T O Elvis was a 30-to-1 longshot on Saturday morning but only paid 5-to-1 when he won the Churchill Downs Stakes that afternoon. Is Computer-Assisted Wagering (CAW) to blame?
Key Takeaways
- T O Elvis never raced outside of Japan until Saturday.
- T O Elvis’ odds were posted as 12-1 at race time but only paid 5-1 by the finish.
- Many attribute horse racing’s big, last-minute, odds swings to the rise of Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW).
While most eyes were focused on Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, another race at the legendary Churchill Downs raised eyebrows. The winner of the $1 million Churchill Downs Stakes (G1) started the morning at 30-to-1 odds, was 12-to-1 at post time, yet only paid 5-to-1 after all the betting action was tallied.
This is the last odds we got before the race on NBC
— Mike Mutnansky (@MikeMutnansky) May 2, 2026
TO Elvis listed at 12-1
Wins easy at 5-1
You thought you were getting a $26 winner. You got a $12 winner
What a terrible look for racing. Happy this happened on national TV. What a fucking joke they’ve let the CAWs become pic.twitter.com/l8ubTIBfL7
Understandably, the winner T O Elvis was a long shot. While Kentucky bred, the four-year-old colt had never raced outside of Japan. Traveling from Japan required an Alaska layover, a days-long quarantine in Chicago and an hours-long road trip from there. Yet, his win on Saturday was decisive.
T O Elvis wins the G1 Churchill Downs presented by @ford! pic.twitter.com/ys7IsSMXgI
— Churchill Downs (@ChurchillDowns) May 2, 2026
Enjoying Covers content? Add us as a preferred source on your Google account“This is a first winner for Japan here,” said trainer Daisuke Takayanagi, who also ran Japan’s Wonder Dean to an eighth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. “It was a very challenging race but we were able to get it done.”
CAW’s double-edged sword
After a race, winning bettors are usually in good spirits. The sudden drop in T O Elvis’ odds, however, left winners disappointed, with less than their expected windfall. It didn’t take long for the blame to fall on CAW.
T O Elvis was dazzling, and anyone who watched his last race can’t be surprised he just did that.
— David Aragona (@HorseToWatch) May 2, 2026
But hopefully this race serves as a needed inflection point around the lack of regulation of CAW wagering, because that was as egregious as you’ll see.
Horse racing has been on a downswing over the past years. So, the influx of CAW syndicates has helped mitigate some of the lost action. This increased action, however, is coming at a cost.
Co-ordinated CAW teams use computer algorithms to pump large, split-second, wagers into betting pools, causing drastic shifts in the odds. In one recent case, a CAW entity wagered $108,000 on thousands of different combinations to win $476,332 in a Pick 5 jackpot.
Some retail bettors are beginning to feel like they aren’t wagering on a level playing field. A class action lawsuit was filed in October, and recently amended in February, accusing racetracks of not doing enough to protect the average bettor since the odds presented “at the time a bet is placed are false as a result of the manipulation of the bettors’ pool.”
Meanwhile, some tracks are trying to address the problem without completely alienating CAWs. The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and the New York Racing Association now cut CAW players off from betting two minutes before races begin.
Newly elected Jockey Club Chair Everett Dobson acknowledged the issue during last year’s Jockey Club Round Table Conference.
“I further recognize the deep divide on the matter of computer-assisted wagering,” Dobson said. “I plan to use this position to better understand that issue and try to help the industry strike the right balance that ensures growth but does not disenfranchise the retail bettor.”
