US: It's the dream of crooked gamblers and the theme of countless movies - placing a bet on a winning horse after the race has been run.
It was often done in the days of the telegraph, but experts said it couldn't happen in today's world of instant communication. But apparently it did, and the credibility of the US horse racing industry is at stake after what could be the world's biggest racing scandal.
Two men are suspected of conspiring to fix the accumulator bet on the day of the Breeders' Cup, North America's richest horse race, held outside Chicago on October 26th.
The men, who stood to win $3 million, turned themselves in last night after an investigation by the FBI.
The bet was the Pick Six in which the bettor has to select six consecutive winners, a rare achievement at the Breeders' Cup meeting where long-shots tend to win.
However one punter, Mr Derrick Davis, not only picked all six winners - including a 44-1 outsider - but he did it six times, on the only six tickets he bought that day, each costing $192, with the selection of the same single horse in the first four races and of every horse in the final two.
A serious punter would always select several different horses to win and the winnings were frozen and the FBI called in. They soon discovered the astonishing fact that computers at off-course betting companies do not send in every bet on every race in real time, and that wagers in the Breeders' Cup Pick Six were not passed to the course until after the fifth race.
Moreover, a university class-mate of Mr Davis, Mr Chris Harn, worked as a computer specialist at the betting company Autotote, which often stored bets in blocs of data until after race time.
Prosecutors claim that Mr Harn manipulated Mr Davis's bets after they were made so that they were guaranteed to win. As he had to back every horse in the last two races Mr Davis could not lose if he had the first four winners correct.
Mr Davis's original bets were made by touch-tine telephone which did not keep a record and conspiracy might be hard to prove. His tickets won $428,392 each plus dozens of consolation payoffs.
Autotote is one of three US companies which handle $14.5 billion in bets made annually at racetracks and off-track betting shops, and on personal computer.
Mr Davis and Mr Harn, and a college mate, Mr Glen DaSilva, all aged 29, will be charged at White Plains court with criminal conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Mr DaSilva placed winning bets via Autotote at other tracks last month, possibly in a dry run for the Breeders' Cup.