Out of the Box Betting

The nice thing about betting on horses is that seemingly ridiculous bets can win a high percentage of the time.  Let's take the following statistic into consideration.  Empirical statistics show that the favorite horse in a race wins only about 1/3 of the time.  It doesn't matter if you choose the morning line favorite or the tote board favorite.  It makes sense then to study each race and figure out whether or not you believe the favorite will win.  If you believe the favorite will NOT win then the odds are with you because 2/3 of the time you will be right.

This approach to betting I'm going to call "Out of the Box Betting".  So how does one use this to his advantage?  Well, for one thing there is another statistic that can help.  Empirical statistics show that one of the first five morning line favorites will win about 85% of the time.  In a particular race that you are focused on, if you really think that the favorite will NOT win you can leave that horse out of your bet and bet just the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th morning line favorites to win.  Using $2 bets (for example) it would cost you ($2 x 4) $8 for the bet.  If the 2nd morning line favorite goes off at 3/1 or better you will at least get your money back ($2 x 3 + 2 = $8) from the bet.  If any of the 3rd, 4th, or 5th morning line favorites win you will make money on the bet.

There are an endless number of ways to play this "Out of the Box Betting" approach.  For example if you were to increase the size of the bet to $5.  This would cost you ($5 x 4) $20 for the bet.  If the 2nd morning line favorite goes off at 3/1 or better you will at least get your money back [($2 x 3 + 2 = $8) x 2.5 = $20] from the bet (compared to a $2 bet).  If any of the 3rd, 4th, or 5th morning line favorites win you will make 2.5 times the money on the bet.  Experience with this bet is important before you have confidence with increasing the size of the bet.  You must become good at determining whether the favorite will NOT win in a race.

Note that this bet will pay off about 50% (85-33=52) of the time.  The best way to prove this to yourself is to follow a track for at least a week making paper bets (not using any real money bets) and recording them, along with the results.  This will show you how good you are in picking races where the favorite doesn't win.  It will also show you whether you have made a profit or not after a week.  I always test my betting strategies on paper first before going live.