FanDuel Racing wagering glitch allowed for cheap wagers

Multiple FanDuel Racing accounts were able to take advantage of a glitch that debited balances only the base cost of a wager rather than the total cost of the wager during a several-hour period Wednesday afternoon.

The glitch was noticed when five super-exotic wagering pools at four different racetracks handled a historic amount of money, but FanDuel Racing account users exploited the situation in other pools and at other tracks as well.

Under the condition of anonymity, a FanDuel Racing account holder, who has since had their account suspended, shared information and screenshots about their betting process Wednesday. The user was able to wheel the entire field for only the cost of the base wager. In other words, even though an all-all-all-all dime superfecta in a seven-horse field should cost $84, the bet cost only 10 cents via FanDuel Racing. The user tried similar via TVG, which FanDuel owns, but the glitch affected only the FanDuel Racing platform.

The user also attempted wagers whose total cost exceeded their balance but was unable to execute those. That indicates that FanDuel Racing recognized the total cost of the wager and compared that to the user's balance but still debited only the base cost of the wager.

Because the wagers were clearly more widespread than the pools that attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars, it is impossible to know via pool scanning all the bet types that were affected. But it is likely that Mahoning Valley Race Course was among those tracks that saw an uptick in handle, as it did $1,766,771 on Wednesday compared to $792,220 on the same Wednesday last year and $1,124,834 on Wednesday of last week.

The other tracks clearly affected on Wednesday were Churchill Downs and Finger Lakes on the Thoroughbred side and the Meadows and Monticello Raceway on the Standardbred side.

Churchill Downs handled $751,000 on the race 4 Super High 5, a huge number given that the track handled $967,598 on the bet type for this year’s Kentucky Derby and $118,698 on the Kentucky Oaks. Going into Wednesday’s card, Churchill had handled only $424,426 on the Super High 5 across its 10 dates at the current fall meeting.

According to the results page on TwinSpires, the account wagering platform owned by Churchill Downs Inc., the race 4 Super High 5 paid $388.34 for a $1 bet. That's a decent premium on the $128.50 superfecta considering it was only a seven-horse field, with only three horses available for the fifth spot after the superfecta. The $1 trifecta paid $61.40.

The Super High 5 at Churchill was one of several super-exotic pools with aberrational totals Wednesday, including a trio of superfectas at Monticello Raceway and The Meadows totaling more than $900,000 each and a $359,297 superfecta at Finger Lakes.

The two things all the wagers had in common is that they came through FanDuel Racing and involved liberal use of the "all" button in each position of the wagers.

"Earlier (Wednesday), FanDuel Racing identified technical issues and potential fraud related to wagering pools and took the appropriate steps to stop wagering via its platform," a FanDuel spokesperson said. "This issue is no longer ongoing, and wagering has resumed. The company is undertaking a full review of this matter and will be cooperating with regulatory authorities."

FanDuel had been seeking to reprice each of the pools, but none of the host tracks took that action, though meetings were scheduled for Thursday to address myriad concerns raised by Wednesday's action.

At The Meadows, a Penn National-owned harness track near Pittsburgh, none of the first three superfecta pools eclipsed $10,000, but the race 4 pool handled $119,682 with race 5 handling $1,082,884. Things returned to "normal" in races 6, 7 and 8 with pools in the $10,000-$20,000 range.

Things were even more robust at Monticello in New York, where the first two superfecta pools were around $10,000 before race 3 took in $66,516 then back to $12k-$23k in races 4 and 5 before an incredible $1,450,600 came in on race 6 and $950,029 in race 7.

Finger Lakes, a Delaware North-owned racino in Western New York, also got an apparent bump in its race 5 superfecta pool. Races 1, 2, and 4 handled about $45,000 total in that pool, and race 5 did $359,297 in a 7-horse field with race 6 doing $113,563. That race produced $77.50 winner keying a $564.50 exacta for a dollar with the superfecta only paying $3,238.