To bet or not to bet?

There is a saying in poker: know when to hold'em and when to fold'em.  This is just as true in betting on horses.  Know when to bet and when not to bet.  This rule of success is easy to say but hard to follow.

Always remember: your winning bets have to absorb your losing bets.  Losing bets put you in a hole.  If in doubt about a bet, don't bet.  A weakness in betting is betting too much and too frequently.  It's not easy to keep from betting especially if you are the type of person that enjoys the action.  This can be your downfall.  Establish a goal for yourself in betting.  One such goal might be "be a winner at the end of the day".  What does this mean?  It means that you have more money at the end of the day than when you started.

Okay but how do I do this?
First, you have to want to be a winner.
Second, only place bets that you have a high level of confidence in. If in doubt, don't bet.
Third, know when to not bet a race.  (Too many horses could win the race.)
Fourth, know when to stop and declare the "end of the day".  (If you're really ahead before the "end of the day" QUIT betting and keep your profits.)

If you think about it the only way to be a winner: "you must stop at some point when you are ahead".  There is no other way.

Don't Recycle Your Winnings

Everyone wants to come out ahead when the races are over and you are through betting for the day.  The truth of the matter is that for the majority of horse players this is not the case.  I have been friends with many horse players for the last 30 years plus.  My observations have been that most people who play the horses lose money the majority of time.  It's kind of like fishing.  Most of the time you don't catch any fish.  The fish may just not be biting.  However, every so often you catch a big one and it entices you to come back again.  So it goes with the horse player.  So is there a plan that can turn this around?

I hate to say this but many horse players go to the track unprepared.  Sure they may have their Daily Racing Form and maybe have done some handicapping.  However,  how many have thought seriously about how much money they are taking with them to bet with.  Have they thought though what's the appropriate 'bankroll' for today's betting.  Is the money in that bankroll what they can afford to lose or is this money they may need for other purposes.  It's important to know whether you're just going to bet to have fun or just for the action.  Or, are you going to win and increase your
bankroll or at least  keep your winnings for the day.

Here is an approach that can keep you from losing your whole bankroll and to keep the proceeds of your winning bets.  There's a saying at the track: "you can't win them all but you can lose them all".  Let's say you go to the track with a $200 bankroll and there are 10 races on the card for the day.  That gives you $20 on average that you can wager on each race.  The approach I'm suggesting is quite simple (but hard for some horse players to follow).  Decide ahead of time that you will only cycle through your bankroll one time.  Decide that you will keep the proceeds from each winning bet.  When you are right with your bets, collect the winnings and don't use that money to place more bets.  In other words don't recycle your winnings.  The worse thing you can do is to keep betting with the money you have won.  This is a recipe for losing your whole bankroll for the  day.  This is also a sign that you may be a real loser.

Be a winner and come home with your winnings for the day even if you have depleted part of your bankroll.

With the Kentucky Derby just around the corner

Here is an update on a blog article I wrote on August 25, 2012 titled "A Different Betting Strategy".

http://handicapbet.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-different-betting-strategy.html

It may sound crazy at first but bare with me for a bit. There are some interesting characteristics of horse racing that makes it different from other wagering venues like the stock or options market trading. There are a limited number of horses in a race (usually less than 14 but sometimes as many as 20 as in the Kentucky Derby). Quarter horse races are usually no more than 10 horses. Most races are completed under 2 minutes. The results and payoffs are made available immediately after a race is finished and declared official. You know right away whether you won or lost.

 Let's consider what would happen if you bet on all of the horses in a race to win. You would for sure win the bet. However, would you make money or lose money on this bet? I was first exposed to this idea a number of years ago when I was at the Kentucky Derby and by chance entered into a conversation with an older lady from Louisville who told me that she had won the Kentucky Derby for the last twenty- five years. My reaction at the time was ... really? How did you do that? She proceeded to tell me that she always bets every horse in the Kentucky Derby to win. She did tell me the truth now didn't she. This deserves bragging rights! I got to thinking later, just how much would you win or lose over the last 8 or 10 years if you bet like she did on the Kentucky Derby? I did a little research on the internet and here is what I found with $2 bets.

                                          Odds Paid Cost Win/Lose
2012 I'll Have Another 15.30 32.60 40.00 -7.40
2011 Animal Kingdom  8.00 18.00 40.00 -22.00
2010 Super Saver        20.90 43.80 40.00 +3.80
2009 Mine that Bird     50.60 103.20 40.00 +63.20 (+37.60)
2008 Big Brown           2.40 6.80 40.00 -33.20
2007 Street Sense        4.90 11.80 40.00 -28.20
2006 Barbaro              6.10 14.20 40.00 -25.80
2005 Giacomo            50.30 102.60 40.00 +62.60 (+13.00)

For the last 4 years you would be ahead $37.60. For the last 8 years you would still be ahead but only $13.00.

