Odds lines are useless

[Sea Biscuit]

Originally Posted by ultracapper

ML makers construct odds lines based on where the money is expected to go. Winning probability should not be a factor at all. How will the public bet? That is the ML maker's job to anticipate.

Congrats Ultracapper You are the only one who got it right.

Contrary to popular belief, a ML is not the track handicappers picks most likely to win the race but merely to predict how the public will wager on a particular horse come post time.

Ed Burgart, Los Alamitos announcer and ML maker explains how it is done.

http://www.aqha.com/Racing/Content-P...ning-Line.aspx

I ignore the ML all together and make my own odds line for each horse based on their chances of winning the race.


Supposing you have determined a particular horse, based on your handicapping principles, has a 50% chance of winning the race his true odds should be: 100/50=2-1 (the 1 is a constant here)=1. His true odds should be even money. 5/2 or 3-1 should be a good overlay price for the said horse.

Supposing you have a horse with a 95% chance of winning the race, his true odds should be 100/95=1.05-1=.05. His true odds should be 5 cents on the dollar and come post time the racing Gods are smiling at you and he is going off at even money which is 20 times your odds line, knock down little old ladies in the line and place your bet.

If your 5 cent special ends up the track, its back to the drawing board for you.

Good luck.

[scottyloo]

Anybody who is making money (long-term and consistently, day-in-day-out) at betting races is using some kind of personal odds, whether they know it or not, aren't they? There doesn't seem to be any mathematical way around it. Even if you made a deal at the crossroads and Beezlebub is whispering winners into your ears, and he's mostly right, and you're making a profit, there's some kind of mathematical relationship reflecting value there. Maybe you can't quantify it in a number at the time, but it must be there. (although if you keep records, you could reverse quantify it based on your return, and then actually quantify it in the future--"the voice in my head produces runners with a 20% advantage").

[raybo]

Originally Posted by scottyloo

Anybody who is making money (long-term and consistently, day-in-day-out) at betting races is using some kind of personal odds, whether they know it or not, aren't they? There doesn't seem to be any mathematical way around it. Even if you made a deal at the crossroads and Beezlebub is whispering winners into your ears, and he's mostly right, and you're making a profit, there's some kind of mathematical relationship reflecting value there. Maybe you can't quantify it in a number at the time, but it must be there. (although if you keep records, you could reverse quantify it based on your return, and then actually quantify it in the future--"the voice in my head produces runners with a 20% advantage").

I agree, there almost has to be some kind of odds determination of value, and almost has to be value in the equation for profitability. I personally do not use an odds line, but I test each track and find the sweet spot for my minimum odds requirement. Different approach, but still with value demands involved.

Problems with the old set-a-line-then-bet-the-overlay(s) approach:

1. Typically too optimistic that one's own line is right and the public's is wrong;
2. So much of the money comes in just before the bell that the odds fluctuate hugely, especially at tracks with medium or small betting handles. Lots of times the "overlay" has vanished when all of the betting is completed.

[Overlay]

Originally Posted by RXB2

Problems with the old set-a-line-then-bet-the-overlay(s) approach:

1. Typically too optimistic that one's own line is right and the public's is wrong;
2. So much of the money comes in just before the bell that the odds fluctuate hugely, especially at tracks with medium or small betting handles. Lots of times the "overlay" has vanished when all of the betting is completed.

Welcome to the board.

Over-optimism can be addressed by basing lines on statistical or other quantitative data, rather than subjective opinion.

Last-flash odds changes are an acknowledged possibility, but they can be mitigated by maintaining a full-field perspective of winning chances (rather than focusing solely on narrowing a field down to the one horse that's most likely to win) in order to detect betting value in all odds ranges (since every late dropper will cause the odds on other entrants -- including horses that were already overlays -- to rise even higher), or by considering exotic-wager value in addition to the win pool.

Aside from the above points, what would you suggest as an alternative to "set-a-line-then-bet-the-overlay(s)" in order to assure that you're getting the better of the odds?

Originally Posted by Overlay

Welcome to the board.

Over-optimism can be addressed by basing lines on statistical or other quantitative data, rather than subjective opinion.

Last-flash odds changes are an acknowledged possibility, but they can be mitigated by maintaining a full-field perspective of winning chances in order to detect betting value in all odds ranges (since every late dropper will cause odds on other entrants -- including horses that were already overlays -- to rise even higher), or by considering exotic-wager value in addition to the win pool.

Aside from the above points, what would you suggest as an alternative to "set-a-line-and-bet-the-overlay" in order to assure that you were getting the better of the odds?

It's actually my ten-year anniversary on the board this very month; I just had to create a slightly revised user name due to a password issue (or better said, a memory & common sense issue).

Late odds changes can't be mitigated when the money pours during in the final milliseconds, after you've made your bet.

