Horse racing has always been a sport where information is currency. Bettors pore over past performances, pedigrees, track conditions, and the subtle cues of class and form. But the modern wagering landscape is no longer defined only by intuition and traditional handicapping. The rise of computer assisted wagering (CAW) has reshaped the economics of pari-mutuel betting. Today, roughly thirty percent of handle at major tracks is generated by a small number of professional, data driven betting teams that deploy advanced models and automated execution systems. Their participation has sparked debate across North America, raising questions about fairness, transparency, and the long-term health of racetrack wagering.
To better understand how CAW activity intersects with public betting and regulatory oversight, Canadian Thoroughbred spoke with Woodbine Entertainment, the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Association, and industry consultants. What emerged is a picture of a system under significant strain and rapid evolution. It is a system grappling with the tension between liquidity needs, player confidence, and the growing sophistication of betting technologies.
How Woodbine Sees CAW Participation
David Vivenes, Woodbine’s Executive Vice President of Revenue, Brand and Experience, was very clear that CAW groups do not receive special access or privileged information that is unavailable to the public. He emphasized that participation is governed by the same regulations and the same cut off times – essentially their advantage is analytical, not structural.
“I will say this as pointedly as I can. CAW participants don’t receive any unfair advantage. All bettors operate within the same regulated pools, with the same rules. They all bet with the same information that every customer has access to. They have just created this software that helps them make bets. There are no restrictions that stop any other bettors from doing the same thing. They actually don’t have advantages or access to placing wagers at a different time or in a different way that regular players don’t have. The tote closes at the same time for all customers, and everyone has access to the same data.”
Moreover, Vivenes notes that while the CAWs do use data to make their bets they don’t have magic predictive abilities and are not always accurate which can benefit retail players.
“They do make large bets and those bets can change the odds to lower odds on the horses that they bet on, but it can also make the odds higher on the horses they are not betting on,” he explained. “Odds movement happens in all directions. When there’s movement towards horses that [CAWs] don’t bet on, there’s a portion of the betting public that is benefitting because that’s how the pari-mutuel betting structure is set up. The dynamic in the pool sort of balances things out.”
Vivenes clarified that CAW teams do not place wagers through HPIbet but instead through foreign based betting agents that connect to Woodbine’s pools through industry standard international protocols. Vivenes pointed out that these connections are not any faster, simply they have developed custom code to place batch bets.
This is an important distinction for Woodbine. Their message is that CAW teams do not receive privileged access to Woodbine itself, simply they are sophisticated users of standard global tote infrastructure.
In addition, Vivenes made clear that “Woodbine does not offer any rebates to CAWs” and that those bets come through third-parties.
“Woodbine is a content producer,” he explained. “We have content distribution agreements with all kinds of entities. We don’t deal directly with CAWs. We don’t provide CAWs any rebates. Entities that buy our content, some of them are taking bets from a variety of customers. What they choose to do.,or how they operate with different types of customers, CAWs included, is their choice not ours.”
A Different View from the Betting Public
Many horseplayers disagree with the idea that CAW groups have no meaningful advantage. Their concerns are not primarily about what data the teams receive but how quickly they can respond. The common complaint is that late odds shifts occur after gates open, creating the impression that someone is betting after the bell. Regulators and operators insist this is not the case. The technical explanation is that data submitted before the cutoff sometimes appears in final odds updates after the start of the race due to network processing times.
Sean Pinsonneault, President of BluSlate Inc. and widely recognized as one of the leading consultants on wagering patterns in North American racing, acknowledges the frustration but emphasizes that the underlying issue is timing congestion rather than corruption.
“Large scale wagering from CAWs, compounded with the wagering from the retail players, is getting later and later in the betting cycle,” he explained. “It is contributing to the late odds shifts along with the pools jumping 200–300% in the final two minutes of betting.”
Retail bettors are also betting later, especially through online platforms, which compounds the timing crush. The result is that huge amounts of money arrive at once, with little opportunity for any bettor to react to what others are doing.
