Sea Biscuit
05-02-2008, 02:32 PM
Making your own Morning line/odds line
When you sit down to handicap do you ever bother to make your own morning line/Odds line?
Every professional handicapper does and you should too. If not for the whole field then just for the one or two or three contenders in a race at least. I know its difficult but you must try.
A morning line/odds line essentially is to assign odds to every horse in a field in relation to its todays chances of winning the race.
How do you go about making a odds line??
Please let me explain how its done.
Suppose you have a race where you give two horses equal chances to win the race.
Their chances of winning would therefore be 50% to win the race.
To calculate the odds for these two horses this is how its done.
100/50=2-1 ( the 1 is constant here)=1
The odds for the above two horses should be even money.
Now if one of the horses goes off at 50 cents to a dollar and the other horse’s odds drifts to 4 to 1 at post time which horse should you bet?. You are darn right if you say the 4 to 1 horse because he is an overlay. Now its entirely up to you to decide what represents an overlay price for you.
Some handicappers go for double their own M/L odds and some even go for 2.5 or three times their M/L odds and a few I know demand 4 times their M/L odds which in my opinion is a bit too much too ask.
Has it ever happened to you when you come across a race where you say that such and such horse would lay over the field and win by 3 or 4 lengths. I am sure it has. But he is the pick of the resident track handicapper and you also figure he will be the post time favorite and you just turn the page and totally forget about this race because you are not a favorite bettor.
Now assuming your handicapping is up to par and the horse indeed has a advantage over the rest of the field by over 3 or 4 lengths, the chances of this horse winning the race is a whopping 95%
Let us take a minute and calculate your own M/L odds for this horse.
100/95=1.05-1=.05
The odds for this horse should really be 5 cents on the dollar. In other words this horse should not pay more than $2.10 for a $2 win ticket.
Now if this horse is going off at even money at post time that would be 20 times your M/L odds.
Like the proverbial saying goes for horse players,
Knock down little old ladies in the line to make your bet on the even money overlayed favourite.
Have fun at the races.
When you sit down to handicap do you ever bother to make your own morning line/Odds line?
Every professional handicapper does and you should too. If not for the whole field then just for the one or two or three contenders in a race at least. I know its difficult but you must try.
A morning line/odds line essentially is to assign odds to every horse in a field in relation to its todays chances of winning the race.
How do you go about making a odds line??
Please let me explain how its done.
Suppose you have a race where you give two horses equal chances to win the race.
Their chances of winning would therefore be 50% to win the race.
To calculate the odds for these two horses this is how its done.
100/50=2-1 ( the 1 is constant here)=1
The odds for the above two horses should be even money.
Now if one of the horses goes off at 50 cents to a dollar and the other horse’s odds drifts to 4 to 1 at post time which horse should you bet?. You are darn right if you say the 4 to 1 horse because he is an overlay. Now its entirely up to you to decide what represents an overlay price for you.
Some handicappers go for double their own M/L odds and some even go for 2.5 or three times their M/L odds and a few I know demand 4 times their M/L odds which in my opinion is a bit too much too ask.
Has it ever happened to you when you come across a race where you say that such and such horse would lay over the field and win by 3 or 4 lengths. I am sure it has. But he is the pick of the resident track handicapper and you also figure he will be the post time favorite and you just turn the page and totally forget about this race because you are not a favorite bettor.
Now assuming your handicapping is up to par and the horse indeed has a advantage over the rest of the field by over 3 or 4 lengths, the chances of this horse winning the race is a whopping 95%
Let us take a minute and calculate your own M/L odds for this horse.
100/95=1.05-1=.05
The odds for this horse should really be 5 cents on the dollar. In other words this horse should not pay more than $2.10 for a $2 win ticket.
Now if this horse is going off at even money at post time that would be 20 times your M/L odds.
Like the proverbial saying goes for horse players,
Knock down little old ladies in the line to make your bet on the even money overlayed favourite.
Have fun at the races.