Oaklawn's Show Bet Bonus
 

"For the second straight year, Oaklawn will be offering the Show Bet Bonus, which makes the easiest wager in racing more profitable and fun for on-track guests only. With this bet, the payoff on show wagers made at Oaklawn will be higher than the payoff on the same show wager made off-track or through ADW services."

So does Oaklawn pump in extra money of their own or do on-track show wagers cannibalize off-site show wagers in order to do this...?

I'd think they would simply have a lower takeout on the wager on track, which you could call 'pumping it in', or better yet, not pumping it out

All tracks should do this for all wagers.

They would make up the diff in hot dog sales and parking

I sincerely doubt that such a promotion would have any effect on either attendance or handle. The primary beneficiaries would be people who are at the track everyday because they work there, own horses, train horses, or just hang out at the track. I don't think that there are too many horseplayers thinking "gosh, if I could just get a 2-5% bonus on my payoffs I would make the trip to the track".

Oaklawn increases on track show payouts by reducing their take in the on track show pool. If you compare the payouts it make a nice difference. Oaklawn management says that last year their show handle shows and increase because of this. They also say the overall attendance and handle shows an increase for whatever reason.

Excellent point...

some races you get an extra .20 from the reduced takeout and sometimes the reduced takeout brings back another .20 from the breakage. if you are betting show, you are much better off betting at Oaklawn than betting at home with a rebate.

I wonder what the average show payout there is...I want to say $3 for each $2 bet but that would be just a guess so 2% to 5% would not be much...maybe they are just giving back the breakage...although Green80 says it is a "nice difference" so maybe it is more...definitely benefits high rollers

Not better than the exchange. If you are a show bettor. The x is the way to go.

no breakage.

ALlan

Yes, but the X is not available to most US bettors.

According to OP, they say that their show pool handle for last year was up 34% over the previous year. I remember the show payouts on track were significantly higher although I can't give you a % at the moment. I will see if anyone list the on track payouts for comparison.

I posted last year's replays on the Oaklawn Thread. Following each race, the show bet bonus is shown with the entire results.

It would normally result in a .40 cent increase per $2 wager, with lower odds horses getting a .20 cent and longer odds horses a .60 cent increase generally.

some of my biggest anti-bridgejumper scores have came from Oaklawn - do they still have $2.20 minimum?

On the exchange can you get a price such as $8.47? If the answer is no then there is breakage, you just don't know about it.

To a show bettor, used to making 10% on his money, another .40 cents is huge.

It would be but it doesn't work that way. An offtrack bettor getting $2.20 (10%) won't be getting $2.60 ontrack.

He would usually get $2.40, double his profit. 10% to 20% is a nice jump.

I don't know if there are any show bettors out there making money on $2.20 horses ( I can't), but increasing that to $2.40 has to help.

Betting on x means there is no breakage.

Do you pay breakage when you buy stock on an exchange?

No. It’s the price minus commission on winning markets.

No breakage.

It’s great.

Breakage is just a bettors tax paid on winning Pm winning bets.

And yes prices are paid to the penny.

If you are matched at 1.73 you get 1.73 minus commission of course.

Allan

The other scenario is that the regular show bet pays exactly 2.20 and the enhanced show bet computes to 2.36. A nice 80% increase in profits if not for breakage. The 2.20 to 2.40 scenario might happen with a long 2.20.

For people with large show bets bets, the breakage is very significant, but in principle all your winning OUGHT to be returned to the winner, there is not sustainable rational to deny people what is theirs...when you go into a mini-market and buy a soda pop, does the clerk round DOWN to the nearest dime when they make your change...? The "it would cause delay for other patrons" argument doesn't wash anymore, no, not in this age of machine tellers, vouchers, etc...

Checking some results last year it looks like it's always at least .20 more, except for a minus pool.

With the bonus then, is the show bet at Oaklawn a fair bet when compared to win and place? Would it even be tighter in terms of breakage than the Place bet??

Where can you find the track show payoffs?

off the replays on op's website. I couldn't find the on track payoffs listed anywhere else.

and some people argue take out doesn't matter

when they show the on track show payoffs in the last column on the tote it is a substantial difference. Just imagine what the trifecta payoffs would look like w/the same reduction. I will be there Sat and Sun-can't wait; too bad the weather is going to be so cold

Thanks. I looked at a limited amount of results and concluded that betting on the low priced horses would yield the greatest results.