Pinsonneault points out that although CAW money often backs winners, it is not infallible. When the algorithms misfire, there can be “big windfalls for other players, which does not get talked about as much of course.” Still, he believes that tracks need to monitor win rates and the size of late cycle impacts in order to manage the effects responsibly. He also believes that tracks should communicate directly with CAW entities when they see patterns that might disrupt player confidence because there are not many of them and the relationships can be managed.
What Regulators Say They Can and Cannot Do
The Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency (CPMA) oversees the rules for betting on horseracing in Canada and sets national wagering regulations and supervises tracks through appointed officers. In response to questions about how it monitors CAW wagering, especially when many CAWs place bets through foreign hubs, the agency explained that commingling is governed by federal regulations and that foreign operators are bound by rules in their own jurisdictions.
“Regulatory requirements applicable to Canadian pari-mutuel licensees respecting the commingling of remotely placed bets into Canadian hosted pools are described in the Pari-Mutuel Betting Supervision Regulations,” CPMA wrote. “The conduct of foreign operators is directed by the rules and regulations established in that jurisdiction.”
“The Regulations include information display requirements for Canadian racing associations, both when hosting and guesting into pari-mutuel betting pools (ie, sections 25–27). Foreign guests participating in Canadian-hosted pools are again subject to the rules and regulations established in the jurisdiction in which they are operating. Remote participants receive and transmit betting data through ITSP (inter-tote system protocol), and that information is transmitted to all guests at the same intervals and speed. There are also regulatory requirements respecting a Canadian association’s responsibility to refund pools whenever they are unable to transmit or receive betting information respecting a pool (subsection 106(3)). The CPMA does review all pari-mutuel activity in Canada and commingling of pools with foreign guests.”
When asked about transparency standards or obligations to disclose CAW participation, CPMA confirmed that there are no requirements for tracks to tell the public what percentage of their pools comes from high volume betting groups. Nor are tracks required to report rebate arrangements from foreign partners. Tracks must only report the percentage deducted from each pool by foreign guests when commingling into Canadian pools, and even that does not require disclosure of how those deductions are distributed.
The prevailing message from regulators is that CAW wagering is legal, regulated, and monitored within the boundaries of existing frameworks. However, those frameworks were not designed with modern high speed algorithmic wagering in mind.
A System Built on Liquidity and Inefficiency
To understand the dilemma, it is important to look at how pari-mutuel pools function economically. Racetrack wagering revenue comes from takeout applied to total handle. The system benefits from churn, which is the process of bettors rebetting their winnings and recycling money through multiple races allowing the track to earn more takeout on each wager. Recreational players, who often bet intuitively or emotionally, help keep pools inefficient. Their varied betting decisions create opportunities that high volume bettors can exploit. Those inefficiencies also produce the churn that tracks rely on.
CAW teams, by contrast, operate with remarkable efficiency. Their models constantly search for mispriced horses across multiple pools and then place large batches of bets when they identify that value. This activity injects enormous volume into the pools, deepening liquidity and increasing overall handle. Yet these same algorithms also erase the pricing mistakes that recreational players rely on, tightening the odds and leaving fewer opportunities for casual bettors to win or stay engaged. For CAW teams, inefficiency is their edge. For tracks, their volume is essential. When inefficiency disappears, CAW returns decline, but if CAW participation falls, so does handle. The result is a structural tension faced by every racetrack today.
If CAW participation represents about thirty percent of handle and a track were to implement transparency tools that level the playing field, it could reduce CAW edges and thereby reduce CAW volume. Replacing that lost liquidity would require dramatic growth in from the retail bettors.
A simple model illustrates the challenge. If CAW participation declines by fifty percent, total handle falls to 85 percent of its previous level assuming no growth in retail wagering. To make up the difference, retail players would need to grow by more than twenty percent to achieve the same handle, a difficult target given current participation levels.
