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Originally Posted by Valuist
Its a zero sum game. When one horse is strongly overbet, several other horses become overlays. 3-2 would've been a more realistic price on Orb and the difference between 3-2 and 3-5 is ginormous.
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Most of this thread has gone in an uninteresting direction. But this one is interesting.
No, it is not, actually, a zero-sum game. It is a negative-sum game. 17 percent or so is taken out of every win pool. And that's REALLY important for people to understand.
Because of the takeout, it is possible for a race to offer not a single horse with betting value. Indeed, on my circuit (Southern California) we are painfully aware of this fact, because we see so many 5 and 6 horse fields nowadays and it happens quite frequently.
I think the tendency of many handicappers on the subject of value is to think like this: "well, the favorite has his merits, but he's even money, and I don't want to bet him at even money, so I'm going to look for a longshot".
And IF you actually find a horse that gives you betting value, that may be fine. But human nature is to not want to pass races. People HATE to pass races. Both because of gambling compulsion (the desire for action) AND because of ego-- passing a race seems like an admission that one's intellect cannot decipher what is going to happen. (People especially hate to pass big stakes races. I have never met a handicapper who passed the Kentucky Derby when he or she was in a position to bet it.)
So what it actually devolves to is "I don't want the even money, so I will settle on some horse at longer odds" rather than a careful, dispassionate analysis of whether the horse is actually offering value at the price.
(I should add that as bad as this is in the win pool, it gets even worse in the exotics, where players routinely bet exactas without checking probables and bet trifectas and superfectas and Super High 5 without even thinking about which combinations offer value and which do not.)
Orb may or may not have been overbet. Again, even if he was, that doesn't mean Oxbow or any other horse was actually offering betting value. And thus, you have to review what you are doing whether you are betting 3 to 5 shots or 10 to 1 shots, and always think about whether you are really getting value or just looking for gambling action.
