Boycott Trifecta Wagering

[highnote]

Dear Fellow Trifecta Players,

I would like to call for a boycott of trifecta wagering until the racetracks, on-line bet takers and online toteboards provide trifecta payoffs on-line.

My understanding is that most money bet nowadays is bet on-line. Most of these on-line betting services offer trifecta wagering. It seems to me it would be very easy to transmit potential trifecta payoffs. They transmit exacta payoffs, don't they?

Racetrack Managers. Wake up -- it's almost 2003.

Until I can see trifecta payoffs, I will boycott trifecta wagers and would urge others to do the same.

John Swetye

[sq764]

Its a noble effort, but are you going to boycott pick 3's, pick 4's, pick 6's, place and show bets as well?

[anotherdave]

Originally posted by swetyejohn
It seems to me it would be very easy to transmit potential trifecta payoffs. They transmit exacta payoffs, don't they?



Yes it would be easy to transmit them. I'm always for more information for the horseplayer, in a 12 horse race there are 132 possible exacta payoffs -that is managable to display and they do, but with 1320 possible triactor payoffs, I'm not sure how they could possibly display them so they would be readable. And how long would it take to go through the whole thing until you started over?

AD

[anotherdave]

Originally posted by sq764
Its a noble effort, but are you going to boycott pick 3's, pick 4's, pick 6's, place and show bets as well?

I remember years ago there used to be a harness track that would display a range of possible place and show pays right on the toteboard. (e.g. #3 place is between $4.70 and $7.20)

That would be incredibly easy to do these days, and quite useful.

AD

[highnote]

Originally posted by sq764
Its a noble effort, but are you going to boycott pick 3's, pick 4's, pick 6's, place and show bets as well?

Pick 3's and 4's - Yes. Pick 6's - Yes, until I'm convinced the pools are secure.

Place and Show -- No. It's easy to figure place and show payoffs if you have the win/place/show pools. I do it all the time in real-time on the internet using the Dr. Z Beat the Racetrack software.

[sq764]

AD, the only problem is that with the late money, those payouts could change so much at a moment's notice as well..

[highnote]

but with 1320 possible triactor payoffs, I'm not sure how they could possibly display them so they would be readable. And how long would it take to go through the whole thing until you started over?AD

12 tables of matices would be needed. It would actually be a page of 12 exacta matrices. One matrix table for each horse. You could just scroll down the page until you find your key horse. It's just text data - how long could that take to refresh - a second or two?

For a three horse race it would look like this:

Horse 1 to win
1 2 3 to place

1 X X X
2 X X 10
3 X 10 X

Horse 2 to win
1 2 3 to place

1 X X 10
2 X X x
3 10 X X

Horse 3 to win
1 2 3 to place

1 X 10 X
2 10 X X
3 X X X


I would bet that the guys who have direct links with Racing Services can get the tri payoffs.

Those of us without the information are not playing on a level playing field.

[GR1@HTR]

Its a good idea but I don't think it is feasible.

If my 2nd grade math education is correct, a 10 horse field would require 1000 different postings of what a tri would pay (10 x 10 x 10) and a 12 horse field would require the posting of 1728 combos...By the time they finish showing 1728 combos of tri payouts, exacta payouts and w/p/s pools I could be dead...

[highnote]

1728 payouts would only take a second or two to transmit. It's probably not feasable or possible to watch all the pools, but it's easy enough to follow a couple trifecta combinations throughout the wagering period.

[MV McKee]

12 horse field has 1320 possible combos (12x11x10).....
Superfecta 11880 combos (12x11x10x9) etc.
Displaying these payouts would seem usefull, but only if one was using a PC to compare. I can't imagine being able to ascertain anything by eyeballing them. One could construct something of a pseudo WPS pool distribution based on the money in the trifecta pools.....definitely a nice edge to those who would take advantage of the information. Seems that in all but the largest pools though, the payoffs would be very volatile. Hmmmm...

[Hosshead]

Some years ago,(before online betting), Hollywood used to post minimum/max probable payoffs for place/show for each horse. Don't know if they still do it though.

