Current State of the Game

[Disenchantedguy]

Time for my Steve Coburn-esque rant / Jimmy Carter “Malaise Speech” (for those old enough to remember that). Another poster has brought up some of my gripes in the “difficulty of the game thread” and I want to basically dog pile on in perhaps a more general sense. The game seems to have become basically something which it is impossible to have anything more than just fleeting moments of success. I hear the “pundits” all the time espousing the pick 5 as the best bet in racing. Others have written that the ONLY time a horseplayer should EVER play is into the pick 6 when there is a carryover. Who are those the best bets in racing for?? Ken Ramsey and Ogden Mills Phipps? Because they are about the only people who can afford to play them... I understand the low takeout aspect and the carryover aspect, but on a tough track like Del Mar or Saratoga you can quickly put together a ticket that costs stacks and stacks and still feel like you don't have enough coverage. Its easy to say... 3 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 1 is only $18.00 and I agree its only $18.00 but its easy to say that after the fact when you see how the races play out. Undoubtedly, a significant portion of the races (especially at Del Mar and Saratoga) you need to go 4 or 5 deep on almost every leg because its so hard to draw lines between many of the horses. Its almost inevitable that one leg will go up in smoke because of some impossible longshot. Additionally, I've seen many many times people hit pick 3's and pick 4's and not even win back the amount they put in. The sheer randomness of the game is what aggravates me to no end. In Roulette, you are going to lose. The house has an ironclad mathematical edge; play long enough and you will lose everything you have. In theory, horse racing can be “beaten” because we are betting against each other..if I do better than you I win money. However, I know of no successful horseplayer. I know they are out there and I'm sure there are plenty on this message board, but I would be hard pressed to name one winning player by name. I have less confidence in my game than ever before. I go to the track and make what I consider solid plays and even though I win some, I always lose more. This repeating pattern of 1 step forward, 2 steps back causes the game to become psychologically frustrating to say the least. The game is losing its enjoyment because of the difficulty in winning ANY amount of money on ANY wager made. I think this is one of the reasons the game is dying out unfortunately; because of the sheer difficulty in winning anything at all! Lets take a look at the wagering options:

Place Betting- Only applicable in certain circumstances, maybe a long odds horse or used in conjunction with a win bet. Show Betting- Studies show that show betting is absolutely a losing bet over the long run. I can only think of one or two occasions where a player might entertain a show bet. Exactas and Daily Doubles; both bets are hard to cold deck so most people box and wheel and this invariably puts you in an underlay situation most of the time. So you can bet a cold exacta or double and lose the bet most likely or you can wheel and part wheel and not even win back what you bet if your even fortunate enough to hit the bet with your part wheel. Trifectas, Superfectas, Super Hi 5; same problems as the double and exacta just amplified even more. They are basically impossible to cold deck so you have to start part wheeling and undoubtedly put yourself into an underlaid position. Pick 3s: usually you will have one leg that will blow up your ticket with some unforeseen winner. If you do hit a pick 3, the payoff usually always seems to pay way less than it should. The pick 4 has the same pitfalls as the pick 3 except amplified even more because the addition of a 4th leg. One time I played about an $80 ticket on an “All Stakes” pick 4, big fields, tough races.. it paid around $90 and I cleared $10 bucks. Absolutely ridiculous. Pick 5 practically impossible, there is always going to be that “one leg” that destroys your ticket. The Pick 6; only people like Ken Ramsey can play. The ticket cost for an adequate coverage pick 6 ticket is way out of the ballpark for an average horseplayer. That leaves the lowly humble win bet. I have basically decided the win bet is the best bet in racing. Just pick one horse and try to get him home. As I look back at my years of playing, most of my “profits” have come from the plain vanilla win bet. That being said, the sheer randomness of the game makes the win bet basically a losing proposition most of the time. The horse can have a bad break from the gate, the horse can have a bad trip, the horse just might not feel well that day, the horse just might not be the best horse in the race. So many factors can go wrong, that it is my contention that it is inevitable you will lose money with straight win betting also. So basically, all the bets in the game are “bad bets” with very little hope of ever coming out ahead. I play the game for fun, I am not trying to make a living playing the game or anything, but I must admit that it gets very very old and frustrating to rip up tickets and leave the track a loser day after day. I am confident that 99% of players are losing players. Of the 1% of players that come out ahead, I believe most do so by getting a “lucky score”, (some random trifecta or pick 5 just thrown together and you get lucky). I theorize probably .002% of horseplayers are actually beating the game using what most of us would consider “skill”. For those of you doing this you are my heroes and I definitely congratulate you. Lastly, horseplayers today have a vast cornucopia of information at their fingertips and this has made the game that much harder. Basically every player has access to all kinds of speed, pace, trip, class figures, etc for every track. This makes for smarter players which just compounds the difficulty of an already seemingly impossible game. I am venting and frustrated now, but I will continue to play because I love the game as a whole. I'm just becoming jaded with the betting aspect of horse racing. Its just honestly becoming less and less fun as the difficulty increases: I hope the day never comes where I decide I have had enough and realize I don't want to do this anymore. How do you guys/gals cope with the fact that in horse betting losing is the rule, not the exception??

