Monkey Score

[Ray2000]

A few years ago I sent a team of 50 monkeys around N America betting Win and Straight Exactas at various Harness tracks. They have returned and their Average %ROIs are shown below. There's no handicapping done here, just random selections for win and exacta.


Track Races Win%ROI Ex%ROI
MOH 2354 -22% -30%
TGDN 1367 -23% -27%
PRC 1800 -23% -32%
INDY 1680 -24% -38%
VD 2004 -24% -23%
FRD 1098 -24% -34%
CALX 2771 -25% -35%
MEA 7436 -25% -32%
WR 1262 -25% -32%
PCD 4718 -26% -31%
WDB 3558 -26% -37%
DD 5286 -27% -38%
BR 3623 -28% -33%
HAR 3812 -28% -36%
MAY 3425 -28% -34%
HP 1905 -28% -38%
HOP 1720 -28% -40%
BTVA 1271 -29% -34%
YR 8857 -29% -37%
RIDC 2466 -29% -28%
BMLP 2976 -29% -40%
NOR 1749 -30% -44%
PPK 2982 -30% -38%
STGA 5256 -30% -34%
Big M 2767 -30% -40%
SCD 1554 -32% -29%
PHL 5342 -32% -41%
MR 6908 -32% -42%
FLMD 1976 -34% -35%
NFLD 7109 -35% -45%
GEOD 1520 -36% -32%
FHLD 3547 -36% -42%


All 113710 races x50= 5,685,500 Bets
Win Bets -29% 3.23 StDev
Exacta Bets -36% 10.00 StDev


The table is sorted on Win ROI.
The monkeys had their best Exactas at Vernon and Tioga, strange.

Having a little fun here, but the purpose was to establish a base ROI and STDev for doing
some statistical hypothesis testing.

If you make the huge assumption that the right tail of the wager hits is normally distributed, then simple Z testing a sample run (using the values above for the population mean and Standard Deviation), can tell you how many "Lucky Monkeys" would beat your test run.

Example: My other thread on key box exactas has some odd win bet results right now, running +9.7% ROI on 231 bets. BTW I corrected the number there, on second look I knew that 20% couldn't be right.

Zscore=difference in means * sqrt(#bets) / population StDev

=(-.29 - +0.10)*sqrt(231) / 3.23 = 1.81

1.81 corresponds to a 1-normdist(1.8) or
.....4 Lucky Monkeys out of a hundred.....could do as well.

[melman]

Ray you western pa guys are much smarter than us eastern pa guys. I am sure of one thing and that is I do not understand a lot of your post. I do get the part about "lucky monkeys" at least I think I do. I believe that luck is a part of the business that many do not accept. My best years I had a lot of longshot winners getting up by a nose. Or getting perfect trips. Just win betting or win/place betting is a tougher road to hoe than ever. I have given plenty of examples of the great returns on pic betting in the past and I think it is the best bet now available to players. Many harness tracks now have the low takeout to go along with the pic4.

Last night at Maywood

Leg 1 winner 5.20
Leg 2 winner 7.00
Leg 3 winner 10.40
Leg 4 winner 4.20

Pic4 paid 894.40

Lower hit rate but a better overall return. You do however have to accept the longer periods of "no winners".

*Only 17 days untill pitchers and catchers report to spring training. :)

[Ray2000]

mel

I wanted to stay away from the math also. It's boring and has a large "Margin of Error" as the pollsters would say. But when I get into a funny streak with the robot's picks, I check the stats to see if something's changed or just an acceptable random event.

I put up that table of ROIs to mainly show how bad picking numbers at random can be, much worse than just the takeout rates.


Speaking of errors, (I seem to be making a lot lately), the means were flipped in that Zscore formula. Should be:
=(+0.097-(-.29))*sqrt(231) / 3.23 = 1.81


and Speaking of Lucky

I can't see "Really Lucky" at Balmoral R12, getting 8/1 on the Morning Line.
Key box Dime Super... #9, 1st and 2nd with 12456...$12

Good LUCK all

[melman]

Just wondering Ray, what did the Robot have for last nights pic4 races at Maywood?
On your exacta workout---I remember an exacta at Balmoral that just missed at huge odds. And I mean JUST missed. Would have altered your ROI numbers quite a bit. Kinda what I meant by "lucky years".

My early take on the pic4 at Balmoral for tonight.

R10 1-6
R11 3-4-2
R12 9-4-6
R13 1-3

Also R3 4 LUCKY Nz :) and R5 Wen Mar's Chip good be price plays.

[Ray2000]

Last nite, Robot had R11-14....648/514/364/1 missed that 13th w/Oosting

With a strong 2/1 odds on that 14th race single ...8/1 ML off, won at 6/5

Tonight BMLP

??/417/945/63

...bot skips races with coupled entries. I'd say 1A looks good, 8 for a priceshot

Good Luck