How do you determine when to wager?

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by crestridge

Dave--This is what I'm asking about, "they pay $7 to $12"...What's the M/L rank on these winners?

I thought that was what you meant.

Here's a sample I ran that might provide a clue to what you're looking for:

M/L Odds: Win Bets
==================
  Odds   Starts     Wins    Pct      $Net    myPIV   myPExW
  1.19        0        0    0.0%    $0.00     0.00     0.00
  1.99        1        1  100.0%    $7.40     4.41     0.23
  2.49        1        0    0.0%    $0.00     0.00     0.19
  2.99        1        0    0.0%    $0.00     0.00     0.22
  3.49        4        0    0.0%    $0.00     0.00     0.78
  4.99       15        4   26.7%    $2.16     1.39     2.87
  7.99       10        4   40.0%    $5.22     2.80     1.43
 12.99        3        1   33.3%    $3.47     3.07     0.33
 17.99        0        0    0.0%    $0.00     0.00     0.00
999.99        0        0    0.0%    $0.00     0.00     0.00

 Total       35       10   28.6%    $2.93     1.66     6.04

Yes, the trend is obvious.

However, be aware that people misunderstand both the PURPOSE and the VALUE of morning line.

The PURPOSE is to show what the odds on the horse SHOULD BE. Not to be a predictor.

The VALUE lies in the knowing that it is only a piece to the puzzle of determining what those odds should be.

In our system it is about 40% of the total weight of the contributing factors.

It is simply not good enough to stand on its own.

Better in young horses (especially maidens and FTS) and on the turf, but still only about 52% in those cases.

[crestridge]

Thanks so much, I've been doing a small research on M/L "rank", it seems easier for research purposes, to follow the trend. There maybe some help in understanding this "horse" puzzle, involving the "rank".

Thanks again Dave!!!

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by crestridge

Thanks so much, I've been doing a small research on M/L "rank", it seems easier for research purposes, to follow the trend. There maybe some help in understanding this "horse" puzzle, involving the "rank".

Thanks again Dave!!!

Hope it helps.

[Publius]

Best circumstance is when looking through a race. Getting a rough idea of the contenders & who the favorite will be. Is the chalk a false one? If YES I will wager on the race. Tons on variables but I always play inside the race. I like a horse or two in before or after race, I consider multi race wagers.

Beating a false favorite is the best and most fun part of betting on the horses.

[totemastergeneral]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

It's almost a trick question in that in order to find value on a horse, someone else (maybe multiple horses) have to be significantly over bet. I think it's a pretty good place to start even though I tend to use all the other methods from time to time.

Betting a race where you don't like the favorite is great but I think you miss a lot if you limit yourself to those races. Like you said, oftentimes multiple horses need to be overbet to find value somewhere.

It's pretty good if you hate the 2nd and 3rd choices, too. Might make the favorite a good bet on its own or give you a good exacta pair of the favorite and a price you like. There are oodles and oodles of 5/2-9/2 shots who are horrible bets.

My handicapping technique is looking for trips and other value sort of angles, but my betting technique is to make a line on the race. It doesn't take long once you've handicapped, and I think for most players, if they did it would reveal some things for them that would tell them how their "feel" isn't very good.

Especially for novices, make a line to get your bearings. As you gain experience then some races can go on feel. There's plenty of races now where the possible betting options are pretty limited and I can just eyeball it. Or know that nobody is likely to be worth playing in that lone race, but which horses will be useful in a horizontal. And so on.

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by totemastergeneral

Betting a race where you don't like the favorite is great but I think you miss a lot if you limit yourself to those races. Like you said, oftentimes multiple horses need to be overbet to find value somewhere.

It's pretty good if you hate the 2nd and 3rd choices, too. Might make the favorite a good bet on its own or give you a good exacta pair of the favorite and a price you like. There are oodles and oodles of 5/2-9/2 shots who are horrible bets.

My handicapping technique is looking for trips and other value sort of angles, but my betting technique is to make a line on the race. It doesn't take long once you've handicapped, and I think for most players, if they did it would reveal some things for them that would tell them how their "feel" isn't very good.

