G'day all. I noticed in Friday's paper a tiny mention of a relatively large plunge that went wrong at The Meadows greyhounds on Saturday night 20th July. In Race 4, a win bet of $10,000 was made into the supertab pool with one minute to go. It was on a dog called Spec Of Light , No.7, and caused the approximate win div to fall instantly from $14 to $2 at the jump. The dog finished nowhere

The total win pool for the race was $29,246 which meant it was about $10,000 more than the win pool on every other race on the card. I don't know if the dog was backed anywhere else to any degree other than this one large wager. What does everyone think of this? Does anyone know of any serious logic behind it?

That's just unintelligent betting.
How can any serious punter justify a plunge into a pool with no water?

The end result...a broken neck!

As the bet was placed with only a minute to go, it could not have been the result of an all-up or similar. Therefore it was just a punter having a hugely lucky run in the previous races and giving it all back with no idea about betting odds and pools.

If it was an intentional bet then it was incredibly stupid - depending on how much of a drop in price you are willing to accept the maximum bet you can place on TAB is in the range of 1%-3% of the pool (so between $200-$600 for a $20000 pool). Anything more than that and you are just cutting your own throat.

The other possibility is that it was an accident and either the TAB, agent or punter has had to wear the loss. When I worked at the TAB there were a few similar cases (none for that amount!). Basically when punter places a bet they sometimes mark the ticket incorrectly or the ticket gets misread which can result in bet being incorrect (eg. $1000 instead of $10) - the agent must then cancel the ticket and reenter it - but if the race jumps before they can do this (if ticket was scanned just before the jump for example) they cannot cancel the ticket themselves and must ring the TAB head office. In the case of Supertab if the TAB is not Victoria then the TAB head office must ring Tabcorp and ask them to cancel the bet - but this can not be done once the race has finished. In the case of a greyhound race (or if there is a delay in any of the phone calls) it may not be possible to get the cancellation done in time which means the bet stands and someone has to pay (unless it wins!). Usually that is the punter if the ticket was filled out incorrectly, the TAB if the error was caused by a scanning problem or the agent if it was an agents error.

I bet the people who backed the winner where happy - gave them an extra couple of dollars on the div that they weren't expecting!