[Augenj]

The only thing that makes losers of the 99 per cent of the players is takeout and breakage. When you throw in $4 and get back $3 over time, only the luckiest and skilled make a profit. Those odds are Las Vegas Keno odds and Keno is not a game of skill but pure luck. None of the dullards who set the takeout understand churn, the thing that makes Las Vegas money hand over fist with their loosened slots.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Disenchantedguy

Time for my Steve Coburn-esque rant / Jimmy Carter “Malaise Speech” (for those old enough to remember that). Another poster has brought up some of my gripes in the “difficulty of the game thread” and I want to basically dog pile on in perhaps a more general sense. The game seems to have become basically something which it is impossible to have anything more than just fleeting moments of success. I hear the “pundits” all the time espousing the pick 5 as the best bet in racing. Others have written that the ONLY time a horseplayer should EVER play is into the pick 6 when there is a carryover. Who are those the best bets in racing for?? Ken Ramsey and Ogden Mills Phipps? Because they are about the only people who can afford to play them... I understand the low takeout aspect and the carryover aspect, but on a tough track like Del Mar or Saratoga you can quickly put together a ticket that costs stacks and stacks and still feel like you don't have enough coverage. Its easy to say... 3 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 1 is only $18.00 and I agree its only $18.00 but its easy to say that after the fact when you see how the races play out. Undoubtedly, a significant portion of the races (especially at Del Mar and Saratoga) you need to go 4 or 5 deep on almost every leg because its so hard to draw lines between many of the horses. Its almost inevitable that one leg will go up in smoke because of some impossible longshot. Additionally, I've seen many many times people hit pick 3's and pick 4's and not even win back the amount they put in. The sheer randomness of the game is what aggravates me to no end. In Roulette, you are going to lose. The house has an ironclad mathematical edge; play long enough and you will lose everything you have. In theory, horse racing can be “beaten” because we are betting against each other..if I do better than you I win money. However, I know of no successful horseplayer. I know they are out there and I'm sure there are plenty on this message board, but I would be hard pressed to name one winning player by name. I have less confidence in my game than ever before. I go to the track and make what I consider solid plays and even though I win some, I always lose more. This repeating pattern of 1 step forward, 2 steps back causes the game to become psychologically frustrating to say the least. The game is losing its enjoyment because of the difficulty in winning ANY amount of money on ANY wager made. I think this is one of the reasons the game is dying out unfortunately; because of the sheer difficulty in winning anything at all! Lets take a look at the wagering options:

