How the Odds Can Signal the kind of Bet You Should Make

I have found that horse players have a tendency to place the same kind of bet over and over no matter what the conditions of a race are.  It usually is their favorite kind of bet that they have been successful making in the past.  This kind of bet may or may not be suited to a particular race but they make it anyway.  The wrong bet leads to lost money in their bankroll.

There are many kinds of bets that can be made today as compared to 30 or 40 years ago when the win, place and show bets were about it.  You have today not only win, place and show bets but exactas, trifectas, superfectas, doubles, pick3's, pick4's, pick5's and pick6's.  Every day for every track there are morning line (ML) odds on every race.  If you watch the tote board then you can record the tote odds and see how they change as you get closer and closer to post time.  Both the ML odds and the tote odds can give you a clue as to the kind of bet that may be best for this race.  A few examples may illustrate this.

Example 1
Initially by looking at the ML odds you can make a first assessment.  If you see a heavy favorite, say

                   1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8
                              4/5

The rest of the horses are 3/1 or larger.  A win bet on the 4 horse makes sense, except for the fact that the payoff may be very small for the amount bet.  A way to increase the size of the payoff would be to bet the exacta.  Bet the 4 horse on top to win and any of the other horses to come in second.  Note that the greater the tote odds for the second horse that places the higher the exacta payoff will be.

Example 2
Another example of using the ML or the actual tote odds to set up a bet that fits the odds again with say 8 horses might look like this.

                      1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8
                        1/1           6/5

Here we have two horses the 2 horse and the 6 horse that are co-heavy favorites.  The rest of the horses have odds of 3/1 and larger.  The 2 and 6 horses will most likely be competing for the lead in the early part of the race at least.  Again you could place win bets on both the 2 and 6 horses but the payoff may not be large enough to cover the cost of both win bets.  Let's go to the exacta again to increase the size of the payoff.  In this case the exacta bet would be.

                            2,6/ALL

We could expand the size of the payoff by going to a trifecta that might look like this

                            2,6/2,6/ALL

Note that the 2 and 6 horses would be in the win and place positions.  If either the 2 wins and the 6 places or the 6 wins and the 2 places then the bet pays off.  A hedge bet that I like is

                            2,6/ALL/2,6

This will take into account a higher odd horse slipping in and taking the place position which I have found often occurs.

50 Cent Trifectas

What is a trifecta? A trifecta is a bet where you structure the bet so that you have the three horses that come in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Why would you bet a trifecta? Well let's ask Bob. Bob likes trifectas because they pay good when you hit them. Bob reserves a portion of his bankroll to trifecta bets. Some times he even commits one day to just betting trifectas. Now why do you do that Bob? Recently a number of tracks across the country have introduced the 50 cent trifecta. In the not to distant past there were only $2 trifectas. Then tracks began to allow $1 trifectas.

Now there is the 50 cent trifecta at many tracks. Bob likes to look at the combinations that he can cover with a bet in the range he is comfortable with within his bankroll. Bob says let's look at a simple trifecta bet where three horses are boxed. Here are the combinations for three horses that are boxed.
123 132 213 231 312 321
Any one of these six results will win the trifecta. Bob wants to now look at the cost of this bet if it was a $2 trifecta bet. Since there are 6 possible combinations to win this bet it will cost 6 x $2 = $12. If it was a $1 trifecta bet then the cost would be 6 x $1 = $6. A 50 cent trifecta would therefore cost 6 x $.50 = $3. Bob looks at this 50 cent trifecta as a way to get more combinations working for him in his bet than ever before.

Okay Bob what would it cost to box 4 horses? A $2 trifecta box of 4 horses would cost (4 x 3 x 2 x 1) x $2 = $48. A $1 trifecta box of 4 would cost $48 / 2 = $24. A 50 cent trifecta box would cost $24 / 2 = $12. As Bob sees it he can get 48 combinations that could win for $12 with a 50 cent trifecta box. With a $2 trifecta box that cost $12 he would get only 6 combinations that could win. Sure the 50 cent payoff would only be 1/4 of the payoff for a $2 trifecta but Bob says he can make 4 times as many bets. He likes this. The probability of winning with 48 combinations is much better than with just 6.