*****
[Update: 2013 Orb  5.40 12.80 40.00 -27.20 (+10.40) Last 5 years you'd still be ahead $10.40.  For the lst 9 years however, you'd be $14.20 behind still not bad considering the bragging rights you would have.]
*****

 I decided to go further with this idea in everyday betting. So I started with the hypothetical idea of betting all the horses in a race and then work backwards. [The usual approach is to find the horse(s) you think is going to win and then work forward.]

If you "bet them all" then you always win the bet. Whether you gain money or lose money on the bet is something else. For example let's assume there are 8 horses in a race we pick. If you bet 7 of the 8 horses to win then the only way you lose the bet is if the one horse you didn't bet wins. Otherwise you will win the bet. Again whether you make or lose money on the bet depends on the odds of the horse that wins. To illustrate, suppose the horse that won is one of the 7 you bet to win and the horse went off at 7/1 odds. On a $2 win bet the payoff would be $16. Your cost to bet the 7 horses would be $14. Your net winnings for this bet would be ($16 - 14 =) $2. If the horse that won went off at 3/1 odds, then your net would be ($8 - 14 =) -$6 or a loss of $6. In other words you won the bet but lost money.

 If we move backwards to betting 6 or 5 or 4 or 3 or 2 horses again depends on the horses you bet or didn't bet. It will also depend on the odds the winning horse went off at and what it cost you to make the bet. If you bet 5 of 8 horses to win then you lose the bet with 3 horses and win with 5.

 Looking at win betting in this way allows you to place a bet that takes into account a possible win with a long shot or a very long shot included in the bet. Long shots do come in but when and what do you look for?

The Kentucky Derby is a good example for "betting them all" as we showed earlier. Stakes Races are also a good place to look. But why? In the Kentucky Derby there is always a large field of horses, typically 20 horses. Many of these horses will have very long odds. There is not a horse in the field that the trainer for the horse does not believe that the horse can win. These are the finest cream of the crop 3 year olds. They will all be going for it.

 This is also true for Grade I, II, and III stakes races. The advantage with the stakes races is that there is usually far less then 20 horses in the race competing. This makes the cost of the bet a lot less. Take Saratoga this summer(2012). Race 8 on July 30th was the Shakespeare Caress Stakes. There were 8 horses in the race. Rosa Salvaie won and paid $41.40 on a $2 bet. The cost of the "bet them all" bet was $16. This was a $25.40 gain. Race 10 on August 5th was the Grade I Vanderbilt Handicap. There were 8 horses in this race. Poseidon's Warrior won and paid $74.50. This was a spectacular gain of $58.50 on a $2 bet. R1 on August 9th was the Mrs. Ogden Phipps Stakes. There were 8 horses in this race also. Cat Feathers won this "Two And One Sixteenth Miles On The Hurdle" race and paid $48.60 for a $2 bet. This was a $32.60 gain.

The trick to "betting them all" is to be very selective and do your homework ahead of time. This is not a bet for just any race. It's a bet where the race looks to be 'wide open'and has the highest quality horses in the race (potentially any horse in the race could win). It's a judgement call, granted, but with experience you can get a feel for 'wide open'races. High priced stakes races are very fertile ground in which to look. Have fun and good luck.

A Winning Strategy

A trip to the race track or a session on your computer with Twinspires.com can be a winning one or a painful loss.  So let's take a look at both situations and see if we can identify what may be 'a winning strategy'.

First, a look at the 'behavior of betting' is in order because the individual's mind set is behind the bets he makes. The first thing to consider is the size of your bankroll.  Your bankroll is money you have put aside to bet with.  There is a saying that goes like this: "you can't win them all but you can lose them all".  What does this mean?  It means that it is quite possible to lose every bet you place.  If that should happen to you then you may end up with a zero bankroll.  This is the very worse situation.

We will look at a strategy that will put money bet, that we win with, back into our bankroll.  So when we win a bet we will put this winning ticket aside and not use it again during the current betting day.  Quite simply what this will do for us is to make sure any winnings we have we do not roll over into losses.  Rolling winnings back into betting again with the proceeds and losing is the way many a horse player ends up with empty pockets at the end of the day.

Putting winning tickets aside and back into you bankroll is a strategy for at least preserving part or all of your bankroll for the day.  The second step in a 'winning strategy' is to never bet more than your have in your bankroll for that day.  For example, if you start with a bankroll of $200 you might want to allocate $10 in bets for each race if you have 10 races on the card for that day.  That assumes you want to bet every race.  If you have some discipline in your betting you may not bet every race but choose races that you have the greatest confidence in winning.  You can measure the size of your bets but never exceed your bankroll for that day.

