Why has technology left handicapping in the dust?

[gm10]

Originally Posted by o_crunk

The all-in cost for retail data licenses from Equibase are exorbitant, especially in a declining industry where there are fewer and fewer paying customers.

If you wanted to do a simple entries and results app, Equibase feels that you should be paying thousands of dollars a month if that app is consumer facing for the data that supplies that app.

Anything customer facing that has to do with racing data in North America, Equibase feels that is their data you are developing off of. Therefore there is no development community in racing or it's extremely small. Literally a handful of people in the entire country who have intimate knowledge of how racing's data works.

I've worked for many different stakeholders in racing and the data costs are insane for everyone. There is not a lot of room to breath if you have an idea and want to develop something. Years and years of not offering machine readable licenses to developers at reasonable development prices has basically put a big fat sign up saying "Don't bother".

Meanwhile, privately there are plenty of home spun tools and others who will pay privately for exactly the tools they want.

This.

Equibase have a monopoly. Monopolies stifle innovation. It's really that simple.

[Ted Craven]

Perhaps I misunderstand the type of data being referred to as costing thousand per month, for use in either high-end or entry level software efforts.

My RDSS software users pay (at most) $165/month for everything (PP and Result Chart data) - and cheaper longer-term pricing. If I'm not mistaken, most HDW monthly data packages cost less than that.

When I was developing my software, Equibase (TrackMaster) made unlimited current and historical data available to me at no charge (because they would get a future cut of data sales). Even the one-off, home-brew, non-commercial developer gets everything for about $1650 a year (probably less depending on data source).

Tote data is free and several ADW's APIs are available to gather it. Or use ATRPro.

The issues lie with a dearth of competent programmer/horseplayers, the size of the market and desire to mount a commercial operation (i.e. including customer and tech support and marketing). For personal power users, I would have thought that comprehensive apps like HTR provide enough public and proprietary data to spend years datamining.

I would say that my glass is (at least) half-full. Then again, I'm an optimist.

Ted

[ScottJ]

Originally Posted by Ted Craven

Tote data is free and several ADW's APIs are available to gather it. Or use ATRPro.

What API are you using to get real-time streaming updates from the WPS/EX/DD pools at NYRA to name just one?

[Ted Craven]

TwinSpires - publicly available, no login or paywall in front. Hint: any browser's Web Developer Tools is your friend

Same with NYRABets (I just checked), which I don't use and surely many other ADWs. I also use AmWager's API (developer supported, and free). XpressBet has a formally accessible API though last I checked, access to it cost quite a lot.

Ted

[gm10]

Originally Posted by Ted Craven

Perhaps I misunderstand the type of data being referred to as costing thousand per month, for use in either high-end or entry level software efforts.

My RDSS software users pay (at most) $165/month for everything (PP and Result Chart data) - and cheaper longer-term pricing. If I'm not mistaken, most HDW monthly data packages cost less than that.

When I was developing my software, Equibase (TrackMaster) made unlimited current and historical data available to me at no charge (because they would get a future cut of data sales). Even the one-off, home-brew, non-commercial developer gets everything for about $1650 a year (probably less depending on data source).

Tote data is free and several ADW's APIs are available to gather it. Or use ATRPro.

The issues lie with a dearth of competent programmer/horseplayers, the size of the market and desire to mount a commercial operation (i.e. including customer and tech support and marketing). For personal power users, I would have thought that comprehensive apps like HTR provide enough public and proprietary data to spend years datamining.

I would say that my glass is (at least) half-full. Then again, I'm an optimist.

Ted

Don't Equibase charge a monthly fee of several thousands on top of a sales cut?

[ScottJ]

Originally Posted by Ted Craven

TwinSpires - publicly available, no login or paywall in front. Hint: any browser's Web Developer Tools is your friend Same with NYRABets (I just checked), which I don't use and surely many other ADWs.

Ted

Agree - same technique used here.

[Aerocraft67]

CAWs, whales, AI, oh my!

Concur that mainly the opportunity cost prevents the development of what PA wants.

My contention is that even simpler needs remain unmet.

Plenty of ADWs and PPs won't even let you sort the field by odds, not to mention query, sort, export other data fields. The lack of basic ability is staggering.

I get the lack of motivation to invest in a suitable modern interface for handicapping and betting. But at what point is it actually more expensive to deliver data in a PDF or cumbersome app than a simpler interface or export that would serve both customer and supplier better?

We shouldn't have to resort to APIs and the knowledge to use them just to query and sort basic data points.

I'll offer that I find sportsbook interfaces no less infuriating. They seem to have no interest in making real time betting easy. Takes several more clicks than necessary to plow past sucker bets to show a basic, logical wager, then it vanishes and reverts back five clicks by the time you try to execute.

Not only is there little motivation to improve customer experience, there's probably a perverse incentive to make it worse.

[Gekish]

I am a Twinspires customer since they too over Youbet. At least 20 years. You can not get the tote or exotic board into Excel.

[Ted Craven]

Originally Posted by gm10

Don't Equibase charge a monthly fee of several thousands on top of a sales cut?

I think that license fee is for businesses who are resellers of Equibase sourced data - e.g. BRIS, DRF, HDW, Posttime Daily, etc who all then add their own propriety figs onto the base data. Not end consumers, whether for personal or commercial apps.



Ted

[Ted Craven]

Originally Posted by Gekish

I am a Twinspires customer since they too over Youbet. At least 20 years. You can not get the tote or exotic board into Excel.

With respect, yes you can, and live. You just have to know how to program it, or use an intermediary program like ATRPro.


Ted

[Ted Craven]

Originally Posted by Gekish

I am a Twinspires customer since they too over Youbet. At least 20 years. You can not get the tote or exotic board into Excel.

Live Tote stream from TwinSpires (WPS Pools) into RDSS.



Live Tote stream TwinSpires import into Excel.

[gm10]

Originally Posted by Ted Craven

I think that license fee is for businesses who are resellers of Equibase sourced data - e.g. BRIS, DRF, HDW, Posttime Daily, etc who all then add their own propriety figs onto the base data. Not end consumers, whether for personal or commercial apps.

Ted

That's the problem. When I spoke to them, virtually everything seemed to be "reselling". I couldn't even include the horse name unless I paid the license fee. So I ended up with a great product that has exactly one user (ie. me).

Hypothetically, if I wrote an iphone app that shows predicted speed, an odds-line, etc, would I not have to pay a license fee to Equibase??

[ubercapper]

Originally Posted by gm10

That's the problem. When I spoke to them, virtually everything seemed to be "reselling". I couldn't even include the horse name unless I paid the license fee. So I ended up with a great product that has exactly one user (ie. me).

Hypothetically, if I wrote an iphone app that shows predicted speed, an odds-line, etc, would I not have to pay a license fee to Equibase??

For personal use - no fee, no license.

For commercial use - a license is needed if the product uses electronic data from a data source (Bris, Drf, Equibase & others) internally and the end user obtains the output, because the terms of service for obtaining the data allow for personal use only. The cost of the data varies. I can connect anyone interested with someone if they want an idea of the cost if you send me a PM.

Some products use a shared fee agreement with companies like Bris, TrackMaster, Equibase or HDW and their product is covered under the license of those companies as well as sold on those sites.

Some products have the user purchase a commercially available file (such as those available from Bris and TrackMaster) which runs through the product on the user's end to create an output. This does not require a license because the data itself is for personal use.

[Gekish]

How do you get the data or is it a trade secret ?

[ranchwest]

What if you provide a link to, say, charts? Does that ruffle feathers?