It has no color or odor. Difficult to treat, it can nevertheless be seen at a glance. We can track him by noise, a sort of clamor where the explosions of joy (almost) cover up the insults. The horse racing virus hit the Enghien racecourse a long time ago. But, seeing the clusters of enthusiasts who came to attend a meeting of eight races in the middle of August in Val-d’Oise, we would bet that the strain is still very much alive.
Like horses ready to set off, trotting harnessed or mounted, we find among punters a diverse and complementary fauna. Here, experienced racers who sniff out the good stuff while reading Paris Turf, the bible of horse racing betting. There, the spirited young people having broken the 10,000 steps per day counter by frantically trampling the slab of the racecourse hall.
A few minutes before the second start, scheduled for 2:05 p.m., the racers rush to “do the paper”, that is to say analyze the race to find the winning combination. Some are busy at the counter, others opt for the machine. The PMU machine precisely intends to guide them: it is the SpOt, “a bet on others which takes into account the bets previously recorded until the start of the race”, details the sports betting company.
“That confirms my idea or not”
This famous SpOt, created from human intelligence and implemented since 2001, has its army of defenders and detractors. Sami, originally from Franconville, initially swears that the tool does not interest him. “I don’t often do combinations, I bet on a horse, winning or placed,” he says, smiling, while devouring a tuna sandwich. Before admitting that the machine still helps a lot in the Quinté, where you have to select five nags. “Frankly, it’s hard to find so many horses, in which case I’ll let the machine play. But it never works, one is always missing,” sighs the forty-year-old.
“What are these races today, it’s discouraging,” laments a racer, cap on his head and scowling. Just now, Indulgente, a 5-year-old mare, has just won after almost 3 kilometers of harnessed trotting. Zacharie stares at the screen, placid. Usually, he prefers the Auteuil and Longchamp racecourses to Enghien, but the lack of races during the summer season forced him to fall back on Enghien. Like Sami, he says he lets the machine give him a combination in the event of Quinté, which is harder to “decipher”. With a nuance. “Sometimes I make a SpOt ticket shortly before departure, to see what it does on arrival. It confirms my idea or not,” confides the thirty-year-old.
With his gray beret, his blazer, his red moccasins and his burgundy pants, not forgetting his binoculars slung over his shoulder, Claude fell into the turf pot when he was little. When he mentions the machine, he cuts it short. “I’m just here to earn three cents, I prefer to search for myself and watch the performance of the horses.”
A formula that “creates winners” according to the PMU
Last January, the PMU boosted its tool, updating it for bettors every ten minutes, instead of twenty minutes previously. “It works from a draw base for each bet, made up of games already recorded and offers a combination of horses among the horses already played manually by other punters as well as horses drawn from this base randomly. For example on a Quinté +: if number 7 is played in 20% of recorded cases, it will be offered as a spOT in 20% of cases,” explains the company.
“The rider will often combine a SpOt with a horse chosen by him. For novices, it will be easier to access,” comments Annaëlle Muller, an employee responsible for directing punters to the good moves of the day. “Approximately 1 in 3 Quinté is played in spOt and of the nearly 200 winners of more than 100,000 euros in 2022, around a third of them had played in Quinté + spOt. SPOT is a useful tool, it creates winners, it is therefore appreciated at its true value but it is not artificial intelligence, on the contrary it is human intelligence,” specifies the PMU.
In the passageways of the racecourse, some punters prefer to abandon the giant screen in favor of small, isolated televisions. Don’t tell them about the clear summer sun and the deckchairs lined up in front of the track, that would be out of place. Outside, in fact, the few racers installed in the stands seem more inclined to discuss. Michel and Joël, two running buddies, philosophize, realistically: “We analyze a little but no one performs a miracle, we mainly come here to relax.”
The two friends know that the SpOt can bring big returns, Joël, 70 years old, just missed out on the jackpot a few years ago. “With the machine, I had the Quinté in order with a stake of two euros,” he says dreamily. It was in 2019, I was going to receive 140,000 euros but Jean-Michel Bazire (Editor’s note: a driver, considered “the Zidane of trotting”) screwed up. There was an investigation. Since then, the SpOt, never again”, mainly out of superstition, he laughs.
“A real racer, he gets his guts out of his stomach”
“I play my games, I lose with what I chose, I take responsibility for my choices,” adds Michel, 78 years old. The announcer’s comments echo through the loudspeakers, while the music of the races invades the senses as one gets closer to the track: the sounds of the bounding strides of the racehorses, the wheels of the sulkys, the clicking of the driver’s reins.
Leaning on the railing that separates the track from the public, Marcel comments on the race with his eyes fixed on his ticket. “The 8 is in the lead, oh man, an investigation,” stammers the racer without apparent emotion. To “make the paper”, this retired ex-retailer regularly leaves the side of the track, heading towards the machines, before returning to the front rows. “Did you play a SpOt?” Does it give anything? That doesn’t surprise me,” attacks the 73-year-old man, sworn enemy of the formula. “I’ve been playing for 50 years, I don’t do SpOt, otherwise I don’t go to the races I stay at home,” describes the specialist, who at the age of 18 lived in a studio opposite the racecourse.
“It gave me the virus. I prefer to come to the side of the track, in contact. I have friends, I don’t tell them what I played, I don’t want to be confused by anyone, he describes, a bit theatrical, in his unbuttoned floral shirt and sunglasses combo. The SpOt never crossed my mind, it’s a stupid thing. A real racer, he gets his guts out of his stomach. Otherwise, to play the machine… You might as well go to the cinema. »
The machine, the automation… So many defects that make some long-time golfers fear the lack of interaction between generations. “Young people only play on the Internet,” lamented a regular at a small bar in Ille-et-Vilaine, interviewed by West France. In Enghien, this summer Thursday, several generations of punters rub shoulders. Or at least intersect. Without the machine swallowing up personal bets, assures the PMU, which notes that “the use of SpOt by punters has been generally stable for more than ten years”.
On the track, two drivers relax the horses while chatting. Marcel comes back, hands us his ticket. Winner. He flashes a smile, while refusing to get angry. “We’re always bad at racing,” he dares, fatalistically. Not far from him, other punters are in low spirits. What can they possibly be thinking about? You’d bet that a phrase invaded their thoughts. “Day of loss, eve of gain”, famous saying popularized by the cinema, as recalled BFM-TV.