions is what they should strive for. If the opinion is qualified they get something like a black mark against their name or like you would say they go into a black book. If the company keeps producing qualified opinions, they will be removed from the JSE as the JSE strives for excellence.

Why do you think local government audit reports are qualified. We do not need to go down that avenue to explain this.

A big percentage of Phumelela's turnover is derived from cash bets struck. In most cases this alone gives rise to a qualified audit opinion as there is a risk that revenue may not exist. However I am sure the auditors have other procedures they have in place to ensure this risk is kept to an acceptable level.

Another thing to remember is whether the fraud is being committed at staff level or management level. If these cases are at staff level, the risk is not as high as at management level. Management should try and locate the fraud and deal with it accordingly.

Also remember that if these cases are remote or not significant as a whole and are dealt with accordingly then this has no affect on the audit opinion being unqualified.

Since the Enron debacle, the audit profession has implemented more rules and statements which are constantly looked at and updated frequently. Audit firms are always subject to practice reviews. The audit profession has come a long way since then and I believe everyone is fully aware of the risks.

Fraud happens daily in any type of business, not just those in a gambling environment.

adios bookies:

You right; shouldn't have! Was unintentionally adding to the concerns. tnx!


settlement (resolution/closure) still in the air! Have given the SAHRC my word; not in it for the money!

However, high profiles skip the queue!

LEt me give my five cents worth.

I believe there are two seperate issues that need addressing. I have some experience in this as I used to have involvement in the tote many years ago.

1) The first issue is the changing of the tote boards. There may be bets placed and cancelled after the off but I believe that after an issue that was had at Turffontein many years ago there were processes put in place where no bets were taken or cancelled after the off. What those processes were I have no idea. When you see the tote boards change after the off it is because there are still groups of information coming through the system from all over the place.(Maybe Andrew can verify or deny this posibility) Now remember we have people betting INTO our pools from near and far. I believe that if all the information had to be accumulated into one pool from Cape Town to Johannesburg with delays in TV streaming time then it is entirely possible for bits of information to come through the system 2, 3, 5 or even 10 or 20 seconds after the jump........
I'm not saying there is no funny business but I do believe there may be a reason for why the tote boards change.

2) Punters who place "false bets" only to change them right before the of to manipulate the tote......I believe there is a very easy way to rectify this. Unless you stand in front of a tote window with a ticket you JUST took and you want to change the ticket because of a "mistake" like a wrong horse added into the fourth leg of a quartet then you CANNOT change a ticket after the 5 minute warning. I.O.W no changing of tickets 5 minutes before the off!!!!!
In any event there can be no mistakes (or a LOT less mistakes) if punters are FORCED to fill in the betting slips!!!!
Now we get the the crux!!!! Phumelela should be teaching people how to fill in betting slips and how to NOT make mistakes! This is a broad statement but we can cut down on mistakes if things were done properly!!!

I'm certainly not taking Phumelela's side here I'm just trying to explain what may take place with the tote boards changing!!
I think they have a VERY long way to go to reach their full potential!

They need racing people in charge not bean counters!!!!

Tommy Hotspur - I cant agree with point 1 above specifically the delay in TV streaming time. This cannot be directly related to the tote pools as they work off completely different platforms. Tote pools vs TV coverage. Up to 20 seconds may be explainable but a changing in the final furlong is questionable. The only delay that I can envisage is the amulgamation of gold circle pools with Phumelela's. That just an assumption though.

I cannot accept that in this day and age a company handling such large quantities of money and information does not have the technology to provide "almost" instaneous information.

There has been some really dodgy activity as far as pools are concerned lately. The Clairwood issue being 1. That situation has not repeated itself funnily enough, so the Isle of Man excuse does not wash. I have also commented shortly after this instance that the Kenilworth P6 pool a few Saturdays ago was at R800K odd then suddenly dropped to around the R600K mark. The tote board example is yet another mysterious and quetionable mystery at the moment and strike 3 as far as Im concerned.

Its difficult for for me to undersatnd what all the fuss is around the open bet when the totes house does not appear to be in order.

I was really hoping that AW would take up the challenge. What I would like to see is an independant audit on tote systems as AW has suggested so that we the punter can be reassured that all is well in our tote pools. They need to show some strength and to publicly come out and give our pools a clean bill of health and if there is a scam, publicly shut it down and prove that they truly have racings interests at heart.

Alcaponee,

The delay I was talking about was not the delay in TV broadcasting, which we know exist anyway, but rather the delay in streaming information from one group of computers to another. Tab Transvaal and now Phumelela have had this problem for a very long time. It is just not physically possible (for the systems they use) to get all the information together and talking to each other instantaneously.
The reason for this is because each province (ne. gold cirlce and phum.) work on different main frames. Each on course tote sends their figures to a main frame and then these main frames have to communicate with one another before an exact readout of the amalgamated tote pool can be given.

