Halifax and D2Bets,
I agree it was a nice write-up by Halifax and I have a response...
The key here is that the player in question is a steam chaser. This means he knows the line either has moved already or will move within a few seconds and so he'll miss it if he's not quick. In this scenario, the only difference between it moving BEFORE or AFTER you place your bet is a technicality -- he already knows it SHOULD move or SHOULD HAVE moved when he places his bet. This is not the same as a non-steam player who just happens to make good picks. In that case I agree it would be unethical because the information the book is getting (ie. this sharp guy is making a bet) contains information that he's not supposed to use, but in the case of the steam player, the bet just means that Don Best showed a market move. That information is already available to the linesmaker.
A good analogy would be a guy who goes to change currency at a private currency exchange booth...say he notices that they open at 8am, but the clerk has a few sips of coffee before putting up the new day's rates and so for a couple of minutes yesterday's rates are showing. Then suppose some wiseguy notices this and waits for a big overnight currency move, jumps in the door at 8:00:01 with $100,000 wanting to make an exchange at the posted rate. When the clerk says those aren't our rates today he cries foul, threatens to sue etc. Do you think he would get very far? Of course not.
OTOH if the clerk was so lazy that he waited until 8:30 to change the rates and in the meantime serves 10 customers at the old rate and only changes them when a big customer walks in, then that's another matter.
So to decide if Hollywood is being unethical or not we need to know exactly how they do their line changes. If they adjust fairly promptly but occasionally delay by a minute or two, but in this minute or two they approve all bets on both sides for all players except known steam chasers, then use a known steam chaser's play as a flag to check the Don Best screen and ONLY change the line on him if the Don Best screen shows a very recent change, and from that point on use the new line for all new bets by all customers on both sides, then I would say they are being ethical.
If, OTOH, they know about the Don Best line change but deliberately delay in the hope of using an option against the player (ie. if the player takes one team, accept the bet at the bad line, but if he chooses the other, move the line), then it's clearly unethical.
A good way to test them would be as follows... when chalk makes his next play, have an associate with a different account wait for the approval WITHOUT REFRESHING, then if chalk gets a line change notice, immediately have the associate try to make the OPPOSITE play on the old, unrefreshed (sh*ttier) line for a small amount. If that play gets accepted, then Hollywood is guilty. If not, they are innocent.
I would be curious to see how such an experiment would pan out. We caught Pinnacle on this before and since then they've more or less behaved (probably costing them tens of thousands of $$$). In this case I would bet on Hollywood to pass the test but I guess the only way to be absolutely sure is to do the experiment. Anyone want to try it?