One of Bob's favorite trifecta bets is when he can find a race with two heavy favorites on the toteboard. Let's say that this race that Bob locates has 10 horses in the race. The trifecta structure that Bob likes is 1,2/ALL/1,2. A 50 cent trifecta with this structure will cost 2 x 8 x 1 x .50 = $8. As a hedge Bob would also bet 1,2/1,2/ALL which will cost $8 also. So for two bets that Bob buys for $16 he would be getting 32 possible winning combinations for his $16.

Bob likes the possibilities he gets with the 50 cent trifecta.

Good luck.

'til next time.

Handicapping versus Betting Strategies

Handicapping is about finding the horse or horses that could win. Betting strategies are about configuring a bet to include enough combinations to win the bet. Let me give you some examples. I'll talk about Bob in these examples.

Bob brings up on his computer the past performances (PP's) for a race he wants to handicap. He looks to see the type of race and the length of the race. He then looks through all of the horses in the race. Bob likes to keep track of the hot jockey/trainer winning combinations at this track. He especially looks to see if any of these attractive combinations are in this race. Bob then looks at each horse in the race and carefully studies the PP's of each horse. Bob likes to go through and eliminate all the horses he thinks have no chance or at very little chance of winning this race. Bob is trying to determine just how many horses are solid winning candidates in the race. Bob would like to narrow his list down to as few horses as possible. Ideally it would be nice to single just one horse. In most races he knows that this is impossible. He can usually narrow his list down to 2, 3, or 4 horses. If there are more than that Bob has no trouble in deciding to just not bet this race. Bob knows that unrealistic bad bets can reduce his bankroll. He knows that Minimizing his losses contributes to a higher ROI at the end of the day.

Now let's see how Bob handles his betting strategies. Bob has favorite kinds of bets that he is most confident in making. If he can single a horse in a race, especially if it's not the favorite, he likes to place a win bet. Sometimes it is a sizable bet. As a hedge, Bob will quite often place a 'win-place' bet on this horse. Bob is aware that this situation is very infrequent. So Bob looks to other kinds of bets that he likes. Bob also likes exactas. He is fond of finding 2, 3, or 4 horses in his handicapping where these horses he expects to dominate the race. Infact he feels confident that anyone of these horses could win or place. When Bob finds just two horses he will box those two horses in an exacta. Depending on his confidence level, he will measure the size of his bet. For three or four horses he would box them in an exacta also. Bob is always mindful of his bankroll balance.

I hope that these examples give you an idea of the differences between handicapping and betting strategies. Also I hope you see how the two are connected and depend on each other.

I will follow up later in this blog to explain how Bob may make other bets he likes such as trifectas, superfectas, doubles, pick 3's, pick 4's. I will show you how Bob can combine his handicapping skills with thoughtful betting strategies.

Good luck and have fun playing the ponies.

'til next time.

Side-by-side Betting with Trifectas

In my previous articles I have shown how to structure a side-by-side bet using an exacta. Let's now extend this to a side-by-side trifecta bet. Why would we want to do this? Because the trifecta payouts are much larger and more profitable. Let me give you an example from last Friday, March 19. In race number 3, our side-by-side bet keyed on Larry Payne who was riding the #7 horse. Our exacta side-by-side bet was to box 6,7,8. The cost for this $2 exacta box was $12. The result was 8-7 with Payne placing. The exacta payout was $85.60.

The trifecta side-by-side bet was structured as follows: 6,7,8/6,7,8/ALL. There were 10 horses in this race so the cost of this $2 trifecta bet was $96. Since this size bet is usually out of the range of many bettors bank roll a $1 trifecta for the same bet was $48. This $1 trifecta paid $905.10. The minimum trifecta bet at Remington Park is $1. This turned out to be a 7-1 return on the exacta and a 19-1 return on the trifecta.

With a large enough bank roll to manage these size bets the return can be very rewarding.

Superfectas are Popular

I recently ran a poll on my blog for a couple of months asking the question: "What bet returns you the most money?" As I had expected superfectas are very popular. I talk with other horse bettors at my local track and they are crazy about 10-cent superfectas because of their low cost and high return potential. They can construct with almost reckless abandon superfecta combinations that seem ridiculous but can often times be winning tickets and pay fantastic returns.

