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Originally Posted by Stillriledup
Betting on 2 horses to win isnt really betting on 2 different entities to win. For example, lets say you place two win bets, and stick 2 dollars to win on two different 3-1 shots......what you're essentially doing is betting 4 dollars to win on an even money shot, you have created your own "entry" it works out exactly the same, people feel that they're "betting against themselves" but they're really not, it just SEEMS that way.
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I agree.
You aren't betting against yourself, you've simply re-shaped the wager.
Ideally, in your example you have already tossed the favorite, and both of your 3-1 shots are overlays with value.
The problems come in when you have handicapped one of those 3-1 shots to be an overlay, and the other 3-1 shot to be an underlay.
for Example:
lets say horse "A" is a 3-1 shot (fair hit% = 25%) and you think that horse A should really be around 5-2 (fair hit% of ~28.57%).
At the same time, horse "B" is a 3-1 shot (fair hit% = 25%) however - you think that horse B should really be around 7-2 (fair hit% of ~22.22%).
given a $1000 bank and using Kelly Criterion , we get the following:
A only: Edge=~ 3.57% Hit%=28.57% Wager Size=$47.60
B only: Edge=~ -2.78% Hit%=22.22% Wager Size=$No Bet
both A and B : Edge=~ 0.79% Hit%=50.79% Wager Size=$15.80
So we've reduced our edge enough, that even with the increased hit%, Kelly calls for a reduction of our wager size by about a third.
On paper that would be an easy decision = Bet horse "A" only.
It's one thing to estimate probabilities on paper, and another entirely for flesh and blood animals and jockeys, and race dynamics to cooperate.
These are the type of real-life problems where we have to decide whether the risk management that we gain from the redundancy of betting two win horses is worth the tradeoff in value.