Place Betting- Only applicable in certain circumstances, maybe a long odds horse or used in conjunction with a win bet. Show Betting- Studies show that show betting is absolutely a losing bet over the long run. I can only think of one or two occasions where a player might entertain a show bet. Exactas and Daily Doubles; both bets are hard to cold deck so most people box and wheel and this invariably puts you in an underlay situation most of the time. So you can bet a cold exacta or double and lose the bet most likely or you can wheel and part wheel and not even win back what you bet if your even fortunate enough to hit the bet with your part wheel. Trifectas, Superfectas, Super Hi 5; same problems as the double and exacta just amplified even more. They are basically impossible to cold deck so you have to start part wheeling and undoubtedly put yourself into an underlaid position. Pick 3s: usually you will have one leg that will blow up your ticket with some unforeseen winner. If you do hit a pick 3, the payoff usually always seems to pay way less than it should. The pick 4 has the same pitfalls as the pick 3 except amplified even more because the addition of a 4th leg. One time I played about an $80 ticket on an “All Stakes” pick 4, big fields, tough races.. it paid around $90 and I cleared $10 bucks. Absolutely ridiculous. Pick 5 practically impossible, there is always going to be that “one leg” that destroys your ticket. The Pick 6; only people like Ken Ramsey can play. The ticket cost for an adequate coverage pick 6 ticket is way out of the ballpark for an average horseplayer. That leaves the lowly humble win bet. I have basically decided the win bet is the best bet in racing. Just pick one horse and try to get him home. As I look back at my years of playing, most of my “profits” have come from the plain vanilla win bet. That being said, the sheer randomness of the game makes the win bet basically a losing proposition most of the time. The horse can have a bad break from the gate, the horse can have a bad trip, the horse just might not feel well that day, the horse just might not be the best horse in the race. So many factors can go wrong, that it is my contention that it is inevitable you will lose money with straight win betting also. So basically, all the bets in the game are “bad bets” with very little hope of ever coming out ahead. I play the game for fun, I am not trying to make a living playing the game or anything, but I must admit that it gets very very old and frustrating to rip up tickets and leave the track a loser day after day. I am confident that 99% of players are losing players. Of the 1% of players that come out ahead, I believe most do so by getting a “lucky score”, (some random trifecta or pick 5 just thrown together and you get lucky). I theorize probably .002% of horseplayers are actually beating the game using what most of us would consider “skill”. For those of you doing this you are my heroes and I definitely congratulate you. Lastly, horseplayers today have a vast cornucopia of information at their fingertips and this has made the game that much harder. Basically every player has access to all kinds of speed, pace, trip, class figures, etc for every track. This makes for smarter players which just compounds the difficulty of an already seemingly impossible game. I am venting and frustrated now, but I will continue to play because I love the game as a whole. I'm just becoming jaded with the betting aspect of horse racing. Its just honestly becoming less and less fun as the difficulty increases: I hope the day never comes where I decide I have had enough and realize I don't want to do this anymore. How do you guys/gals cope with the fact that in horse betting losing is the rule, not the exception??

I agree with a lot of what you say. I too am of the opinion that the vast majority of the "winning players" out there depend either on rebates or on the super-exotics in order to remain in the black. Those players who win by sticking to conservative methods of betting are 1 in 1000...in my opinion. That's my major gripe with the game as it stands right now; the current field sizes -- especially on weekdays -- make it unduly difficult for the player to implement the "swing-for-the-fences" playing style that profit-making often requires.

Make no mistake about it, the game is now tougher to beat than it's ever been...and things can only get worse.

[JustRalph]

My kingdom for a carriage return!!

[davew]

4,5, and 6 horse fields seem more common now than i the past

[Seabiscuit@AR]

Disenchantedguy

The game as it is set up today is not fair for the average player. So I fully understand where you are coming from

To win at horse racing you need to make bets with a positive ROI (so ROI >0)

The problem for the average player is that other "players" (who are generally syndicates forming a team of many players doing the form full time) are getting big rebates and the effect of these rebates is to remove all or almost all of the positive ROI bets from the pools before the rebate is added back

So it really is impossible or almost impossible for the average player to win. Not only that even if an individual develops a high degree of skill and backs the exact same horses as the big rebate syndicates they will still lose unless they up their turnover to millions a year and get a big rebate themselves. As the pre-rebate odds will be negative ROI bets. But even then, every player getting a big rebate is an impossibility so even this option is not a true one

The big syndicates have rebates plus a team of maybe 10 to 20 people doing the form full time on USA racing. The average player has to work a full time job and limited time to do the form

The big syndicates are driving a formula one car with a full pit crew plus the rebates give them pole position at the start. The average player has a horse and cart and is back in 20th position at the start. They have no hope

In formula one racing there are rules to keep the game somewhat level in that your car has to meet certain specifications. In horse racing there are no such rules and the advantages allowed to the big syndicates are unlimited

The average player should stop donating to the syndicates and tracks and go spend their time and money saved playing the races doing something more enjoyable and/or productive

[Hoofless_Wonder]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

My kingdom for a carriage return!!

No kidding. Need my eyes checked after reading the start of this thread.

Originally Posted by Disenchantedguy

... How do you guys/gals cope with the fact that in horse betting losing is the rule, not the exception??

It's easy if you're a recreational player, and you're betting within your means. Think of the money lost as entertainment expenses, when those rare wins are like hitting a nice shot during a round of golf or reeling in a nice trout when fishing.

It's a much tougher game now than 30 years ago. I don't see how new fans are going to come in the game without takeout reductions, changes in the tax code, and improvements in the racing experience being offered up by most tracks.

But for us old geezers, it's still the greatest sport going.

[Hoofless_Wonder]

Originally Posted by Seabiscuit@AR

...The average player should stop donating to the syndicates and tracks and go spend their time and money saved playing the races doing something more enjoyable and/or productive

Naw. I like to think the money I lose goes directly to the owners, grooms, hotwalkers and the feed bucket (not the trainers, the tracks, the politicians, the syndicates, the whales and the winning players).

