Pick-Six Player Takes First Step

Minutes after the 4-year-old colt Volponi crossed the finish line at Arlington Park on Oct. 26, as an easy winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at 43-1, Jimmy “The Hat” Allard stood with two friends from California under a TV monitor at Arlington Park, awaiting the posting of the pick-six results.

Finally, the screen showed that six tickets had been sold with all six winners, each worth $428,392. In Allard’s pocket were pick-six tickets that had cost $21,504. The best this professional horseplayer from Santa Monica could do was pick four winners, which was not worth anything.

“There’s no way anybody could have all six winners,” Allard said to his friends. “And six winning tickets? This is impossible.”

Two of the six races were won by favorites, but the other three, before Volponi, were won by horses that went off at 26-1, 13-1 and 4-1. A $2 win parlay -- starting with $2, and betting your cumulative winnings on the right horse, through all six races -- would have paid almost $309,000.

The six winning pick-six tickets -- worth $3,067,821.60, counting 108 consolation payoffs for having five winners -- allegedly belonged to Derrick Davis, a Baltimore bettor who made a $1,152 bet to his phone account in New York. But it turned out, according to a guilty plea to federal conspiracy charges made by Chris Harn on Nov. 21, that Harn, a computer programmer for the Autotote company that processed the bets, had altered Davis’ tickets after the first four races had been run, assuring them of having all six winners. Davis and another man, Glen DaSilva, also have been charged in the scam, but have entered no pleas.

“They were telling me in Chicago that I had a case of sour grapes,” said Allard, a former Hollywood bit player and stuntman who has been playing the pick six on a regular basis at Hollywood Park, Santa Anita and Del Mar since 1986.

Allard, 48, has become the poster bettor for a class-action lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, that charges Autotote and its parent company, Scientific Games Corp., with negligence and deceptive and unfair practices, not only on Breeders’ Cup day but for several years before. The suit, filed by Allard’s attorneys, Joseph and Gail Lisoni of Pasadena, seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

“The Breeders’ Cup pick six was arguably the largest wagering fraud in North American thoroughbred racing history,” said Joseph Lisoni, who bets the pick six himself and has invested in racehorses. “It is a black eye on the sport of horse racing. In order to preserve the integrity of the sport and avoid having bettors defrauded in the future, we have to hold those who erred accountable. Then we need to focus on instituting changes that will protect the betting public in the future.”

Asked to comment about the suit, a spokesperson for Autotote said: “We have heard the allegations and they are completely without merit.”

The $3 million from the pick six has not been paid out. Because the Breeders’ Cup was run in Illinois, Monday the state racing board there may address the redistribution of the money to consolation-ticket holders.

“It’s incredible how much vulnerability the betting system has been subjected to over a long period,” Allard said. “Those guys [Davis, Harn and DaSilva] have been doing this for a couple of years, and the opportunity was there for several others to be doing the same thing.”

Autotote said this week that it is introducing new tracking devices, available by the end of the month, that will independently monitor bets and detect possible fraud. One of Allard’s complaints about the current tote systems is that bets aren’t transferred to the host track until after several legs of a pick six have been run.

“I’m an anti-tech person,” he said, “but on Breeders’ Cup day they put my money into the system right away, so they could collect their commissions, but meantime the horses on my ticket are flying around in cyberspace somewhere.

“For 2 1/2 hours, the ticket is vulnerable. That’s one of the most outrageous parts of this whole thing.”

Allard also believes that bets are being made on races after they start.

Tracks have uncovered no evidence of this, despite numerous dramatic odds shifts while races are being run. The official explanation is that the bets aren’t funneled into the system in real time.

*

Spend A Buck, who won the Kentucky Derby and was voted horse of the year in 1985, died last month in Brazil, where he was standing at stud. Few details were available about the 20-year-old stallion.

The cause of death was listed as anaphylactic shock.