What I don't like about Pinnacle

[Rick]

OK, so I finally signed up with Pinnacle to get the 7% rebates. BUT, when I tried to open a second account, they said that wasn't allowed. Now, I was only trying to get my wife an account so that she could bet on feature races and keep the accounting separate. But, they said I couldn't fund it from the same Neteller account. OK so I put the money somewhere else, but when I logged into her account which should have a zero balance, it had the amount in it that they said was rejected. Now, I'm not going to steal money from anyone, even an offshore bookie, so I send them an e-mail informing them of their error. I check back later and find out that they've zeroed out the account, but did they even say thank you for pointing out their mistake. NO!

Now, I think it's stupid not to set things up so that you can have multiple accounts under the same name anyway. After all, it's the PERSON that you want to set limits on, not the account. Most people would like to set up separate accounts for things like win bets and exotic bets so that they could manage their bankrolls easier. In my case, I also bet baseball and football and I really would rather not mix bankrolls. But, I'm not allowed to do that. I could be wrong but I think it would be a big advantage to allow multiple accounts under a single indivual. They could still keep track of their limits, but by the PERSON, not the account.

OK, my other rant is about nobody allowing Pick 3's on Philadelphia. If anyone knows about someone who offers them, I'd appreciate the information since that's the main track I always play.

[Buckeye]

Rick,

I just spoke with VIP and they take PHA PK3 bets, but they cap the payoff at 1000-1

No rebates on bets except 15% back on Monthly losses.

[Rick]

Buckeye,

Hey, thanks for that info I really appreciate it. I'm doing alright on win bets but the Pick 3's are phenomenal and I just HAVE to try them somewhere. I've always thought that, if you have a good method, Pick 3's are THE way to make the maximum profit. I'm OK with a limit because most of my bets are on pretty short odds horses, like about 3% wins on a one-way Pick 3.

[DrugSalvastore]

A 7% rebate speaks for itself though.

It's kind of annoying that you have to send Pinnacle $1,000 at a time if you want to add to your account--and when you want a little back out of your account, you have to take out a minimum of $1,000--or else they will make you pay for the transaction.

They also give you checks from foreign banks, and my bank makes me pay them an $8 fee for cashing it. The worst of all, is the phone betting. Before they didn't let you get any rebates on horse bets made over the phone--now they have it that you get a 5% rebate on all phone bets that are a $100 minimum. $50 straight exactas, and $30 exacta boxes are kind of like staple bets for me, so I think I wouldn't be getting a rebate if I made those bets over the phone, but I've never bothered to bet with them by phone, so I don't know for certain if it's $100 a race or $100 minimum bet. When I go to Saratoga, I like to have access to an off-shore that rebates you on phone bets. You also can't bet at Pinnacle with an AOL server, you need to go into Internet Explorer--and that's a hassle on a computer as bad as mine.

All that being said, VALUE is the name of the game, and with the exchange markets down, I think Pinnacle is the best value out there right now.

I liked dealing with Ehorse a lot better--but they just aren't being competitive enough without a market.

[Rick]

Neteller is really the way to go with deposits and withdrawls. $500 is the minimum withdrawal (with Pinnacle) to avoid fees and deposits can be much smaller than that.

I prefer to keep only a small percentage of my bankroll in the account and move funds to/from Neteller as necessary. You never know when these guys might run off with your money and I like to limit my potential losses.

EHorse has a much better policy on small withrawals and a better betting interface. So, I still have an account there that I'm using for smaller recreational bets. Too bad we can't have the best of both, but at least they're all much better than they were just a few years ago.

[lurker]

You might want to give TCbets a try. They are offering a deposit $125 get $125 promotion. I think that the phone minimum is $25 total action on the call, but you would have to double check it.

[Zaf]

Isn't the takeout around 30% on those bets, without the rebate ???

ZAFONIC

[Rick]

Another question. Does anyone offer "house" quinellas (based on win and place prices) like Nevada race books have?


zafonic,

I think the takeout is 26%, but it's easily overcome if you do significantly better than the public on every race because your edge rises exponentially when betting on multiple races.

lurker,

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[toetoe]

Your idea to not commingle "wealths" is a good one. Sorry to hear they twerped out. Pinnacle have been very good, in my experience. If I ever need the phone option, I will be very happy to get 5% back.

Speaking of pick-threes, I think Sam Houston(?) have 12%(!!!!!)-takeout pick threes. The other thing off the top of my head is the last Stupidfecta at Mnr --- 15% takeout. I always thought they should get us in early, by offering a 5%-takeout race to start the day, or even zero! Have the most onerous takeout on the last couple. I know they'll say IT CAN"T BE DONE!, but it's the reason people like me are losing more than peanuts. Beating the other bettors is nothing compared to beating the take.

[Rick]

toetoe,

I realize that there are better Pick 3's at other tracks, but I bet Philadelphia all year long anyway (win bets), so it wouldn't require any additional effort to add on Pick 3's. If I decided to make that my specialty though, I'd certainly try some other tracks. Trifectas look like they might also be very good, but seem to require different methods than with win bets in either single or multiple races. By that I mean, at least with my method, the top 3 rated horses are not a good trifecta even though the top rated horse is a very good win bet. In my limited testing, it looks like emphasizing pace ratings is the way to go with trifectas (and exactas).

[toetoe]

Man, I've failed so miserably with pick-three's and fours, I've decided to do it one race at a time. Feels pretty good to own up to it. Still good at picking winners, I refuse to continue throwing them away, trying to "hook up." One exception might ... MIGHT be BC day, single / all / all, something like that.

[Rick]

toetoe,

Yeah, everyone has their specialties. You can be good at finding several win bet overlays in a day without doing well betting every race. The method I use happens to get around break even if used to bet every race, which is a big advantage over the public that I can compound by betting multiple race combinations. For straight win betting, I can pick about 4 races out of those that are solid overlays by filtering out those that are probable underlays. But, as I mentioned previously, that method doesn't work at all for the single race exotics. Horse racing is a fascinating game with a surprising number of different ways to win. Like most people, I had no idea how complex it would be when I first started studying it. I guess that's what's kept me interested for so many years.

[lurker]

For harness bettors, the Meadowlands offers reduced takeout supers on occasion, I believe its 15%.
Bet Cris and Grande take house q's.

[rrbauer]

The P3 pools at Philly are very small, usually under $10k gross. After the big takeout, where's the value?

[GR1@HTR]

Earlier in the year, Pinnacle was not accepting the P3 for Philly...Not sure if that still is the case...