How to make money in horse racing

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

It may help to consult the original...https://gwern.net/doc/statistics/dec...994-benter.pdf

Look at table 4, then table 7. These are the horses he's betting on.
In table 4, before incorporating the public as a separate variable, there are 5016 horses at roughly 5-10% chance of winning, that the public is underestimating. After incorporating the public estimate, this 5-10% group is reduced to 4511 candidates for being overlays,. Most of the residual spread went to the 1-5% group. 1426 horses he considered 5-10% win rates were now in this lesser chance group.

His model was erroneously suggesting that substantial wild longshots, 30-50 to 1, were being underestimated by the public. Incorporating public percentages apparently narrowed his overlays to more frequent chances of winning, while still maintaining overlay status.

I was preparing to cut the grass when I rethought this.

In Table 4, he locates 4813 candidates for overlays from the 1-5% chance of winning group. In table 7 after incorporating public pcts., he relocates 6728 horses to this group. But they are still overlays that he is betting, and their win rates correspond more closely to expectancy. Where he was finding 1.5 overlays per race in table 4, he is finding 2.1 overlays in table 7.

How does incorporating public odds enable him to find more and juicier overlays? Could it be paradoxical? He wasn't giving those longshots high enough odds? His overlays were too grouped in the center categories before incorporating the public?

This begins to confirm for me the unsophisticated public he competed against. To take your example classhandicapper, say Benter makes a certain group of horses 2-1. Without the public pcts incorporated, his horses win more like a 4-1, a loss. Now by incorporating an unsophisticated public making such horses 10-1, he defines their "true odds" as 4-1, and as stated they win like a 4-1. Only this is occurring at much more delicious odds, and within exotics.

He could not have accomplished this in later 20th century America.

[formula_2002]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

Sorry I had two cups of coffee/



that's interesting information.

this info just comes to us from the market. Often correlates to condition. Often shows us a snapshot of CAW/Syndicates/Insider opinion/late-correction...

All this info. Should we wait and chase it? That's one way.
What is that?

"the Hyena"

try to read the lions and get a bite? Don't get your kneck broke.

https://twitter.com/jason_kassa/stat...84364270772224

vulture has some dark connotations
for the CAWs (the Lions) it's the crow "caw caw"


anywho

that's one way to do it.

the market always gives us info.
animal spirits aside; if we aren't able to read the event better than the market we shouldn't be wagering on this event.



hey Formula 2002,
do you ever feel like 'winning' is a scary thing?

success in any endeavor is very pleasing.

[castaway01]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

Benter was a MAVERICK...and he deserves all the accolades and the money that he enjoys. But he stopped betting 30 years ago because his methods no longer worked...so his value to us as an informational source is questionable at best, IMO. As a motivational tool, sure...but as a "role model" to currently emulate, I don't think so.

Thank you. No one disrespects Benter, he's a legend. But everyone posting losing techniques in 2023 and then quoting Benter from 1990, that's the part I disagree with. Show us how it works NOW...they never do.

[Dave Schwartz]

Let's says I make a horse's fair price 10-1 and he's 2-1 on the board. I think he's a huge underlay. If I incorporate the tote, I'm going to make him somewhere between 10-1 and 2-1. That may be more correct, but he'll still be an underlay.

Now let's says I make a horse 2-1 and he's 10-1 on the board. I think he's a huge overlay. If I incorporate the tote, I'm going to make him somewhere between 2-1 and 10-1, but he'll still be an overlay.

Welcome to the world of personal arrogance among horse players.
(Know that I am including myself in this group.)

The fact that WE make a horse anything that it differs from what THE PUBLIC makes the horse, means it is likely they are at least as right as we are.

The brilliance of what Benter did was to BEGIN with his own opinion and then MOVE IT TOWARDS what the public makes each horse.

[formula_2002]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

Welcome to the world of personal arrogance among horse players.
(Know that I am including myself in this group.)

The fact that WE make a horse anything that it differs from what THE PUBLIC makes the horse, means it is likely they are at least as right as we are.

The brilliance of what Benter did was to BEGIN with his own opinion and then MOVE IT TOWARDS what the public makes each horse.

I wanted to post the following expression somewhere and considering the thinking prevaling here, here goes.
One of the recently new found Joy's in life is "playing" the favorite
when the late money ignores the favorite!!

[formula_2002]

Originally Posted by formula_2002

I wanted to post the following expression somewhere and considering the thinking prevaling here, here goes.
One of the recently new found Joy's in life is "playing" the favorite
when the late money ignores the favorite!!

as i was typing the above, my computer picked the winning favorite, but so did ALL the late money, driving the odds down by about 80%

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

It may help to consult the original...https://gwern.net/doc/statistics/dec...994-benter.pdf

Look at table 4, then table 7. These are the horses he's betting on.
In table 4, before incorporating the public as a separate variable, there are 5016 horses at roughly 5-10% chance of winning, that the public is underestimating. After incorporating the public estimate, this 5-10% group is reduced to 4511 candidates for being overlays,. Most of the residual spread went to the 1-5% group. 1426 horses he considered 5-10% win rates were now in this lesser chance group.

