Betting Stategy?

[Poindexter]

If you are interested in using 3 horses in each race. Roll pick 3's. If you want to make money betting flat bets, as mentioned keep records, but more importantly require a certain price, such as 2-1/5-2/3-1 on your top choice 4/9-2/5-1 on your second choice and 5-1/6-1/7-1. The first odds criterion would be for field sizes of 7 or less, the second for field sizes of 8 or 9 and the 3rd for field sizes 10+. check your records and see if requiring these prices puts you into the profit zone. You may decide to go a little lower or a little higher once checking your records. In general, I think it is better to bet one horse a race win/place, or if you find 2 bet them both to win. I would make betting 3 horses the very rare exception,. Also as far as bet sizing I suggest a base bet of $25 to $30 per $1000 bankroll on your top choice, maybe $20-$23 on your second choice and about $15-$18 on your 3rd choice. The bigger fields would be on the bottom end of the range the smaller fields, will be on the top end of the betting $ range.

Also why you are checking records, see how the exacta key(top horse with bottom 2 horses each way) or trifecta box with extra key with top horse on top......


The fun never ends in this game.

[pandy]

Originally Posted by mikesal57

I have 3 contenders per race...

So bet each and hope one of the price horses comes in and live with the losing on days like the last 2?

You'd probably be better off just betting one horse to win, the "contender" that's going off at the highest odds, and you should key that horse in exacta boxes with your other two contenders, and play an extra exacta box with the contender that's the favorite. I've found that if you show a profit on your win bets you'll most likely show a bigger profit on the exactas. Exactas aren't that tough to hit. You'll also have an excellent chance of hitting the exacta when you highest odds contender finishes second since you are boxing it with two logical contenders.

To be honest, I'd bet that if you only bet exactas you'd have the best return. For instance, no win bets, key the highest odds contender in exacta boxes with the other two horses and if one of those horses is the favorite, play that exacta box twice. This way you have way more leverage and you can show a profit on the race even when your horse finishes second. Yes, sometimes your horse will win at a price and you won't hit the exacta, but the higher payoffs of the exactas more than make up for this.


End4me's parlay idea is a good one and a fun way to play but you have to be able to make the bets live so that may not work for you. It's too bad ADW's don't let us bet parlays.

[Buckeye]

whatever they "let you do" is what you do? Therefore do the opposite?

Pretty simple. Otherwise, go home:

There is no substitute for superior analysis.

If I know American Pharoah is going to win, why not bet on him?

[Buckeye]

ok, so basically I don't know anything and therefore it gets complicated. On the one hand I think and on the other hand, so what if I think.

Been that way for a long time. Situation Normal,

SNAFU. Horse Racing is just a microcosm of the reality.

[mikesal57]

its a funny thing..

if I wrote for the Daily News or the New York Post , my picture would be on the back page with days like these...

You guys are great...thxs

Somehow I need to get "value" into play..

Dave...your right on with days that favorites win...

Also Dave, I ran into your 2013 video on "Elimination Percentage"
I'm going to use that in my decision making and see how it pans out..

mike

[Capper Al]

The best book that I have found on wagering is 'Ten Steps to Winning' by Danny Holmes. Your wagering style might differ, but Danny's wagering points are invaluable.

Also there's a thread here in PA on ' The One and Only Absolute Truth'. The discussion is on value play using natural or random odds. In that thread you'll also find references to Dave's webner 'The Basics of Winning' which also covers wagering on natural or random odds.

[Aerocraft67]

If you're betting flat on three horses, you need a 2/1 shot to come in just to break even. Five of your Saratoga selections went off at less than 2/1. The average odds of all the horses you bet was less than 9/2, and you only had 8 of the 27 horses with odds above 5/1, and only one above 9/1. As others have said, you're up against the chalk here.

By my reckoning, you could have netted $9.60 with flat $2.00 bets on only your top contender in each race. That's the easiest answer to your question. A quite handsome 53% profit on horses that all won at less than 3/1. 5/7 of your winners came from your top selection. Not too shabby; high hit rate on low odds runners. We'd all be delighted to maintain that performance!

Had you dutched your three contenders instead of placing flat bets, you could have eked out a 4% profit. Dutching only the top two contenders nets you a 23% profit. What's interesting here is that even though you catch your biggest odds horse with your third choice in the 8th, it barely keeps you afloat when dutching three horses in every race. Dutching two tosses that 9/1 winner and only catches you one more modest 7/5 winner from your second choices, but saves you a lot of extra losing bets on third choices. Rounding errors could swing these figures quite a bit though if you're playing for small units.

Exactas are another option to play more than one horse per race if you're keen to consider pace scenarios, but probably ill-advised if you're just combining second and third win choices in exactas.

It's also ill-advised to speculate much from a small sample of your picks, but unless you're blending in some higher odds horses into second choices and exotics, looks like you're best off just playing your top pick to win each race. And identifying the type of race you tend to win and lose will help a lot, too.

[Robert Goren]

If you trying to make a flat wager on 3 horses a race, you have no chance. With a 17% takeout, there are very few races where you can dutch 3 horses races and none where all 3 horses are the top 3 favorites. To dutch 3 horses successfully, you must have race where you can safely toss one of the top two favorites. It basically boils down to arithmetic. Unless the longest shot of your 3 horses wins more often than the other two when playing the 3 favorites, you are doomed. Now if you are getting huge rebates, there maybe a way, but barring that, you out of luck.