This was not a scientific poll but the folks who visit my blog are interested in betting on the horses and therefore their opinions are significant. Here's how the results from the poll came out. The bet that returns the most money is the superfecta with 32%. In the second spot is the trifecta with 18%. In the third spot is the win bet with 16%. The quinella and exacta both with 8% each. The pick6 had 10%. It's interesting to note that about 80% of the bets that make the most money for the bettor are exotic bets.

I want to thank those who participated in the poll. With your participation it gives all of us an idea of what bets to try. Good luck to each of you.

Bets Within a Race and Bets Across Races

When you bet an exacta, quinella, trifecta, or superfecta your bet is completed when the race is over. These bets are within a race. When you bet a daily double, a pick three, a pick four, or a pick six your bet is completed when the last race in the bet has finished. The strategies for these two kinds of bets are quite different. The principle of "bets within a race" is to pick the best 2,3,4,5 or 6 horses in a race. The principle of "bets across races" is to pick the possible winners in each race.

Let's start with "bets within a race" first. For an exacta and a quinella to pay off you need to concentrate on the horses that you feel can come in first or second. Let's suppose that there are 10 horses in a race. You get your Daily Racing Form and start studying the 10 horses in the race. After considerable deliberation you come to the conclusion that there are only two horses in this race that you believe can win or place. With this belief your bet is easy and inexpensive. You can do an exacta box of these two horses ( a quinella if this bet is allowed in this race at this track). If however, you come to the conclusion that out of the ten horses in the race that 5 of them are capable of winning or placing then you have a bit more to consider. You can place an $1 exacta box of these five horses but it will be a bit more expensive, $20 to be exact. I want to illustrate here that two factors that are all important. One is the cost of the bet and the other is how badly you want to win the bet. Using similar logic for a trifecta, or a superfecta it always gets down to cost and your desire to win. To increase your probability of winning it will cost more for the bet. How much you will spend depends how big your bankroll is and how much you are willing to spend on any one bet. The best thing you can do is to understand your tolerance level.

Bets across races need a different strategy. These kind of bets depend only on the horse that wins the race in each race of the bet. You can start with "singles". A "single" is using only one horse in a race. You need to be very confident in your belief that this horse will win the race. Big Brown in the Preakness was a good example. The other races where you need 2, 3, 4 or more horses for that race is where the cost of the bet goes up. Daily doubles, pick 3's, pick 4's can be more attractive to the horseplayer with a modest bankroll. Magna 5's and pick 6's are bets where you need a significant amount of money to have a good chance of winning. Twinspires had a pool for the pick 6 on Derby Day that you could get in on for as little as $10. You could even bet as much as $1000 which was the limit. Some of the pick 6 bets in the pool were $50000 +. To show you how difficult the pick 6 is, on Derby Day there were no tickets that got 6 out of 6. The total pool was $75000 +. Fortunately, in the pool there were several superfecta bets on the Kentucky Derby. Two of them paid almost $30000 each. If you were in the pool even though the pool didn't win the pick 6, the superfectas earned back enough to almost break even. A very nice strategy in the pool.

'til next time.

Trifecta Research

I would like to solicit your help. I'm looking into the Trifecta bet to see how horseplayers use the Trifecta bet in their tool kit of bets. I have set up two polls that I would ask you to participate in.

Here are the two polls:

1) When you bet trifectas, what is the average cost of your bet?

2) What is your success with trifecta bets?

Click on the following two links to enter your data. (Click on the back button after you have finished making your entries.)

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/TrifectaCost.htm

http://www.geocities.com/wm_kyran/TrifectaSuccess.htm

I will follow up later with an article on my blog.

Thanks for your participation.

Exotic Bets: The Trifecta

I have been running a poll that asks: What type of bet do you use most often? ( http://vote.pollit.com/webpoll2?ID=329064 )Just behind the win bet and the exacta is the trifecta at 20%. Infact these three bets make up 71% of the betting that horse players say they use most often.