A profitable day is one where your winnings exceed your bankroll that you started with at the beginning of the day.  In fact you may want to stop betting when you reach a profitable level that meets your expectations.

May the racing gods be with you.

Where do you look for likely signs that a potential long shot could win in a horse race?

Let me enumerate 9 possibilities below.

1 In a race there should be horses with toteboard odds of at least 10/1 in the race.

2 When the favorite tote horse in the race is less than even odds.  The smaller the odds of the favorite the better.  Remember that the statistical odds of the favorite winning is 1 in 3 or about a third of the time.  Two thirds of the time one of the horses other than the favorite will win.

3 When at least one half of the horses in the race are going off at 10/1 odds or  greater.

4 Always consider the last race of the day on the card.  This is especially true if there are more than 10 horses in the race.

5 The last race in a pick 4,5 or 6.  Many times the last race is a spoiler.

6 A Grade I, II or III race with 10 or more horses.  Most of the time because these are the highest quality horses that any horse in the race on his best day could potentially win.

7 A stakes race with 10 or more horses.

8 Any Breeders Cup race with 10 or more horses.

9 The Kentucky Derby.

How to Structure a 10-cent Superfecta - for Fun and Profit

Many of my friends have asked me for a simple but effective approach to structuring a 10-cent superfecta.  Let me keep it as simple as possible and at the same time show the cost of the approach.

Since there are four positions that you have to decide on I just write down 1,2,3,4 (win,place,show,4th).  Starting with position 1, the win position, I look at all the horses in the race and determine the horses by post position that have the best chance of winning.  It could be just one horse or two horses or in some instances all the horses in the race.  For arguments sake, let's assume I can decide on one horse, say, the number 5 horse.

So for
Position 1: #5

Next, we look at position 2, the place position.  We scan through all the horses again and decide on our selections.  For example, let's say I believe
 there are 4 horses that have the best chance to place.  For example, 1,4,6,10.

So now we have
Position 1: #5
Position 2: #1, #4, #6, #10

To come up with the place position selections you can use many factors to help you decide.  Here are a few factors for those of you just starting out to consider: morning line, profit line, DRF last 4 races, jockey, trainer, owner, pedigree and tip sheets.


Positions 3 and 4 are simply the hardest to figure out so I like to bet all of the horses in the race for those positions. Taking this approach the cost of the bet may be a determining factor so let's look at this.

Our bet now is

Position 1: #5
Position 2: #1, #4, #6, #10
Position 3: ALL
Position 4: ALL

Depending on the number of horses (ALL) in the race a 10-cent superfecta will cost

#Horses  Cost
   7     $8.00
   8     $12.00
   9     $16.80
  10     $22.40
  11     $28.80
  12     $36.00

The 10-cent Superfecta Revisited

Use the 10-cent Superfecta in place of exactas and trifectas.

Some examples are: a $1 exacta 12/1234 costs $6.  A $2 exacta costs $12.  A $3 exacta $18, etc.  An equivalent 10-cent superfecta 12/1234/123456/123456 with 6 horses in the race would cost $7.20.  With 7 horses in the race 12/1234/1234567/1234567 would cost $12.  With 8 horses in the race 12/1234/12345678/12345678 would cost $18.

The payoffs from 10-cent superfectas can be sizable.  I have conducted an experiment at Remington Park where I have compared the payoffs from 10-cent superfectas with payoffs from exactas and trifectas of equal costs.

You may not have thought about it in this way but you can structure an exacta or a trifecta using a 10-cent superfecta so that if the exacta or the trifecta is a winning ticket then the 10-cent superfecta will be a winning ticket.   You ask "why would  want to do that"?  There is a good reason.  You see if there are 6-12 horses in a race the 10-cent superfecta will allow you to take advantage of horses that are really longshots that come in third or fourth to multiply the payoffs substantially.

Here are some results from May 26, 2013 at Remington Park. To verify these results you can go to Equibase.com, click on Results, then Historical Charts, select Remington Park and 5/26/2013 from the calendar.  Each race is listed and you can select one race at a time from the list.

The $1 exacta in the 4th race paid $9.40, but the 10-cent superfecta paid $51.42.  In race 7 the exacta paid $152.80, the 10-cent superfecta paid $3,347.40.  In race 8 the exacta paid $50.30, the 10-cent superfecta paid $2,440.  In race 9 the exacta paid $46.50, the 10-cent superfecta paid $93.  In race 10 the exacta paid $46.00, the 10-cent superfecta paid $109.30.  In race 11 the exacta paid $68, the 10-cent superfecta paid $309.20.

You may not have hit all of these exactas but I think it apparent that the 10-cent superfecta does have better payoffs in most instances.