No jumpers this time

[takeout]

Pools for the 8th race at CT 9/19/08:

Win – 11,829
Place– 5,921
Show-84,687

That’s pretty amazing considering the show pools at CT probably only average somewhere around 3K.

[Tom Barrister]

West Virginia has a minimum 10 cent payoff on a dollar ($2.20), which makes it a bit more inviting for bridge jumpers. This race was a $102,000 stakes, which I suppose made the bridge jumper(s) more comfortable about taking a shot at it.

[stu]

Y'all,

At 1 minute to post it was a 'lock race.' The favorite had over 97.5% of the pool. One could guarantee a victory by betting $2 show on everybody and the proper amount on the favorite to show.

I believe that the math was described in Sports Illustrated in 1973. I have seen it written about in numerous places since then. I have it in a text that is in storage too far away to post the equation.

If you were wise and swift enough, then you could have made money no matter the order of finish in that lock race.

[Tom Barrister]

Y'all,

At 1 minute to post it was a 'lock race.' The favorite had over 97.5% of the pool. One could guarantee a victory by betting $2 show on everybody and the proper amount on the favorite to show.

I believe that the math was described in Sports Illustrated in 1973. I have seen it written about in numerous places since then. I have it in a text that is in storage too far away to post the equation.

If you were wise and swift enough, then you could have made money no matter the order of finish in that lock race.

The problems with the method are:

1) It assumes that the ratios of money bet stay the same. This is decidedly not true due to late money from simulcasting.

2) It assumes that the amount that the player bets won't change those ratios---also not true anymore, since the pools are smaller than they were in the early 1970's, when WPS was all that was available on most races.

3) Net pool pricing can screw up the payoffs.

4) The favorite is a starter. If the favorite gets scratched or is declared a non-starter, you will probably lose money, since they would still allow show wagering in the remaining five-horse field.

5) The anti-bridge-jumper watchers (tote software such as ATR can monitor bridge jumping) remove a lot of the value from the non-favorites.

The method sounds good in theory, but it isn't really practical, in my opinion, although it MIGHT work at an offshore. Doing so, might also make the staff of that offshore unhappy with you.