I find that "if it feels good, do it" works better for me than any hard mathematical odds-line derivations. It helps to have a good understanding of the types of horses that tend to get bet late, too.

[Overlay]

Originally Posted by RXB2

Late odds changes can't be mitigated when the money pours during in the final milliseconds, after you've made your bet.

Sorry for not connecting the dots on your user name.

I agree that it's too late to bet by then. The point that I was trying to make was that the last-flash odds drops will cause other horses in the field (aside from the late dropper(s)) that you may have already bet because they were already overlaid to begin with (as long as you were maintaining visibility of the chances of each horse in the field) to offer even greater value than they were before (unless one assumes that the late odds-drop is a 100% guarantee of victory).

[PaceAdvantage]

Originally Posted by RXB2

It's actually my ten-year anniversary on the board this very month; I just had to create a slightly revised user name due to a password issue (or better said, a memory & common sense issue).

Late odds changes can't be mitigated when the money pours during in the final milliseconds, after you've made your bet.

I find that "if it feels good, do it" works better for me than any hard mathematical odds-line derivations. It helps to have a good understanding of the types of horses that tend to get bet late, too.

If you want your old name back (I would actually prefer it if you went back to the original name), I can easily get it up and running for you...with any password of your choosing, and an updated email address if you need that.

Just send me a private message with the info...

[RXB]

Originally Posted by Overlay

Sorry for not connecting the dots on your user name.

I agree that it's too late to bet by then. The point that I was trying to make was that the last-flash odds drops will cause other horses in the field (aside from the late dropper(s)) that you may have already bet because they were already overlaid to begin with (as long as you were maintaining visibility of the chances of each horse in the field) to offer even greater value than they were before (unless one assumes that the late odds-drop is a 100% guarantee of victory).

I am back in my original incarnation, thanks PA.

The odds tend to drop late most often on:
-- Low-odds horses (except heavy odds-on, 1/2 or less at the gate types)
-- High-figure horses (which are usually low odds)
-- Legit overlays (you ain't the only one that sees it)

So if the public has a horse at 3/1 loading into the gate and you label it as having a 30% chance of winning, there are two things to consider before you deem it a 20+% overlay and bet accordingly:

1. You might be wrong in your estimate;
2. If you are right, there's a fair chance that other sharpies will have the same opinion and knock down the odds, sometimes precipitously.

There's a lot of variance and potential for error that isn't dealt with in a fixed-point probability estimate that claims Horse A has 37% probability, Horse B 21%, Horse C 14%, etc.

[RXB]

As an aside, I just opened a Twitter account and I could use some followers to get it rolling. @RoutesOnTurf

[Dark Horse]

Morning lines can be used to one's advantage. I don't always follow my own advice, but I'm most successful when I begin the handicapping process with all the horses at odds lower than 2/1 for the entire card, for the purpose of identifying toss outs. The public will almost always bet down the big favorites, meaning that the other horses gain in value. So by first identifying the positive playing fields in the card, I open the door to working little for a large return, rather than working hard for, at best, a marginal return.

[JackS]

How many times have you seen a ML at a major track that you believe to be reasonable a majority of the time and the ML on a 20-1 that you believe should be 40-1 going off at 6-1?
I would suggest that you not play this race and it makes no difference weather this horse wins or runs up the track there is something funny going on.

[JackS]

One caveat on my above post. If you happen to follow trainer moves and this trainer has pulled off wins with similar moves, then you may have a possible play.
Personally I still don't like it. Decide for yourself. The horse still has a good chance of not hitting the board and if he does, you've literally been robbed.

[JeffH]

I know this post is a few years old; but I was searching for odds line creation and decided to chime in. I know what the odds line is supposed to do-handicap the public. But let's be honest, you really can't do that without doing your own handicapping. How does the odds maker make 1 first time starter 5-2 while 3 others are 8-1, 12-1, and 20-1? The public isn't going to know because there's nothing to go on. He has to be going on his own information. It is my conclusion that he is actually handicapping the race. In all honesty, it it the only way he could possibly predict where the money should go in the first place. And doesn't 1 of the top 5 ML horses win close to 90% of the time?

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by JeffH

I know this post is a few years old; but I was searching for odds line creation and decided to chime in. I know what the odds line is supposed to do-handicap the public. But let's be honest, you really can't do that without doing your own handicapping. How does the odds maker make 1 first time starter 5-2 while 3 others are 8-1, 12-1, and 20-1? The public isn't going to know because there's nothing to go on. He has to be going on his own information. It is my conclusion that he is actually handicapping the race. In all honesty, it it the only way he could possibly predict where the money should go in the first place. And doesn't 1 of the top 5 ML horses win close to 90% of the time?

IMO...it makes no difference whether the line-maker is actually handicapping the race, or not. For every ONE decent morning-line oddsmaker...there are FIFTEEN who couldn't handicap their way out of a soaked paper bag.