A Difference of Opinionby Steven G. Berry “It were not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.” Mark Twain A winner has a strong opinion and a profitable way to express it. If you agree with the tote board, the takeout will kill you. If the field is short, there is less to disagree with and so you will die faster. Short fields and low odds equal horseplayer bankruptcy. I'm going to assume you understand the concepts of takeout and breakage and how these work together to rob you of profits you would otherwise make as a knowledgeable handicapper. If you don't know what I'm talking about, do a little research or wait for me to write some newbie pages. My point is that the takeout at the racetrack is so much larger than other forms of gambling that you need much more than luck to hope to make any profit at all. You really have to pick your spots and those spots are not when you agree with the tote board. There are three ways to increase your payoffs:
The obvious solution is to combine live longshots into exotic wagers in large fields. This is easier said than done as there are a number of factors working against you. LONG SHOTS You can't just play a horse on top because he has longer odds than the horse you think will win. The top horse is the top horse for good reason. Sure, he might get beat but the odds are he won't – that's why he's on top. You can wait until you pick a long dog on top, but some big exotics key to favorites. LARGER FIELDS The fact is, larger fields generate more randomness. Statistics show larger fields have higher paying winning favorites. Your top horse in a twelve horse field will win less often than your top horse in a six horse field, but he will pay more money. It kind of evens out – win percentage decreases but payout increases. BET EXOTICS It's easier to pick a winner than an exacta. The more combinations, the harder to find the winning one! On the other hand, the more combinations, the higher the payoff. This is the same theory as larger fields as both are just more possible combinations. If you'll listen to nearly forty years of betting experience, I'll tell you now to forget straight bets and exactas. I have not heard or read any convincing arguments by anyone who claims to support themselves on such bets. I'll give you one or two, but they are one in a million or more. The only hope is to play exotics beyond exactas. The problem with most exotics is that with so many possible combinations, you have to play a decent percentage of them to hope to cash a ticket. Sure, you can hit a Pick Six with $2, but it may take you thousands and thousands of plays. Even a Pick Three with ten horse fields has but one winning combination in a thousand, barring dead heats and scratches. So, yes, it's difficult to win exotics but with so many combinations it really is our only hope to overcome a 15% to 35% takeout. My argument is that you are a very good handicapper or are willing to pay for one and so your selections should outperform the public at large. Having more combinations only allows you to outperform them more spectacularly. Are you a rich dentist with lots of friends? If you are, you can afford to bankroll Pick Sixes and Pentafectas. Since I'm not a rich dentist, I can't help you play these bets. Most exotics take a one or two dollar minimum bet on each combination. I can't afford these either. Consider one dollar trifectas and ten horse fields. There are 10*9*8 = 720 combinations. If all horses were equal, you would have to buy $72 of combinations to have a 10% chance. Thank goodness we can handicap instead of rolling dice! The standard win rate of the tote board is 30%. Let's assume you're just as good, but of course your horses pay better than favorites (cause you're an expert or hire one.) Your top selection should win 30% of the time. If your top selection doesn't win, which is 70% of the time, your 2nd selection should win the same 30% of the rest of the 70% of the time or 21%. Your 3rd pick wins 30% of the 49% remaining (30% + 21%) or 14.7% and so on down the line. We can approximate a simple chart for chances of selections winning: 1st: 30% 2nd: 20% 3rd: 15% 4th: 10% 5th: 8% 6th: 5% 7th: 4% 8th: 2% These are good ballpark figures for decent handicapper selections and if there's one thing I've learned in nearly forty years, ballpark is pretty accurate. So, instead of $72 bet, let's use our handicapping to get about 10% winners with less money. If our top choice has a 30% chance of winning, then our 2nd choice has a 30% chance of running second AFTER our top choice has won. Got that? Top horse 30% and won. Now we're worried about second, all the rest of the horses have a 100% chance of 2nd, but our 2nd choice is now the top choice for that spot. After he runs second, our 3rd choice will have a 30% chance of running third. Thus, a $1 play yields 30% times 30% times 30% chance for 1-2-3 or 2.7% chance. Not bad for a buck just by handicapping. Add some more horses. If we play the top choice over the next two picks over the next four picks the cost is $6 (1*2*3) and our chance is 9.75% – nearly the same odds at one twelfth the cost. Such is the leverage of handicapping! 