Make-up of pools

[Cholly]

Who makes up the betting pools? Here’s a guess:

For grins, I’m assuming an AQ C20n2L with a solid (6-5) favorite in a 7-horse field; let’s say the WPS pool is $200K . What is the mix of betting by Stables (Owners/Trainers), Whales (betting > $5K), Players (betting in the $1,000-5,000 range), and Common Joes?

• Stables: Say the favorite is owned by a known betting stable, and they’ve sent in $15K. The rest of the stables combined are betting $5,000. That makes $20K, or 10% of the total WPS handle.
• Whales: Say two market-makers are betting $10K each and ten others are betting $5k each. From this category you’ve got $70K (35% of the total).

Those two add up to $90K (45% of the pool), controlled by 13 betting entities. That leaves $110K to be accounted for.

• Players: I’m guessing there’s the equivalent of forty guys betting $1,000 each, for a total of $40K (20% of the pool).
• Common Joes: By this reasoning, the rest of us falling in this category will cumulatively bet $70K (35% of pool), matching the total handle input of the Whales.

If you were to shift to GP and look at one of those 35K turf claimers with a wide-open 12-horse field, the WPS mutual will swell to $250,000. My guess is the extra handle is coming from the smaller bettors, and in fact the Whales will be cutting their play on an event with a less certain outcome.

The above hypothesis is total conjecture, based on only the flimsiest of anecdotal input. Maybe someone out there has some real insight or just a different guess…

[twindouble]

There's no way to track the money unless you have the authority to do so. All wagering via ADW's are confidential, it would take a court order for anyone see a betters "personal" records. Track security can investigate wagers made if they think the law was broken but it can't become public unless there's reasonable cause to bring charges. Who bet what, when, where and why has nothing to do with you liking a horse to win.

The exact process in getting that information legally I'm not sure about but I would say the above is close.



Good luck,

T.D.

[Cholly]

Twin Double,

No doubt you are correct that this information can not be deduced with any certainty—alas! But when you say, “Who bet what...has nothing to do with you liking a horse to win”, I only partially agree. Certainly there’s no future in letting the bogeyman of smart money scare you off of a selection.

But after all, pari-mutuel is a competition, and knowing (or guessing) with whom you are competing, is part of the landscape to be appreciated and understood. It’s a mistake to go to the track or the simulcast hall, see gents getting down between beers, and think that’s the competition. If only it were so.

By the scenario I described, 65% of the money in the pool is from bettors doing it for a living, or people owning/training the horses running. I admit it to be a wild-ass guess; just wondering if anyone thinks I’m close or way-off the mark.

[Dave Schwartz]

Cholly,

I think you have significantly over-estimated the backstretch folks.


Regards,
Dave Schwartz

[Robert Fischer]

aq with a 6/5 favorite? depends if it is a laundry race or not :D

[green80]

If there is a need, the track can tell almost exactly who bet how much and on what (if it was bet on track). As far as the ADW's, it would be simple to see what account bet what.

[twindouble]

Twin Double,

No doubt you are correct that this information can not be deduced with any certainty—alas! But when you say, “Who bet what...has nothing to do with you liking a horse to win”, I only partially agree. Certainly there’s no future in letting the bogeyman of smart money scare you off of a selection.

But after all, pari-mutuel is a competition, and knowing (or guessing) with whom you are competing, is part of the landscape to be appreciated and understood. It’s a mistake to go to the track or the simulcast hall, see gents getting down between beers, and think that’s the competition. If only it were so.

By the scenario I described, 65% of the money in the pool is from bettors doing it for a living, or people owning/training the horses running. I admit it to be a wild-ass guess; just wondering if anyone thinks I’m close or way-off the mark.

Cholly; In my opinion the more you attempt to identify "smart money" it becomes a distraction from your main purpose that's finding the horse or horses you can make money on. The tote is just a consensus of public opinion, each wager doesn't come with a name on it. Owners and trainer tend to favor their horses, not that there isn't some that can handicap but I think an experienced handicapper has a more objective opinion of the race.

Chasing money down from the barn is time consuming unless your connected in some way, I would venture to say they lose more often than you or I do. Sure some good information comes down the pike now and then but it will never make you a successful player. I love it when late money sends a horse I like up from 6-1 to 10-1 even more depending on the track your playing. Those that think early money is the key to winning, all I can say is good luck.

The so-called whales play an entirely different game than you and I do, most of us play one or two tracks, whereas they play many and no pool is off limits to them at those tracks. They are wagering and churning a lot money, the big difference is they get a much lower takeout than you or I via rebates. That's how the whales make money. I call it skimming the game, no different than the Mafioso's skimming the casinos way back when. What the whales do is legal though.

I don't know if batch wagering is allowed anywhere today. I know there was talk of doing away with that method of wagering. Maybe someone here knows.

Anyway, I can tell you many stories about hot tips from connections, you know "from the horses mouth". That "inside information" is delivered in many different ways. I still get calls and e-mail from my old buddies down in Fla with information. Hey, it never ends. LOL.

I would say professional players contribute a lot less than the 65% you mentioned. No one knows how many pro's are out there to begin with. They do know there's many players like us here on this board, we are the core of the industry, no doubt about that.

Good luck,

T.D.

[point given]

Wouldn't the whales be betting into large pool tracks instead of B level tracks ? and wasn't Tampa and Oaklawn tracks that didnot allow the batch bets into their pools Gulfstream has alot of exactas that seem to me to come back smaller than they should when longshots come in, and it happens at Churchill Downs as well from what I recall. Seems as though the small bettor would be more well off with the Tampa and Oaklawns of this racing world than the larger pool tracks and have a PTC account if they could. Obviously. :ThmbUp:

[twindouble]

Wouldn't the whales be betting into large pool tracks instead of B level tracks ? and wasn't Tampa and Oaklawn tracks that didnot allow the batch bets into their pools Gulfstream has alot of exactas that seem to me to come back smaller than they should when longshots come in, and it happens at Churchill Downs as well from what I recall. Seems as though the small bettor would be more well off with the Tampa and Oaklawns of this racing world than the larger pool tracks and have a PTC account if they could. Obviously. :ThmbUp:

The general consensus here and others is whales play into large pools, big tracks. Makes sense to me.