[JimG]

At many greyhound tracks, they show the amount of money bet on each dog on top in trifectas. While that isn't exactly what John is looking for, it is better than nothing and does at least let you know what dog is bet on top in tri and which one isn't. Doesb't take much room to display either,


Jim

[Larry Hamilton]

guys, in a 12 horse race there are 12x11x10 possible trifecta solutions, that's nearly 1500. If you want to change it once a minute as is done with exactas, what else do you plan to do besides follow trifecta prices? Even if you dont plan to look at any except yours, you are then faced with finding all of yours once a minute...methinks this aint feasable or even a good idea if available

[Zaf]

Originally posted by anotherdave
I remember years ago there used to be a harness track that would display a range of possible place and show pays right on the toteboard. (e.g. #3 place is between $4.70 and $7.20)

That would be incredibly easy to do these days, and quite useful.

AD

The defunct Roosevelt Raceway in Long Island used to display place and show price ranges.

ZAFONIC

[GR1@HTR]

It's almost impossible to exactly predict what a place and show horse will pay since it is dependent upon who else finishes ITM. Displaying percentage of the pools in the place and show hole like bris tote does would be a better solution.

[sq764]

I know that monticello Raceway (harness track) posts the amount of trifecta money bet on each horse in a race..

[so.cal.fan]

If most of the money comes in electronically, what good would showing the projected payoffs be?
I don't know how soon this money comes in around the country, but in So. Cal, we have checked the pools a few times(nothing scientific) and found that around 25% of the pools come in after the flag goes up.
I don't bet trifectas, but I have a friend who does bet them.
He is on track everyday. He is in favor of NO ELECTRONIC tickets in the pools. HARD TICKETS ONLY. Won't happen, but most of the exotic bet players I know at the track, are really upset about the electronic tickets flooding the pools.........when they first started to do this, they were elated. They thought the bigger pools would be a boon to them.....until the BC scandal.
I sure don't know the answer, but share everyone's frustration with the system right now.

[keilan]

Rule of thumb for myself -- I don't bet tri's unless my Key Horse is hidden from the public and offers minimum of 10-1. Never box horse's, if I can't determine or take a stand on one horse in the 1st and possibly the 2nd spot then perhaps I have no business playing the race. Two things this accomplishes 1st -- you are going to get paid if your right and secondly you've managed your bank-roll more efficiently and find that your not chasing races. Obviously this is a great opportunity for win and exactor wagering also.

[rrbauer]

I'm pretty sure that the last time that I was at Arlington which was mid-90's that they had a board in the upper clubhouse that showed Tri information. I don't recall the specifics now but it was a pretty big board with lot's of info.

Can any Chicago racetrackers fill this in?

[highnote]

GR1,
You're right. There are so many possible ITM finishes. What I do is calculate what the payouts will be if my horse finishes ITM with the two other favorites. At least I have an idea of my worse case payout.

If my horse is 2-1 and is paying $4.00 show with the other two betting choices, I'm all over him.

[LOU M.]

The matrix boards you are refering to are above each betting station at the track. They show the DD EX and Q. They rotate for every bet. They never had one for TRI"S.IT's nice to see the bets displayed this way. Now if I could only plug in my laptop to chart the overlays!

[Holy Bull]

Be careful what you wish for.

First off, the tote companies wouldn't bother to put in the time to add the capabilities, but even if they did...

All having tri payoffs accessible would do
would be the extend the gap computer players/bettors have over straight handicappers.

The data's all there already, you just have to know how to interpret it.

[highnote]

There may be a gap between computer bettors and straight bettors, but I don't think that computer bettors necessarily have an edge over straight bettors.

I know one paddock handicapper who has never made a bet over the internet in his life, but he still makes a profit betting on-track.

[Holy Bull]

Not saying someone like a paddock handicapper can't still make a profit.

The edge is being able to maximize profits. The edge is also in being able to play a large amount of races and bet them right.