1 over 2,3 over 2,3,4,5 (could also do 1 over 2,3,4 over 2,3,4 for same price and odds) 30% times (30% + 20%) times (30% + 20% + 15%) equals 9.75%. Remember that one of the third level horses will have run 2nd so only 3 horses are left for third. I think trifectas are the hairy edge for profitability. Pick threes are similar. Honestly, I haven't worked out a manageable system for playing these bets, but maybe you can. Since they are $1 minimum bets, they are too rich for my blood. I need to start with a smaller bankroll. A new bet is the 10 cent superfecta. Each combination costs ten cents. Here is hope for us poor bastards as I'll point out when I get to calculating bankrolls. Without wasting time I'll just say that the most profitable way to play a superfecta is to key your top horse into a $1.80 bet. That's right, just eighteen combinations. Why? Experience taught me. It's my best guess, at least for now. 1 over 2, 3 over 2, 3, 4, 5 over 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. But, you can't play this every race, or despite its deceptively small cost it will kill you. Consider Twain again. You need a difference of opinion. Even a small bet $1.80 will bankrupt you if you don't listen to common sense. Here's my method, but I don't guarantee it. You know as well as I that this is a difficult game that will probably screw you over, especially if you don't make good picks or bet at the wrong time in the wrong way. I cannot guarantee you will win but I can give you my best guess as your best chance: DIME SUPERFECTA METHOD First, make really, really good picks and rank selections from top to bottom. If your top selection has a morning line of 6-1 or more, you have a play. If there are 10 or more betting interests (watch entries), you have a play. If a top 4 choice is morning line 12-1 or more and seven betting interests, you have a play. These rules put you on longshots or a large field or both. Now you need to know how to bet them: Bet Forward by selection rank: 1 over 2, 3 over 2, 3, 4, 5 over 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Bet Reverse by lowest Morning Line Odds: 3, 4, 5 over 3, 4, 5, X over 3,4,5 over 1,2,3,4,5,6 If top selection is 3,4 or 5 by odds, then X is 2 by odds. If top selection is 1 or 2 by odds, then X is top selection. EXAMPLE
5 ANOTHER GO ROUND 8-1
There are twelve horses and the top choice is morning line 8-1 so this race qualifies every which way. The forward play is easy: 5 with 12,6 with 12,6,2,1 with 12,6,2,1,8 ($1.80) The reverse is easy if you look at the top five horses. The longest morning line odds are 5, 6 and 1. These three horses will be used at all four levels of the play, always. The 1st and 3rd levels will never change, you must get the three longest shots on these levels. The second level is X. X will either be the second lowest morning line odds or the top selection. In this case, the top selection is already played so X is the 2nd lowest ML odds of the top five selections or number 2. If the top selection is not one of the three highest odds then it will be X on level 2. It's that simple. All five top selections are level 4 plus the sixth choice. 1,6,5 with 1,6,5,2 with 1,6,5 with 1,6,5,2,12 ($3.60) So, $5.40 playing 10 cent superfectas for 54 combinations, sometimes (as in this case) playing repeats. This race was from Fair Grounds 02-22-09 Race 10: 5-6-1-12 paying $778.25 for a dime! Notice that the suggested play has it forwards and backwards. When is the last time you saw about $5 knock down about $1500? Some combination of big fields, longshots and exotic wagers is the answer to racetrack profits. BANKROLLS A fairly safe bankroll is one that has a 99% chance of hitting a winner before going bankrupt and then multiply that amount by four. Our $1.80 play is easy to calculate: .3 * (.3 + .2) * (.3 + .2 + .15) * (.3 + .2) = 6.3% Each level's chance of winning is multiplied by each succeeding level's chance of winning. In this case we have .3 * .5 * .65 * .65 = 6.3% which is a ballpark figure. The reverse play is much harder to figure as the winner's level starts with horses that may or may not be top selections to win. Also, the 3rd level may have one or two horses depending on who runs where in the two levels above. So, we'll figure it the same and the downgrade it a bit:
(.3 + .2 + .15) * (.3 + .2 + .15) * (1 or 2 picks? Guess .4?) * (.3 + .2)= Together, the two bets are 13% wins but some overlap and we want to be conservative so lets say 10%. This means 90% of the time we expect to lose. If we raise 0.9 to various powers until the result is less than 0.01, we'll know there is only a 1% chance of losing that many races. 0.9 raised to the 44th power is less than 1%. So, 44 * 5.4 * 4 = $950.40 so call a safe bankroll $1000. Betting dimes. Should your bankroll ever reach $2000, you can bet two dimes. Maybe you see why I bet dime superfectas instead of dollar trifectas, now. |