Sting from The Sting strikes digital Off-track betting

THE MOVIE The Sting is about a pair of con-men, played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who establish a fake betting parlor to take down a high-rolling gambler, played by Robert Shaw, who cheats at poker and bets on the ponies, especially when he knows the fix is in.

The con employed a stand-in "radio announcer" reading the wire ticker a minute behind the real action at the track, a rather close run thing.

The New York Times reports that a very similar dodge was recently run against the electronic Off-Track Betting (OTB) network, apparently. The scam seemed to have netted $3 million, until chicanery was detected.

What gave the game away was the unusual configuration of bets that were placed on an unusual spread called the Pick-6, in which the bettor picks horses in six straight races. The bettor in question picked only a single pony in the each of the first four races at the running of last Saturday's Breeders Cup, then combinations including all the horses in the last two races; the New York Times explained.

Scrutiny fell on a certain systems engineer at Autotote, the OTB network operator, who has since been sacked. The racing authorities are still investigating, and the FBI is looking at interstate wire-fraud.

If you're wondering how they almost pulled this off, it seems that a lag in processing telephone bets opened a window for the technician to alter the horses named in the first four races to the winners, and boxing the field for the last two races ensured a big win. Worked like a charm.

Of course the guy who actually placed the bets is proclaiming innocence, but it now seems highly likely that the plot of The Sting has just been updated... digitally.

The New York Times story is here (free registration).µ