[lamboguy]

this is how takeout works if i can remember correctly from my younger years.


if a track does $1 million in handle, the customers walk into the track with $333,000 for the first race. if the takeout is 20% or $200,000, the players go home with $133,000 about 1/3 of what they started with. that happens over and over again. what this all means is that there is very little money to win percentage wise before things start. when you factor in other costs like past performances admissions and parking, you will see how tough this game is to win at.

there are people that claim to win at this pari mutuel game. computer groups say they have the tools to win.

the only way i know to beat a track is by betting minus pools. but most people lose betting those lose too because they have poor odds models on them.

[Seabiscuit@AR]

There should be at least 2 races at every meeting which are rebate free to give the average player a chance to win some money

[Stillriledup]

Originally Posted by Seabiscuit@AR

There should be at least 2 races at every meeting which are rebate free to give the average player a chance to win some money

If 2 races at every meeting were rebate free and you didnt know which races they were, would you be able to guess correctly after the fact?

[Pensacola Pete]

Three of the main problems are smart money, dominant and/or crooked trainers, and corrupt racing officials.

The way I stay above even is to play the tracks where these problems have as small a footprint as possible. The serious players and whales bet a larger percentage of the total money bet at the smaller tracks, so out those tracks go. The crooked and/or dominant trainers tend to rule the small and medium tracks, so out those tracks go. Russel Baze has owned NoCal for a long time. A few circuits have more than their share of crooked racing officials (West Virginia, anybody? How about Illinois?), so out they go.

What's left? For me it's SoCal, NYRA, and Keeneland, also Woodbine during the summer. There are crooked trainers and jockeys there, but their footprint is smaller than at other tracks. There is smart money there, but the footprint---the percentage of the total---isn't as high as at other tracks. Because the tracks are generally considered to give the player a fair shot, action players like them; NYRA, SoCal, and Keeneland also the ones with the largest average daily handles, and prices are good at Woodbine in the summer.

The point is: why play a circuit in which 70%+ of the money is bet by tough players and/or whale-bots? Why fight Jamie Ness, Stephanie Beattie, Michael Pino, Jerry Hollendorfer, Ralph Martinez, etc.? Why fight Russel Baze? Bet where the going is good, or at least better than other places.

[Stillriledup]

Interesting post by the OP, good stuff.

I've always been under the impression that you want the game as hard as possible because if you can ever figure out how to beat it, there's actually going to be money to be won.

What has essentially happened is that the game has gotten too EASY and that's why its so hard.


I remember back in the day when the DRF had no Beyer figs, a handicapper would be able to make his own figs, even if they were just glancing at the final times of the 6 furlong races and comparing raw times from class to class. Now, Joe Blow can spend a few bucks for a DRF and he gets a ready made speed figure that might not be as good as Thorograph or Ragozin, but its plenty good for something you get for the price of a copy.

With all the "information" out there for sale, it essentially turns horse betting into a "think tank" where everyone has access.....and, if we all have access to the "winners" it just makes the game virtually impossible to beat.

The game in the 1970s and 1980s being "much easier" than it is today and the advent of clocker reports, beyer figs, replays on the internet, gossip on social media, paddock interviews by TVG, etc wasn't around decades ago, its no coincidence that its harder to win in 2014 than it was in 1974.

And, we want MORE information than ever before, we not only need the gelding info, but we want claims info and we want vet reports, for this year's Belmont stakes, there was specific veterinary information that was published, you never had that "back in the day".

Since horse racing is a horsemens game and not a bettors game, tracks don't card races for the bettor...they're carded for the trainers and owners. If your horse is a superstar and is "eligible" for a certain class, you get in that class no matter what, even if you are destined to be 1-5 and create a terrible betting race, the track puts the horsemen first.......as opposed to not permitting a horse who "cant lose" into the race as a betting interest.

[Seabiscuit@AR]

Stillriledup

You could work out after the fact which 2 races were rebate free. But I was thinking more of an official announcement before the race along the lines of race conditions but for the bettors. R5 & R7 = no rebates can be claimed for example

[Stillriledup]

Originally Posted by Seabiscuit@AR

Stillriledup

You could work out after the fact which 2 races were rebate free. But I was thinking more of an official announcement before the race along the lines of race conditions but for the bettors. R5 & R7 = no rebates can be claimed for example

The only advantage you would get betting into a race without rebates for other players would be that smarter players arent in those pools. The pools themselves would be much smaller, but you would be betting against less sophisticated players for the most part.