Especially for novices, make a line to get your bearings. As you gain experience then some races can go on feel. There's plenty of races now where the possible betting options are pretty limited and I can just eyeball it. Or know that nobody is likely to be worth playing in that lone race, but which horses will be useful in a horizontal. And so on.

Very intelligent post.


Welcome to the board.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by totemastergeneral

Betting a race where you don't like the favorite is great but I think you miss a lot if you limit yourself to those races. Like you said, oftentimes multiple horses need to be overbet to find value somewhere.

It's pretty good if you hate the 2nd and 3rd choices, too. Might make the favorite a good bet on its own or give you a good exacta pair of the favorite and a price you like. There are oodles and oodles of 5/2-9/2 shots who are horrible bets.

What I have found is that when I dislike the favorite they win less often than their odds suggest and lose more than the take, but they win often enough that I typically need more than that to profit.

For example, let's say the favorite has 34% of the pool and will win only 17% of the time. That just gets you to break even. If they win 20% or 25% of the time, you are still doing a good job, but that's nowhere near enough. So I'm either going to have to find another couple of horses I really dislike inside the same race (tougher) or have a very positive opinion on another.

If you are tossing some non favorite with 15% of the pool that wins 8%-10% of the time, that's not getting you very far. That's why the best scenario from my perspective is both a favorite I don't like and a positive opinion on another horse.

[totemastergeneral]

Thanks for the compliment and welcome, Dave.

For example, let's say the favorite has 34% of the pool and will win only 17% of the time. That just gets you to break even.

This 34/17 getting you to break even is under the scenario where you can break even betting randomly against such a favorite over time. If you go past just identifying a bad favorite and then also come up with the horses who are not the favorite but that you have an affirmative case for beyond just not being the favorite, you should be handsomely profitable.

And so, I quibble a little with

If you are tossing some non favorite with 15% of the pool that wins 8%-10% of the time, that's not getting you very far.

It gets you pretty far if you have a positive opinion on a price to lean on. They're not If you don't, then yeah pass the race. The games that horseplayers point to which have better pricing and are more easily beat still have a rake. You still gotta do the work to turn them +EV. If you have a toss that cuts the takeout even 8% in the win pool, now you're already at a game horseplayers point to as a good one.

Lots to gripe about with the industry but the chances still abound, especially if you focus on races with big fields. And there are still plenty of those, even if we'd like more.

I really do shake my head at the horseplayers who say they're moving to sports betting because racing sucks too much now. Telling on themselves for not being able to hang, imo.

[classhandicapper]

This 34/17 getting you to break even is under the scenario where you can break even betting randomly against such a favorite over time. If you go past just identifying a bad favorite and then also come up with the horses who are not the favorite but that you have an affirmative case for beyond just not being the favorite, you should be handsomely profitable.

That's what I said also.

You typically need at least 2 value oriented opinions inside the same for it to be a profitable situation. You have to think the favorite or multiple other short priced horses are overbet and have some other horse you think is better than he looks on paper. One or the other is often not enough because the public makes mistakes, but they are rarely massive mistakes.

[MJC922]

Once you neutralize takeout like this 34/17 scenario with an average 8 horse field at least 3 of the remaining 7 horses in theory should be overlays, so it's well worth trying to identify the false favorite as a baseline strategy IMO. You would have to think of it in terms of if there were zero takeout how many horses would be overlays, half on average, but to various degrees. On the other hand how often it occurs is something else altogether.

I think again part of the problem with racing and 'casuals' some of whom are smart enough to know the value of trip handicapping for example is the time spent handicapping a field of horses on paper including watching say a dozen or more replays to try to level the playing field against the everyday players. The everyday players not only have much of those historical details in their heads already and don't need to replay their way through a card nearly as much but they also know the entire context of the races and the field compositions. They know how those races setup going in and how they ultimately developed. These mental 'post mortems' that are done on the fly from close observation end up being huge handicapping timesavers down the road vs joe public.