[Robert Fischer]

If you like the favorite, he had better be only moderately favored on the board while you can see that he's dominant in terms of expected performance.

Otherwise, you agree with the public. You will not make up the 15% of the pool that the house takes out.

If you are just having some fun gambling, then it doesn't matter. Bet who you like, and maybe double or triple your bet at an opportune time and if you are fortunate, you may come out ahead that day.

[pandy]

Agree with some others here. Betting favorites, almost impossible to win unless you're extremely selective and a very good handicapper, and even then, the margin's are so low that without a rebate it's a waste of time.

All win bet strategies have to point towards overlays and preferably overlay longshots. It always comes down to the same thing, playing conservatively rarely works because anything that produces a high hit rate generally produces a low return. Keying an overlaid prime contender in exacta boxes with two other contenders, however, you should cash at least 20% and the hit rate could be higher, and if your rime contender is a true overlay you'll win.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by pandy

Agree with some others here. Betting favorites, almost impossible to win unless you're extremely selective and a very good handicapper, and even then, the margin's are so low that without a rebate it's a waste of time.

All win bet strategies have to point towards overlays and preferably overlay longshots. It always comes down to the same thing, playing conservatively rarely works because anything that produces a high hit rate generally produces a low return. Keying an overlaid prime contender in exacta boxes with two other contenders, however, you should cash at least 20% and the hit rate could be higher, and if your rime contender is a true overlay you'll win.

I agree, but there is a very important point.

His selection/handicapping process can not change.

It's very easy to fall in the trap of manipulating your selection process, and all of a sudden you like a longshot in every race...

To the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

You still have to say, "hey I think the ml fav will probably win this, and should be about a $5 horse, but so does the public, I'll wait until races 5 and 8 when I like horses that should go off at a relatively juicy price.".

[Luckycreed]

You bet any horse in the race that is a longer price than you think it should be, it's as simple as that.

Of course given you are betting into a 117% market, in most races you will struggle to find one horse that fits that criteria let alone three, but every now and then in a big field that the market thinks is fairly evenly matched it can happen and when it does you bet all three.

Then it simply comes down to your ability to price fields, if your good enough at it in the long run you win (if you can discipline yourself to only bet overlays and not chase winners which leads to taking unders which equals losing), if you are not then in the long run you loose.

How do you price fields?Practice is a good way to start,keep records of every race you price, the way the market priced the race and of course the results.By the time you have priced a thousand races you will have learnt quite a bit and you will have records that will help you keep getting better at the craft .and also indicate which type of races you are better at pricing,

These are the races you will eventually be betting on but if you are not pricing fields and keeping records you will never know what races you should be betting on.

You will never be able to price more accurately than the market in a generic way, across a random sample of a thousand races the market will always beat you, but you might find there are niches where you can outperform the market if you have an aptitude for it and are prepared to work hard at it.

You are not going to learn to play Rahkmaninov by sitting at the piano once a week for an hour and bashing out some boogie woogie, it takes years of practice and the same applies to learning to price horse races with the required degree of accuracy.

[Capper Al]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

I agree, but there is a very important point.

His selection/handicapping process can not change.

It's very easy to fall in the trap of manipulating your selection process, and all of a sudden you like a longshot in every race...

To the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

You still have to say, "hey I think the ml fav will probably win this, and should be about a $5 horse, but so does the public, I'll wait until races 5 and 8 when I like horses that should go off at a relatively juicy price.".

Agree. One's wagering method has to fit their handicapping. If one sees only chalk then their method must be built around the chalk they see.

[mikesal57]

Originally Posted by Capper Al

Agree. One's wagering method has to fit their handicapping. If one sees only chalk then their method must be built around the chalk they see.

Thxs...I'm back to square one...LOL

[Aerocraft67]

Originally Posted by pandy

You'd probably be better off just betting one horse to win, the "contender" that's going off at the highest odds, and you should key that horse in exacta boxes with your other two contenders, and play an extra exacta box with the contender that's the favorite.

To be honest, I'd bet that if you only bet exactas you'd have the best return. For instance, no win bets, key the highest odds contender in exacta boxes with the other two horses and if one of those horses is the favorite, play that exacta box twice.

I like this advice, but in this particularly chalky scenario, flat win bets prevail. Cruelly, keying the highest odds pick in each race yields only one won exacta, in race 1. Loss of 27% on $72 wagered including straight win best on top contenders. Without the win bets, 53% loss on $54.

If you only box the top two contenders and buy an extra with the favorite in the mix, again only one hits for a 23% loss.

Boxing all three picks in the exacta picks up two more exacta wins. The favorite is in all the won exactas, which yields the extra box each time. This just misses profit with $70.80 payout on $72 wagered. Throw in straight win bets on top choices and you're back in the black 9% ROI, but now you're $90 invested.

You might try dutching exactas using the probable payouts. That makes things more complicated and raises the investment still higher, but it's a more efficient way to play.

Tough to profit on chalk, basically, and the more you spread (without catching high prices), the harder it gets. The favorite won 5/9 races on the card, and missed the exacta only twice. Only five horses with win odds over 6/1 made the exacta on the entire card, and most of those had a chalky companion. Exacta propositions averaged 35/1. Only three above 50/1, and the rest below 20/1.