Another standard feature of GTX is the TAB Live Odds. GTX is able to display the current approximate dividends, or ‘live odds’, on offer for each horse in the race from the three TABs commonly known as the NSW TAB, the VIC TAB and the QLD TAB.

The live odds are continually updated until the dividends are final.

After the initial install of GTX, the default configuration includes the four columns needed to display the live win odds, plus a fourth column, labelled ‘B’, which displays the best of the odds on offer from the currently operating totes.

Users can also elect to display the place odds for NSW, VIC and QLD via the Select Columns function. You can also rearrange the order of the columns, again using the Select Columns function. For example, if you bet mainly through the QLD TAB, you may prefer to have that column to the left of the others.

Viewing the Live Odds

The first requirement to view the live odds is, of course, to have today’s races loaded into GTX. Prior to attempting to view the odds, you will also need to have downloaded the Late file on the morning of the day’s racing. This is necessary because GTX needs the TAB codes for the day that are included in the Late file in order to gather the data for display in the tote columns in the Field View.

Once that’s done, it’s a simple matter of clicking each TAB button at the head of each live odds column. In a couple of seconds the prices will appear, and they are continually updated until the dividends are final.

Some things to note...

(a) The refresh intervals are...

• If more than 10 minutes to Post Time, every 2 minutes
• If more than 5 minutes to Post Time, every 1 minute
• If less than 5 minutes, every 30 seconds until dividends are final.

(b) When GTX is connected to one or more TABs and is displaying the live TAB prices in the Win Odds columns of the Field View, the Win Pools Display appears at the top edge of the Photo Finish.

(c) You can get an ‘instant’ odds update from any TAB by double-clicking the relevant ‘Last Message’ box in the Win Pools Display.

(d) Several minutes after each race, the first three placegetters will be identified with their finishing positions in the FP (FinPos) column if you have selected that column as part of your display, provided that the VIC TAB server is active, as the Finishing Positions are sourced from VIC TAB.

Troubleshooting

Time and Date Settings

The efficient operation of the servers require that Local Time be correct, and also that your computer’s system time be correct.

The efficient operation of the Live Odds Display requires that your Local Time is correct. Local Time is a setting in GTX that ensures that races that occurring in a time zone different to yours will be displayed with a start time as your Local Time. This can be set with a single click on the Auto button in Setup>Local Time. This also needs to be done after each Daylight Saving change.

It is also necessary that your computer clock is set to the correct time and date, and the correct world time zone is selected. These settings can be checked by double-clicking your clock in the Windows® system tray.

Firewall Settings

Some users have encountered problems where one or more of the TABs will not display the live odds. Quite often this can be traced to a third-party firewall that has blocked one or more of the TAB servers from accessing the Internet. The Windows® XP firewall does not cause this problem as it does not block outbound access.

What a firewall should do is block any program trying to access the Internet for the first time, and ask you if you want to allow this program access, for this time, or for all times. Once you give permission for ‘all time’ access, the firewall should not ask you again about this program.

What we have found in some of these circumstances is that after an automatic update or upgrade of the firewall software, one or more of these settings has been reset, so it will be up to the user to manually access the firewall settings and reset the relevant TAB server to ‘Allow’ or ‘Permit’ access.

Take the Norton Internet Security™ as an example. Users would open that program, click on the ‘Norton Internet Security’ button, and from its sub-menu, click on ‘Status & Settings’, then from the list on the right, click on ‘Personal Firewall’, then click its ‘Configure’ button.

In the Configuration window, click on the Programs tab, and at the bottom you will see a scrollable list of the programs that have attempted Internet access and whether they have been permitted or blocked.

The GTX TAB servers will be listed as: NSW, VIC, QLD, AUS

If you find that one of the TAB servers has been blocked, as VIC has in the example above, simply click on ‘Block All’ and select ‘Permit All’ from the pop up menu. Then click the OK button and close Norton.

Problems similar to the above have been experienced by some users who have installed the McAfee™ suite of products. Similar configuration options are also available in those programs.

NSW TAB Live Odds

Occasionally a problem surfaces for some users where although their TAB servers are ‘Permitted’ to access the Internet through the firewall, the NSW TAB live odds are missing, and the Win Pool display shows ‘No Odds’, as shown in this graphic:

The problem here is not that the NSW server is being denied access to the Internet, which it is doing, but that the inbound NSW live odds are being blocked from accessing the computer.

From our investigations, it appears that Norton Internet Security™, (and possibly also McAfee™), for some yet unknown reason, sees the incoming data as advertising and blocks it via its Norton AntiSpam™ Pop-up Blocking feature.

To get around this problem, again using Norton Internet Security™ as our example, we suggest that you open Norton, click on the Norton AntiSpam™ button, select ‘Status & Settings’ from its sub-menu, and click on the ‘Pop-up Blocking’ option in the list on the right, then click its ‘Turn Off’ button.

If you feel you need to have the ‘Pop-up Blocking’ feature enabled after today’s session with the GTX Live Odds, simply follow the above procedure and click the ‘Turn On’ button which has replaced the ‘Turn Off’ button.