Horseracing is a great game because of its level of complexity. We sometimes have to dig really deep to uncover these opportunities but at the same time it also tends to require bet sizing to be held at just 1% of bankroll. Much of it is so low percentage that betting say 10% of bankroll can't really be done indefinitely; sure it can be done when trying to run up a smaller bankroll from nothing but then the overbetting needs to be curtailed reasonably quickly because losing streaks are the norm and they're often sitting right around corner.

Because of this 1% constraint I can't really say I blame people for trying to chase down easier gambling options. For a 'casual' to have any prayer over the long term that player is going to have to spend an awful lot of time handicapping a race which on a regular basis will turn out to have no compelling or even discernible overlays in it. Then too, if there is an overlay they have to constrain the wager size to such a degree that one tends to wonder if it's actually even worth their time. This is both a lifestyle and a job if someone is going to be successful at it. I do think the more perceptive casual players out there come to size that up rather quickly, I mean even just listening to someone like Serling it should be clear as mud that there are no shortcuts to doing the homework in this game. Like I said the only shortcut that I think would make a massive difference would be horse vs horse bets at fixed odds because then the time spent handicapping could be cut down dramatically and no babysitting the tote. I think it's a game changer because 'A' you can spend a much smaller amount of time handicapping and 'B' the bet size can then be safely stepped up given the dramatic reduction in losing streaks.

[thespaah]

I missed out on the poll.
My main category is the angles, trips, etc.
I review videos ( rtn.tv subscriber) ...That's for the trip thing....I also dive into trainer stats. J/T combo stats. Trainer ROI's in the races I'm handicapping.
I prefer to stay clear of short fields, unless of course there is a non favorite that jumps off the page.
If a race has potential value, I'm in.

[classhandicapper]

Like I said the only shortcut that I think would make a massive difference would be horse vs horse bets at fixed odds because then the time spent handicapping could be cut down dramatically and no babysitting the tote. I think it's a game changer because 'A' you can spend a much smaller amount of time handicapping and 'B' the bet size can then be safely stepped up given the dramatic reduction in losing streaks.

The more I think about this the more I think this would be huge plus for gamblers, especially if the take was similar to sports betting. Of course we'd also probably have a few more complaint threats when some rider stopped riding the 9th place finisher late and blew 7th costing someone a bet.

[classhandicapper]

I just listened to the always terrific "Bet With Best Podcast" about fair odds lines and it triggered some thoughts that have been swirling around in my head for a very long time.

https://bet-with-the-best-podcast.si...st-podcast-e21

Even though odds lines are theoretically the correct way to identify good value, odds lines are a function of the information a player is using and his personal experience and insights.

For example, give the same person Beyer figures, Thorograph, Ragozin, TimeformUS or whatever his preference and he'll make a different odds line depending on which set of figures he uses (even normalizing for ground, weight and pace). The same kind of thing is true of other factors that a player may either consider or not consider.

That makes it very difficult to know whether your "theoretical overlay" is an actual overlay or a function of incorrect information, missing information or a misunderstanding of the situation.

Looking for value "angles" is a theoretical way around that.

For example, let's say I think the rail was fine on the backstretch and on the turn but it was death in the stretch. Serious players will pick up on most obvious biases and bet those horses back. So how much value there is in that information is debatable. But some might not pick up on "death in the stretch only". If they don't, that will allow me to generate a list of horses to upgrade next time out that won't take "wise guy" money. If a couple of those get spotted well next out, I'll have a couple of value plays.

Of course the weakness of the angle approach is that if the horse does take more money than you expected (or hoped) for whatever reason you don't have some kind of odds line that sets the minimum acceptable price.

It's almost as if you have to combine the two in some way to raise the probability that you are actually dealing with a true overlay.

[Poindexter]

Some points about odds lines. Not really meant to be inclusive of everything but just some general rambling.

An odds line can create some really good habits. First and foremost, making an odds line requires you handicap every horse in the race. How often do you see some longshot win, that you just sort of ignored and after the race you see some really interesting points about him that you just missed earlier? Second, making odds lines probably gives you a better handle on looking for a strike price on a horse you like in a race you cannot line (too many unknowns). Third if you limit your bets to horses that look to offer value or at least offer fair value, you are eliminating poor bets (according to your opinion). That doesn't mean you will win, but logically if over 100's of races you stop betting horses that are way over bet, and stick with horses that are not over bet, you should theoretically do better (no guarantees of course).