I looked for the actual written rules of the show bonus but was unable to find it.

just checking a few results I saw a $2.60 show horse pay $3.00 on track and a longshot $17.00 show horse pay $19.00 on track.

All this by just reducing the take from 17% to 10% for on track show bets.

Looks like the gain in on track show pool offsets any loss by the reduced take.

How about we start a show bet special for Oaklawn on this thread...post your best show bets...hopefully on some prices...:cool:

So le't say that there is 100,000 in the show pool, $70,000 offtrack and $30,000 ontrack. How are the ontrack payoffs computed? Do they consider the entire $100,000 at 10% takeout or just the money bet on track? Typically a show bet is figured as follows: $100,000 (Total Pool) minus $17,000 (Track take) minus winning tickets. That total is then divided by 3 to see how much is allocated to each horse that showed.

If the total pool is considered when figuring ontrack show prices the track take amount would be 10% in the above equation. If just the ontrack pool is considered then the equation would have 14.9% as the track take.

Or does the bonus amounts only reflect the reduced takeout on the $30,000? $5,100 minus $3,000 = $2,100.

Im just guessing as to the actual method , but simplest way would be to recalculate all the on track winners as if the take was 10%.

So if only 1 $2 ticket was sold, that ticket gets paid at the higher rate, and all other tickets get the normal payout.

Basically, they are refunding part of the takeout, not hard to understand.

I am not saying it is hard to understand, just want to know the actual rules.
If you are going to bet real money wouldn't it be a good idea to know the rules?

There is 1 pool and the show prices are figured same as always. Then they take the on track show wagers and re-figure prices with the reduced take and post those on track. Thats why the prices stay close but a .20,.40,.60 etc gain depending on the price of the horse. If they used a separate pool the show prices could vary wildly, maybe pay less on track even with the reduced take.

Re-figure prices using reduced take on entire pool or just the reduced take on the amount bet ontrack?

reduced take on just the bets placed on track. That's why the on track payouts are higher on show bets. Of course you would have to refigure the entire pool and then only pay the higher prices to the bets made on track.

The way show bet prices are determined is usually as follows:

Total Pool (TP) minus Take Out (TO) minus winning tickets (WT)=show bet winnings. The show bet winnings are then allocated giving 1/3 to each winning spot.

My question is simply, Is TO computed by using 10% for the entire pool to determine ontrack payoffs or is it a blend of both the ontrack and offtrack takeout?

A 3rd way to compute a payoff is to use the full takeout percentage and payback the ontrack winners with a bonus equal to 7% of the ontrack betting. So if the ontrack betting was $30,000 the normal takeout would have been $5,100 (17%) and the ontrack special takeout would have been $3,000 leaving a bonus of $2,100 to be paid to ontrack winners.

3

The problem with the 3rd way is that this "bonus" is not paid equally or as a percentage to all on track show ticket holders. Some get .20, some .60, some a couple of dollars, depending on how long their horse is in the show pool.

It is paid equally. The "bonus" for each $2 on track ticket would depend on the ratio of 1/3 of the total bonus to the number of $2 on track tickets on each horse that came in the money. The 1/3 of the total amount of bonus money would be paid to each of the win/place/show finishers, but if there is less bet on one of those horses in the show pool than on the others, the "per $2" bonus will be higher for that horse. Works exactly the same as the regular show pool. The less bet on a winning horse, the more the $2 return will be. The less bet on a horse, the more the per $2 bonus will be.

Well that would work then. The math can't be too complicated if they can do it in Arkansas.

The only problem is that I can't hit a high enough percentage of show horses at OP to make a profit, even with the good show prices.

Operative words here being on track.
Just a snub to most of their customer who bet off track. :sleeping:

They have not given me any incentive at all to even look at them.
Most days, I don't bother.

OP has the 2nd lowest tri/super takeout (21%) after KY downs and 2nd largest average field size after KY Downs.

Gulfstream tri and super takeout 26%-thats criminal. AQU tri takeout 24%

what more incentive do you need than that?