"Historical Racing" machines

Okay, calling it "sports betting" is a stretch, but it's not a slot machine and it's not VP...

This is a branch from the 2017 Triple Crown thread about "historical racing" machines, where you bet on a race that has already happened.

I am reading the Kentucky Administrative Regulations concerning this game, and there's one thing I don't quite understand.
Section 1 of the appropriate regulation (810 KAR 1:011) says that it must be pari-mutuel.
However, Section 3(7)(c) says that a separate race is chosen randomly for each play.
On the other hand, Section 4(1)(b) says that the payouts must come "from money wagered by patrons and shall not constitute a wager against the association" (i.e. the house), although the house does have an initial "seed pool."

Either I am missing something reasonably obvious concerning how these things work, or "pari-mutuel pool" in this case means that the house puts enough money into the seed pool so it can pay off the initial winners at listed odds, but eventually it "should" get to the point where bettors' losses should cover subsequent winnings.

I'm not sure it's the same thing, but the Knights of Columbus in my town used to run a Night at the Races, where films of old races from a track in Florida were shown and you could bet on them. This was pre-OTB. Odds were posted before each race and paid out regardless of what money was bet on each post number.
I remember there was a minor scandal when it turned out a couple of young members , in charge of selecting which film to run, tracked the results and passed that information to someone.
There were only about twenty races to choose from so knowing which race was going to be selected was effectively past posting.

/sigh. Thought I finally found a thread I could participate in...



Alas...

If they are "pari-mutual" then so is Lobstermania, and Wheel of Fortune. The KAR section was not adopted in order to govern how they work; it was stuck in to define them with a label.

[Highlighting of sentence fragment added below, by me.]

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Okay, calling it "sports betting" is a stretch, but it's not a slot machine and it's not VP...

This is a branch from the 2017 Triple Crown thread about "historical racing" machines, where you bet on a race that has already happened.

I am reading the Kentucky Administrative Regulations concerning this game, and there's one thing I don't quite understand.
Section 1 of the appropriate regulation (810 KAR 1:011) says that it must be pari-mutuel.
However, Section 3(7)(c) says that a separate race is chosen randomly for each play.
On the other hand, Section 4(1)(b) says that the payouts must come "from money wagered by patrons and shall not constitute a wager against the association" (i.e. the house), although the house does have an initial "seed pool."

Either I am missing something reasonably obvious concerning how these things work, or "pari-mutuel pool" in this case means that the house puts enough money into the seed pool so it can pay off the initial winners at listed odds, but eventually it "should" get to the point where bettors' losses should cover subsequent winnings.

They are slot machines. Or at the very least, the assertion that they are not is highly contentious, and a matter of dispute which has most often resulted in those independently judging the matter concluding that they are, in fact, slot machines, that they are not pari-mutual in spite of being labelled as such, and that random chance determines the outcome rather than the flimsy horserace themed window dressing. For example:

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/wy-supreme-court/1177715.html

Quote: Supreme Court of the State of Wyoming - Case No. 05-201

We agree with the district court's tacit conclusion that we are not dealing with a new technology here, we are dealing with a slot machine that attempts to mimic traditional pari-mutuel wagering.   Although it may be a good try, we are not so easily beguiled.

It is not surprising that reading the revisions to the KY administrative regulations adopted to define them to be pari-mutual, results in "not quite understanding" what that term means in this context. That was the purpose: to declare a racing themed slot machine to be pari-mutual race wagering, because that is what the law allows. It is designed to be superficially similar to legal forms of wagering where slot machines are not allowed, and you're supposed to be confused by that.

Those KAR revisions are enacted by a body made up of people in the Kentucky racing industry, serving for the explicit purpose of advancing it. Personally I have no quarrel with that; I happen to share their interest in supporting it. But having a highly sympathetic group of your friends approve verbiage declaring that the moon shall be made of green cheese does not make it so, and calling it that will not make the rocks into Roquefort. That is what the cited KAR sections do. And they know that; it is supposed to confuse, and that was the whole point of adopting the language in those regs and of the creation of these devices.

Making bets on these does not involve multiple people with varied individual judgments collectively creating a wagering market on the same event - it is not in any meaningful definition of the term "pari-mutual" betting. And the brief little horsey themed video clip is not the actual outcome for those enjoying this, just the opening act; in most versions that is finally determined in one of three "bonus rounds" (named variously "Wet Willie's Lucky Draw" or "Pigs in Mud 2" and "Yukon Willie's Gold Rush") which dispense with the race theme entirely while arriving at the effectively random final result for the player.

But y'all please do go out and enjoy your entertainment on these not really pari-mutual, creatively themed contraptions, which are slot machines. I'm heartily in favor of slot-tweaker dollars being diverted to support the sport.

Thanks DD. I didn't want to spend the time explaining all of that, so I just dismissed it. That makes me a bad forum member.