The negatives of odds lines:

*if you overestimate a horse you don't even like, you may end up betting him (although you can easily just look for value on horses you like-in other words circle the horses you are interested in possibly betting-line every horse in the race but only look for value on the horses you circled). I think if you want to use the odds line approach, use the approach I put in parenthesis. That way you are using odds lines as a tool to determine if horses you like are supposedly value.

*Rebates enable the caw to bet horses to below fair value or at least to fair value. That means they knock a ton in not all of the value out of the pools and you are basically left with horses they aren't finding. Given how effective they are at this game, I am not sure that is the road to riches anymore. But one can only try and see if it works for them or not. Moreover, when they put the hammer down at the bell some horse go way down and some horses go way up. Odds lines in the current game can be really frustrating. You sort of like a horse who you make 6-1 and he is no higher than 7-1 throughout the betting (so you pass) and in the backstretch he is 12-1, he wins and you don't have a penny on him. Whether using double will pays can anticipate these with enough accuracy you will have to find out. I still think it would be hard to pull the trigger at 6-1 on a horse as they are loading the game because the double probables say he will be 11-1 and I need 8-1 to bet him. Then of course you have the other side, the part of the game that frustrates everyone, when you want 3-1 on a horse, you bet him at 4-1 as they are loading and he ends up at 9/5. If he loses you are really pissed because you did not want to bet him in the first place at that price and if he wins you are pissed at the paltry payoff. Once again, just because the double payoff, shows a horse should be 2-1, if he is 4-1 loading it is hard to say, I am going to sit this one out because the double probables say he will be 2-1. What if this is a race the double probables are way off?

*You make a lot of "educated" guesses when you make an oddsline. On certain horses the public just has a much better grasp than you do. Every mistake on an educated guess either causes you to bet a horse you overestimated, or even if you don't have him among your circled horses he is eating up precious probability percentages that can be given to other contenders.


I think in general if I were going to go back to making odds lines, the approach I would use is to focus strictly on the horses I have a handle on ( am confident in my opinion on). Make a rough line on them. The horses I have no handle on, I would use double probables to estimate the public final line on the other horses. If the actual betting makes one of these horses liver than the doubles indicate I would use the actual line. So here is an example of what I am talking about.
I handicap a race and the 1-2-4-3 are the horses I have a handle on in that order.

So I make the 1) 5/2 the 2) 7/2 the 4) 6-1 and the 3)10-1

I use the double probable on the 5-6-7-8 and estimate that they will go off at
3-1, 8-1, 12-1 and 30-1. So they have about 47 percentage points but I would divide that by about 1.2 bringing it down to 39%. So I know I can allocate 61% to the horses I have a handle on. In this case I have allotted about 73% probability to them winning. So I adjust to 3-1, 4-1, 8-1 and 12-1. That brings me to 64%. So I need to further adjust 3 more points. So maybe 3.2-1, 4.2 -1, 9-1 and 13-1. That way I am letting the public/caw handicap the others and focusing on just the horses I have a feel for. By the way you can use the double probables initially and then late in the betting, if you see the actual betting is significantly more on the "others" you may have to further adjust.

But to be honest it is a lot of extra work which i think in the games current state is sort of futile. It was a great concept until rebates entered the picture. Now it only makes sense if you are also getting really good rebates. The public /takeout is tough enough to beat without the caw. The caw just makes it so much more difficult. Of course 1) because of rebate but 2) you know they are attacking the game with all of the tools (bias, workouts, trip notes, physicality, maybe inside information, probably access to every speed figure.... most of us are not).

At least if you have some angles that the public/caw tends to underestimate you are likely going to get some kind of value on these horses without all the extra work. I do think in general these angles are better exploited in the later legs of the multi leg exotics.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by totemastergeneral

I really do shake my head at the horseplayers who say they're moving to sports betting because racing sucks too much now. Telling on themselves for not being able to hang, imo.

Fair enough. But shouldn't we also shake our heads when a newcomer comes to this board and claims to be "able to hang" even though such an assertion is totally unverifiable?