Let me talk about the trifecta and how it can be played. With a trifecta we are concentrating on the horses that will win, place and show when the race is over. Before the race starts some good handicapping is usually needed to determine which horses could win, place or show and which horses you can throw out. Removing horses from your bet can many times make the difference between a profitable wager and a losing one. Let's first consider a trifecta box (a very common wager with horse players). The number of horses you put in a trifecta box can run up in cost very rapidly. For example, $1 trifecta box 3 horses costs $6, box 4 costs $24, box 5 costs $60, and box 6 costs $120. It gets rather expensive fast. The difference between boxing 3 horses and 6 horses is a huge $114. Now can you see why throwing out improbable horses is so important to a smart bet.

What if you like 6 horses in a race? What can you do to whittle down the cost of boxing 6 horses? Here are some suggestions. First, consider how much you will (or can afford to) put into the trifecta bet. Let's say $40. Next go back to your handicapping and see if you can reduce the number of horses that you think could win to say three. Let's say horses D, C, and B. Next look at the horses that you consider could place, say D,C,B,E. Now look at any other horses that could show, say A and F. Your bet is now CB/DCBE/DCBEAF. This will cost $36.

Some other examples of common trifecta bets are the following:

$1 trifecta A/BCDE/BCDE costs $12
$1 trifecta A/BCDEF/BCDEF costs $20
$1 trifecta A/BCDEFG/BCDEFG costs $30

$1 trifecta BCDE/A/BCDE costs $12
$1 trifecta BCDEFA/BCDEF costs $20
$1 trifecta BCDEFG/A/BCDEFG costs $30

Remember to keep your trifecta bets to what you can afford or are willing to spend.

Tote Analysis of the Mac Diarmida Handicap

The featured race, race 8, on Sunday, March 16th at Gulfstream was the Grade II Mac Diarmida Handicap. It started out with 14 horses but two were scratched. Here was a race with some quality horses. I want to illustrate with this tote analysis the choice of a race to bet on, how the tote analysis works, and the placement of the bets from the analysis.

The tote analysis for this race can be found at
http://billwinters.org/GulfstreamSundayR8Mar16.jpg . First observe that the 3 horse, True Cause, ridden by John Velazquez, at the 20m (20 minute) mark immediately took a lot of money and the tote odds were at 2/1. The morning line (ML) started at 5/1 and the profit line (PL) was at 9/1. The 3 horse was indeed one to watch closely. Down to the 10 minute mark True Cause was still at 2/1. Both the morning line (3/1) and profit line (9/5) favorite was the 9 horse, Stream of Gold ridden by Eibar Coa. At the 5m and 3m marks the 9 horse began taking a lot of money and the odds went down to 8/5. The 3 horse odds came up to 7/2. Both horses looked very strong on the toteboard.

To bet this race I will use $2 win bets, $1 exacta bets, and $1 Trifecta bets for illustrative purposes. My actual bets were higher than this. I chose to place $2 to win on both 3 and 9 ($2 win 9,3). I placed a $1 exacta box on 3 and 9 ($1 exacta 3/9 and 9/3). As a hedge I also bet the exacta 3,9/1,4,11. My trifecta bets were 3,9/3,9/1,4,11 and the hedge bet was 3,9/1,4,11/3,9. The finish for this turf race was 9-3-11. The 9 horse paid $4.60 to win, the $1 exacta paid $10 and the $1 trifecta paid $47.80.

Note from the tote analysis that I used the top five tote picks in my bets. Horse 9 was the top tote pick at 8/5. The 3 horse was second at 7/2. The 1 horse was third at 6/1. The 11 horse was fourth at 9/1 and the 4 horse was 5th at 10/1.

The cost of the bets in this race were as follows: Win bets cost was $4. The exactas cost $2 for the exacta box 3,9 an $6 for 3,9/1,4,11. The trifecta cost $6 for 3,9/3,9/1,4,11 and $6 for 3,9/1,4,11/3,9. The net gain for this race was (4.60+10.00+47.80)-(4.00+8.00+12.00)= $38.40.