In 2024, Woodbine’s total handle was approximately $613 million. Assuming the industry standard of 30% participation from CAWs that represents $184 million with $429 million from retail players. If CAW participation decreased by 50% so they only contributed 15% of the total handle they would provide just $92 million. To maintain the same handle, retail players would need to increase their betting by more than 20% to make up the difference.
This is the uncomfortable math operators face.
Since racetracks fund operations and purses with revenue from wagering, a decline in handle would immediately impact purse levels and the already struggling horse people.
Would Transparency Help or Harm the Industry?
Several industry experts, including professional handicappers, argue that the real transparency deficit is not in revealing what the CAWs bet but in giving the public access to more sophisticated analytical tools. In their view, the information race between CAW and retail bettors is so lopsided that casual players cannot meaningfully compete and they would like to see tracks provide CAW-style analysis. They envision tracks publishing real time indicators of overlays, value pockets, or pool pressure that mimic what sophisticated models produce internally. This would not eliminate CAW activity but would let public bettors make more informed choices.
Pinsonneault believes the industry should develop better tools and interfaces that allow casual bettors to understand pool dynamics in a simplified way.
“I’m a believer that the more information that can be shared on the pools the better. Some of the pools are more complicated with probable payouts for thousands of permutations in a Superfecta or Pick 5 for example but what can be provided reasonably, should. Unfortunately, most bettors aren’t currently equipped to ingest all the data and to make sense of it with the historically manual way of handicapping and technical analysis. There needs to be better tools available for players to use this info to augment their handicapping style and strategies to get better results.”
He notes that the question is not whether technology should be integrated but how to integrate it without destabilizing the system.
“Much like the current discussions around AI or other technological advancements, we aren’t going to be able to prevent it. The industry must find ways to leverage those advancements, making better tools available to help players compete better.”
The idea of democratizing analytical tools is gaining traction in gambling industries worldwide. Sportsbooks routinely publish probability graphs and win percentages while fantasy sports platforms reveal algorithmic projections. The gap is that pari-mutuel racing has traditionally presented betting as a narrative exercise instead of a quantitative one.
Changing that may require a cultural shift.
The Path Forward
Racing stands at a crossroads. CAW activity brings essential liquidity but also creates anxiety among bettors who feel outgunned by systems they cannot see. Regulators are confident in the legality and supervision of wagering procedures but acknowledge limits to what they require tracks to disclose. Operators defend the fairness of access while trying to reassure the public that no one is betting after the bell.
Industry consultants see both the value and the risk. They believe the industry must actively manage CAW activity, monitor outcomes, communicate with high volume participants, and invest in new tools for everyday players. They believe there are solutions but that tracks must face the issue head on.
“The data is available to host tracks to see who is betting what and when. If a CAW’s activity is negatively impacting the pools regularly, that needs to be addressed directly with them,” said Pinsonneault. “In my experience, these entities are reasonable. They are businesses that make money playing on horse racing. If they choose to disregard real negative impacts, they risk losing access to these pools altogether. I don’t think that anyone wants that, so I know that there is a solution there.”
The future of racing will depend on whether the sport can strike a balance between liquidity and fairness, between innovation and accessibility. That balance will likely require new transparency tools, deeper data analysis, and closer collaboration between tracks, regulators, and bettors. The world is becoming increasingly digitally sophisticated, and every industry is grappling with the implications. The question for racing is not whether it can keep up but whether it can channel that sophistication in a way that strengthens the sport rather than fractures it.
“We need to find ways that keep the game fun by adopting more technology to simplify and enhance our decisions and continually find ways to improve the overall wagering experience,” concluded Pinsonneault. “Unlike fixed odds, players are not betting against the house so all racing stakeholders should be aligned to doing everything possible to create more winners in this game. That needs to be the focus. If our players can become better bettors, everyone wins.”
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This article appears in the 2026 Canadian Thoroughbred Sire Book – order your copy here.
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