For the last year I've been playing Cal tracks, the parlay on exacta's payoffs there are still holding their norm overall. Although I've seen the pick 4 get whacked pretty good.

The pick 6 is has turned into a beast, the trend has been right along to create carryovers, tracks have been padding the conditions to do just that, conditions have been horrendous to say the least. That's the tracks way of attracting the whales. At one time, just hitting the pick 6 two or three times through out the year put me well in the black the way I wagered, including some pick 5's. The number of pick 6 carryovers are at an all time historical high today. As a player I'm passing on more races as a result of those conditions, that's another unintended consequence the tracks didn't have in mind. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking about going back to the smaller tracks. If they want to continue catering to just the rich so be it, lets see where it takes them, I won't be sucked into quick picks.


Good luck,

T.D.

[JustRalph]

in today's game, I don't think it is so much about picking winners...........it's about picking valuable winners.........

Anybody with a brain can pick out contenders. It's the valuable contenders that matter and a little racing luck can be the difference between make and break.

Those guys on the backside I think are worse at knowing when a horse is going to win than most on this board if you ask me. Think about the trainers who get interviewed on TVG and how many win when they say they are going to? I would say the precentages are about the same as the tote fav

[twindouble]

in today's game, I don't think it is so much about picking winners...........it's about picking valuable winners.........

Anybody with a brain can pick out contenders. It's the valuable contenders that matter and a little racing luck can be the difference between make and break.

Those guys on the backside I think are worse at knowing when a horse is going to win than most on this board if you ask me. Think about the trainers who get interviewed on TVG and how many win when they say they are going to? I would say the precentages are about the same as the tote fav

Horse racing has always been about getting the best bang for your buck, (value). That included seeking out tracks with lower takeout. I do agree just looking for winners has diminished due to the gimmicks that are offered today, that didn't exist before. The value plays are in those gimmicks esp the super and high five. I don't conceder the pick 3,4,5,6 or the DD a gimmick because your still picking winners, not 2,3,and 4 losers. There's good value in the pick 4,5 and 6, like I said, providing the conditions are favorable. When they aren't, to me that's a profound change for the average player's chance of winning.


T.D.

[Robert Fischer]

Those guys on the backside I think are worse at knowing when a horse is going to win than most on this board if you ask me. Think about the trainers who get interviewed on TVG and how many win when they say they are going to? I would say the precentages are about the same as the tote fav

Like anything else you have good information and worthless info...

I really wouldn't put any stock into a trainer's public interview. He could be downplaying his star horse because the owner wants to bet on him. He could be talking up his horse for any number of reasons.

Now if you know a trainer (or even a good hotwalker) personally, and he calls you from time to time about a live horse they have running, you could be getting some decent info depending on that individual, and your relationship and his history of info given to you.

as a whole? Well it depends. At a smaller track even a smaller size owner/trainer can make a dent in the pool makeup.
Then you have some of the whales/mobb with strong inside information.

Once in a while there is a relatively unknown lightly raced or FTS horse who (if your lucky the post parade) in the home stretch is clearly dominant or equal physically to the favorites. In the majority of these cases you see the horse bet down from his ml odds and there isn't anything on paper form that would have warrented that.

A decent recent example is Flat Out in monday's Smarty Jones stakes at Oaklawn
http://www.brisnet.com/bris_link/pdfs/zayatstables_136566.pdf
Not overly impressive on paper form in any way. I tried to look him up quickly before the race because i happened to be observing the race. Fairgrounds videos weren't working, and my adw's feed was inverted and upside down :mad: so i couldn't tell a damn thing pre race other than paper form, try as i might to turn my monitor upside down:rolleyes:. The horse gets a lot his way in the race and wins. The applicable point here is that he wins at 5-1. There was apparently info other than the paper form that this horse had a chance to be competitive. "They" knew this horse was a good animal. I still haven't seen his replay on Fairgrounds which I now have to email, and I am sure it is impressive, but it should be obvious that some people had better info than others in that race. The dumb money crushed Professor Z and his phoney AQ beyer, the OTB average joe handicapper probably piggybacked Calvin Borel or maybe the 4 Bertsgoldinmissle. How did all these handicappers take a stab at this 1/2 last out maiden in this stakes race to make him 5-1?:D

[salty]

Fairgrounds videos weren't working, and my adw's feed was inverted and upside down :mad: so i couldn't tell a damn thing pre race other than paper form, try as i might to turn my monitor upside down


I think if you hit CTRL+ALT+ some other key your display can be rotated uspidedown. There might even be the option in your monitor's menu. Just incase it happens again. :ThmbUp:

[Robert Fischer]

^
Thanks Salty. ALt Control Up Arrow for some graphics cards , doesn't want to work on this comp. I emailed the ADW...



A decent recent example is Flat Out in monday's Smarty Jones stakes at Oaklawn
http://www.brisnet.com/bris_link/pdfs/zayatstables_136566.pdf
Not overly impressive on paper form in any way. ...
Finally able to view this Fairgrounds replay from Dec. 14, and I have to say it was damn impressive. Fairgrounds has a long stretch for a 6f race and the horse he beat Doc Posse is a decent horse (forget where he just won back). Big visually impressive late run, there didn't have to be any inside info to know he was a 5-1 shot. Nothing fishy there.