[highnote]

I guess it depends on what type of bettor an individual wants to be. Personally, it doesn't bother me that there are individuals making multiple wagers at multiple tracks. If the paddock handicapper and the computer bettor are astute they will both make profits in the long run.

What bothers me is that not all tote information is equally accessible for all players.

[Holy Bull]

Racing Channel is available to everyone...totally evens the playing field in terms of tote information.

[highnote]

Racing Channel is available to everyone...totally evens the playing field in terms of tote information.


No. No. No. No. No. The whole point of this post is that Racing Channel do NOT provide probable payoffs for trifectas.

Some players have access to probable trifecta payoffs via a direct link to a toteboard at Racing Services or similar. Most players do not have access to probable trifecta payoffs. That is where the field is not level. And that is why I will not bet trifectas. And that is why I recommended boycotting trifectas.

Racing Channel only displays win/place/show/ pools and quinella/exacta and daily double probable payoffs and pools. Nowhere do they display trifecta pools or probable payoffs.

Some people have tri data and some don't. To me, that makes the trifecta playing field uneven.

[Holy Bull]

Swetyejohn,

No one has access to trifecta probable payouts. It does not even exist in any of the tote software, no matter how direct your link is.

[Figman]

This program which hooks to either of two live tote boards give estimated trifecta payoffs. I have been using it since August.
http://homebased2.com/atr/at_the_races.htm

[highnote]

Originally posted by Holy Bull
Swetyejohn,

No one has access to trifecta probable payouts. It does not even exist in any of the tote software, no matter how direct your link is.

That's interesting. How do you know?

[highnote]

Originally posted by Figman
This program which hooks to either of two live tote boards give estimated trifecta payoffs. I have been using it since August.
http://homebased2.com/atr/at_the_races.htm

I know this program. They do an anemic version of Dr. Z place and show calculations.

What I really want are the actual tri probables. Estimated probables are definately good for some purposes, but they are only estimates. In a given race, if the actual payout is vastly different than the estimated payout then the information may not be useful. It's certainly better than nothing.

[superfecta]

Good luck to you if thats what keeps you from betting a tri.I have been using the old Las Vegas method of computing tris for years.It doesn't work exactly,but it gets me to what the minimum should pay and thats good enough.If you had this info you could not possibly use it without a computer doing your betting for you and wheres the fun in that?And when someone bets the same combo as you it cuts down the payoff,irregardless of the odds of your horses.

[GameTheory]

I think this would be an excellent service to offer the bettor, and I've wondered why it hasn't yet been done. Racing Channel gets their feed from somewhere, and puts it on the internet for free, for which I am grateful.

But why don't the originators of the direct feed (the tote company or where ever it comes from) take that feed and then sell it to individual subscribers like me for a (low) monthly fee? It would be delivered over the internet as a data feed in a guaranteed (not HTML, probably compressed) format.

Software developers could then RELY on it instead of the current way the Dr. Z & At the Races type programs work, which is to parse the HTML pages from Racing Channel or BRIS. Of course, the format of those pages could change at any time and then you've got to modify the software. Also, it is just inefficient. The feed could be queried to send you just the data you're looking for. If you want gazillions of pick-6 probables, then you'd have to pay more for all the bandwidth, etc.

The company selling the feed might provide some default tote viewers for average users that just want a reliable tote board.

Users of third-party software would have to buy a subscription to the tote feed, and of course individual programmers could use the feed in any way they wanted, but it would be open to anyone who wants to buy a subscription.

[Holy Bull]

They give you all they have for free now, no need to give them to idea to charge for it :)
WPS, Exactas, Doubles, Quinellas, etc.
You pull down what you want. It is a relatively fast site, plenty of bandwidth to all, everyone is on the same playing field.
Pretty dang nice.

And in all the time I've been pulling down odds from there, I haven't had to change the parser once.

[GameTheory]

Yeah, I've done the same and it works ok, but it still isn't the most elegant solution and they can pull the plug anytime they want...

[Boris]

Cripes!! They can't even tell us what the win bet is gonna pay with any certainty. First things frist.