2002 - Harness Tracks of America, Inc.

HARNESS TRACKS OF AMERICA
Executive Newsletter
A daily fax and e-mail report on racing and gaming developments in North America and beyond
Stanley F. Bergstein, Editor
THE STORY THAT WON’T QUIT
Thirty-five more pages of copy, representing a
full spectrum ranging from the Albany Times-
Union to the Baltimore Sun to the Grand Forks,
North Dakota Herald to the Louisville Courier-
Journal and Los Angeles Journal to the New York
Times, New York Post and Newsday, to the Washington
Post were waiting on the desk this morning,
all telling of the involvement of a third Tau
Kappa Epsilon fraternity brother from Drexel university
in the Breeders’ Cup Ultra Pick Six scandal.
Other than the introduction of the name of
29-year-old Glen DeSilva, a frat brother of previously
identified Derek Davis and Chris Harm,
there was little to add to the story, except that
DeSilva apparently was one of the bettors at
Catskill OTB that led Don Groth to his initial endorsement
of the Pick Six winner as simply a lucky
guy he could vouch for. Although Groth did not
identify DeSilva, others did, and said he had made
frequent wagers at Catskill before the Pick Six
story broke. No one has been charged as yet, but
when they are that event will insure continuation
of the story in all its glory, or gory.
There was another interesting unrelated development,
however, that cast an even longer shadow
on computer hacking or manipulating or whatever
you choose to call it. G-Tech Holdings Corporation,
the world’s largest operator of national and
state lotteries, which MSNBC News says operates
computerized management systems to track
and authorize payments of 94% of U.S. scratch
lottery tickets and 71% of those sold worldwide,
has warned governments that it is recalling hundreds
of thousands of tickets in Taiwan after making
discoveries that led it to believe the bar code
used on the ticket has been cracked by outsiders.
Government lotteries sold $27.5 billion
(that’s with a B) scratch tickets around the
world in the year ending June 30, 2001,
latest numbers available.
November 7, 2002
MSNBC said a Gtech scanner reads a unique bar
code on each ticket and transmits it to a central
computer for authorization to make a payout. In
theory, it says, “a crooked distributor who knew
the code numbers that authorized payouts could
scan a sheet of tickets, pick out the winners and
buy and cash them himself.” Gtech’s Taiwin tickets
are printed by Pollard Banknote Ltd. of
Winnipeg, Manitoba. Gordon Pollard, the
company’s co-CEO, told MSNBC the recall was
not due any printing mistakes in printing, but declined
further comment.
STILL COUNTING IN ARIZONA
We’re a little slow in the great Southwest, so we
can’t tell you for certain that Proposition 202, which
strengthens the Indian hold on gaming in the state,
has passed. It was leading 51.6% to -48.4% as of
this morning, with 150,000 absentee ballots still to
be counted. There was no question, however, what
voters thought of letting Turf Paradise and Rillito
Park and the dog tracks of Arizona in on the action.
They lambasted that proposal by a vote of
774,315 to 194,942, indicating that either the
tracks did a lousy job promoting the proposition
or the people of the state simply think the Indians
deserve a chance to better themselves and the
tracks have enough already.
Prairie Meadows in Iowa, on the contrary, breezed
home an easy winner, as predicted, getting a solid
mandate to operate its racino for another eight
years. One breeder who spent $600,000 on improvements
of their equine station told Blood-
Horse “the track was too good of a thing for Iowa
to lose. I can’t imagine taking something away
that’s done this much good.” Her fellow voters
agreed heartily with that view, and gambling won
easily in all 11 Iowa counties where it currently is
legal and where voters indicated clearly that
they wanted it to remain.