Exacta Betting using Tote Analysis

In a previous blog article, "A Day at the Track Using Tote Analysis", I chose Gulfstream on January 24, 2008. In that article I kept it simple and only used win bets. Let's look at how you would have done if you did exacta betting on the same races that day. The tote analysis for the first three races are found at
http://billwinters.org/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races123.jpg .

In race 1 we do not bet since our analysis showed that any horse in the race could likely
win.

In race 2 the morning line favorite at 9/5 as well as the profit Line favorite at 9/5 was going to also be the tote pick. The exacta bet here was to bet the 3 horse (on top in the win position) along with the rest of the horses in the place position. The bet then is written 3/ALL. As a hedge, in case another horse beats the 3, we place the bet ALL/3. [In summary then the bet is 3/ALL and ALL/3.] The cost of this bet (assuming a $1 exacta bet) is $5 + $5 or $10. The result of this race was that the #1 horse beat out the #3 horse who placed. We won the bet with the hedge part of the bet. 1 - 3 was the finish order. The $1 exacta paid $15.60. A net gain of (15.60 - 10.00) $5.60.

I wrote in an earlier blog article, "One of My Favorite Trifecta Bets", that I liked this bet when the conditions were right. The conditions were right in this race. The tote analysis showed at the 3m mark that the #3 horse was at even odds (1/1) and the #4 horse was at 2/1. These two horses were solid favorites in the race. The trifecta bet then was 3,4/3,4/ALL. The race finished with 3-4-7. The $1 trifecta paid $13.20 and cost $10. This gave us a net gain of $3.20. The $1 exacta box of the two favorites paid $4.50 and cost $2.00, a net gain of $2.50.

[Tote analysis for races 4 and 5:
http://billwinters.org/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races4and5.jpg ]

The 4th race had four scratched horses. We don't pay as much attention to the M/L and P/L favorite with all these scratches. This is the kind of race where we pay attention to the tote analysis and where the money is coming into the betting. It can really pay off. At the 3m mark #1 had gone from (M/L) 9/5 down to 6/5. #2 went from 6 down to 7/2. #7 went from 9 down to 7/2. #10 went from 12 down to 7/2. I did a quick calculation in my head. Tote divided by M/L. For the 10 horse this was about .3 and anything below .3333 I like. The exacta bet here is to use all 4 of these horses in an exacta box (1,2,7,10). The race result was 10 - 7. A nice $1 exacta payoff of $27.00. The net gain was ($27.00 - $12) $15.00.

Race #5 had 3 scratches: 5, 8 and 10. Again we can ignore the M/L and P/L and concentrate on the toteboard. At the 3m mark no horse seemed to be taking a lot of money. I decided not to bet this race.

[Tote analysis for races 6 and 7:
http://billwinters.org/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races6and7.jpg ]

On to race #6. Again 5 scratches this time including the favorite, the #6 horse. Among the six remaining horses the #1 horse was the tote pick. The exacta bet here was 1/ALL and ALL/1. 2B came on to beat 1 with an exacta payoff of $16.90 and a cost of ($5 + $5) $10.00. The net gain was $6.90.

In race #7 the #4 horse was a very strong pick. The exacta bet was 4/ALL and ALL/4. The result was 4 - 6 for a nice exacta payoff of $34.30. The cost was $18.00. A very nice net gain of $16.30.

[Tote analysis for races 8 and 9:
http://billwinters.org/BillsBlog/GulfstreamJan24Races8and9.jpg ]

The quality race of the day, race #8, had a late scratch of the #1 horse. The tote and P/L pick was the #3 horse. John Velazquez, Gulfstreams leading rider brought the horse in for the win. The exacta bet was with the two favorites, 3 and 7 both at 8/5 odds at the 3m mark, 3,7/ALL. The $1 exacta paid $18.60. The cost was $14.00 so the net gain was $4.60.

Race #9 had 1 scratched horse and ended up with 12 horses in the race. The tote analysis was in conclusive and didn't show much so I didn't bet this race.

The total net gain for the exacta betting for the afternoon was ($5.60 + $3.20 + $15 + $6.90 + $16.30 + $4.60) $45.60. Not bad for $1 betting.

Note that the net gain for win betting was $15.80. Which type bet do you like?

'til the next article. Good luck and enjoy yourself.