I'm not sure there is anything wrong with Phumelela's or Gold Circles hard ware but rather the fact that people are manipulating this hardware.....Cancelled bets and perhaps managements inability to police their own workers or their involvement in the wrong doing!!!
Gold Circle just recently had their entire board changed....Or something to that effect.......

I agree that something has to be done with the cancellation of bets, just not sure the delayed tote boards is to blame for anything. Human error and manipulation for sure is under scrutiny here!!!!

tommy hotspur et al:

have requested the Gauteng Gambling Board (as the judicial controlling body) to look into this.

Also, what checks and balances do they have to ensure that hthere is no manipulation? Are they only interested in collecting the revenue?

I will watch this thread closely, because I for one am inclined not to believe it.

In the U. S., the phenomena of the tote changing after the off is common. Regular horseplayers understand that the money was not bet AFTER the off, but is only showing up after the off.

It is a PR problem, but one that apparently is part of the computer system.

I have heard stories about tote machines that have been left on until the very end of the race, but I have never seen anybody prove it.

I'm inclined to believe it's just some sort of computer lag time(to collect all data) - try this put a bet on with tabonline - as the horses jump the system closes - surely this happens on all machines simultaneously?(the online system is a mini tab machine that you have control over except you cannot cancel bets without calling up)

Close the betting when they start to load the stalls and finalise the pools.

When your tote machine gets stuck and does not print the ticket..
The tote operator scan your ticket again, and you get printed a new ticket.
The bet is now recorded twice in the system...

The operator calls a number at the tote head office..

The tote supplies a unique reference number....
which the tote operator keys in after the jump..
to cancel the bet......

Question..
with this practise...
what schemes can you dream up..
What scams are being pulled....


BUT THIS IS NOT THE REAL PROBLEM...
I suspect that it is an inside job by the IT staff..
busy with the investigation..
will prove it soon..

Guys

The auditor...Bubby…put it like this..
Fraud happens daily in any type of business, not just those in a gambling environment.

Fraud, white collar crime has evolved to a business, far beyond the understanding of the man on the street.

By this I don’t refer to bypassing of tender processes, allocations of loans by the IDC, the spending of government funds and not keeping books.

Or by buying a mule from the USA as a stallion at millions of dollars, to move the money out of the country.


Fraud that involves the use of computer systems.

By this I don’t refer to the youngsters that have downloaded some hacking tools from HACKERS.COM, that break the front end web pages and deface them.
We have seen many of this, where they change the BANKS home page to point to a PORNO site.
Or some guys that load “KEYSTROKE LOGGERS” onto your desktop or laptop via many ways, such as a “Trojan email”.
This all falls into the amateur fraud category.

Real serious fraud

As far back as 1985, when I first got involved with IT security.
At one of the leading banks, where I contracted at the time, the DBA went for a job interview in the USA.
He was away for four weeks.
Everyone hoped that he would be successful.
He was a lazy guy.
He returned, never got the job.
Three months later, guys with black suits escorted him out of the building.
He had opened an account in the USA.
Each day he was transferring funds from an internal bank account to his account in the USA, via SWIFT.
Never got the correct amount.
Some said R3M….R30M.
We all knew.
We could see, we had to fix the loopholes he used.
The bank did nothing….other.. than when you called and asked for MR XXXXX..
We don’t have a MR. XXXXX working for us.

A month later the guy was working for one of the major IT suppliers in RSA.

During the late 80’s
At a government IT shop.
A contract programmer from a well known IT shop (banned by government later years) added himself as a MEDICAL DOCTOR on the system.
Issued cheques via the system every month to himself.
Printed the cheques at his own desk printer.
He had a box of blank cheques….had to test the system for the new changes made.
Caught him only when he became greedy..

The AUDITORS….they get credit too..
Defined “CHECKS AND BALANCES”….when an amount exceeds R50K..
The entry gets printed on a report..
The senior manager has to approve each cheque or payment.

By then, he had gotten away for more than 8 months..
It was the first time he printed a cheque for greater than R50K..

Same story, the next month he was on another site.
The IT contracting House refunded his monies…

By 2000…
Every company that had SAP/R3...had either convicted staff or were in the process of convicting staff for fraud…using the system..

Same old story…..segregation of duties….role based security…
Clerk captures Supplier
Allocates R10M credit line
Approves it
The Government IT shop were I contracted…denied any fraud..
So my question to them…are you special…all 23 other users of the package have or are busy convicting staff for fraud….why would you be excluded…..
Two months later….I proved them wrong….printed the LOG TAPES and found the senior DBA’s sign on…being used to override security....millions involved..



So, I state it again…
Fraud, white collar crime has evolved to a business, far beyond the understanding of the man on the street.

and I will add to this....far beyond the undertanding of the guys working for the Auditors IT companies that must ensure IT security....

what are the possibilities of fraud being committed at the tote by inside staff.....99.99%....unless they are special too...