His model was erroneously suggesting that substantial wild longshots, 30-50 to 1, were being underestimated by the public. Incorporating public percentages apparently narrowed his overlays to more frequent chances of winning, while still maintaining overlay status.

I may be having a lightbulb moment, but I'm not sure because some of the math he's using is over my head. I cut class to go to Belmont that week

Seriously, thanks. I'm going to read through the entire paper. I saw some interesting stuff at the end of the paper on finishing 2nd and 3rd also. I learned a lot of that just doing manual studies and later running the numbers in my database.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

Welcome to the world of personal arrogance among horse players.
(Know that I am including myself in this group.)

The fact that WE make a horse anything that it differs from what THE PUBLIC makes the horse, means it is likely they are at least as right as we are.

I understand. I'm aware that no one can know everything about every race and everyone makes mistakes. I make a lot of them.

Why do you think I skip so many races and hem and haw even when I think I have a good line on one?

My feeling was that even if you split the difference or thereabouts between your own odds line and the public's, most horses you think are overlays are actually still going to be overlays. Where it appears to be helping him is in the very marginal situations. I've had a mental block to understanding what he's gaining by it because if it's that close it's automatically a pass for me anyway.

[sjk]

You would normally require an overlay percentage to qualify for a bet and incorporating the public odds is arithmetically equivalent to adjusting the overlay percentage upwards.

[Dave Schwartz]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

I understand. I'm aware that no one can know everything about every race and everyone makes mistakes. I make a lot of them.

Why do you think I skip so many races and hem and haw even when I think I have a good line on one?

My feeling was that even if you split the difference or thereabouts between your own odds line and the public's, most horses you think are overlays are actually still going to be overlays. Where it appears to be helping him is in the very marginal situations. I've had a mental block to understanding what he's gaining by it because if it's that close it's automatically a pass for me anyway.

All it does is bring your assessment closer to reality.

Think of it as saying that the public is account for 65% of your handicapping - as one giant factor - without you having to do much work.

You add the other 35%.

BTW, my understanding is that he's now doing it differently. The tools are just so much more advanced.

[Nitro]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

It may help to consult the original...https://gwern.net/doc/statistics/dec...994-benter.pdf

His model was erroneously suggesting that substantial wild longshots, 30-50 to 1, were being underestimated by the public. Incorporating public percentages apparently narrowed his overlays to more frequent chances of winning, while still maintaining overlay status.

It’s nice to see someone else referring to Benter’s report. It’s something that I’ve posted in excerpts on PA a number of times. It could have been written 40 years ago or yesterday, and its significance and truthfulness stand out among all those who have published anything related to playing the horses. There are tidbits and hints throughout its content which offer a wealth of relative information that should be considered by any serious player.

BTW your assessment of Benter’s program suggesting that the long shots were being erroneously underestimated by the public in HK is spot on. I could tell you why, but that would mean a lot of additional typing that the majority around here would find objectionable anyway.

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

Welcome to the world of personal arrogance among horse players.
(Know that I am including myself in this group.)

The fact that WE make a horse anything that it differs from what THE PUBLIC makes the horse, means it is likely they are at least as right as we are.

The brilliance of what Benter did was to BEGIN with his own opinion and then MOVE IT TOWARDS what the public makes each horse.

I take it that when you’re referring to “horse players” in the generic sense that you mean traditional handicappers.

I’m not sure how something that a handicapper views as being different about a horse from the so-called “Public” betting makes them as “at least as right as we (the handicappers) are”. How can the difference (be it an overlay or underlay) from either perspective make them both “right”?

Yes, to his own admission that was Benter’s final realization into making his program even more profitable.

The problem that I still see is how everyone seems to continually generalize and mistakenly identify who the “Public” actually is. The betting population obviously does not only include the $2, $20, or $200 bettors. Beyond that thought, keep in mind that the Win pool (the Odds) is only one of many betting pools and options available.

To that end, it’s the reason why an auspiciously sophisticated live tote analysis can scrutinize “the how much”, “the when”, and “the where” in order to develop track-able (and very often repeatable) betting patterns which don’t rely on the odds at all. So, the result is that the face value of the odds and Will-pays of the projected entries of interest simply become a barometer for play-ability or not.

I no longer confuse the subjectivity of handicapping interpretations with the actual objective betting patterns in real time. My reality is the ability to compare the O.A. betting on individual entries with the combined betting of all the entries in a race simultaneously at various intervals during a typical betting cycle.
.
.

[classhandicapper]

I make a horse 3-1 on my odds line = 25%

The public makes the same horse 7/2 = approximately 18.5%

If my odds line was perfect, odds of 7/2 would be a profitable overlay.

I know my odds line has certain biases in it and may be missing information so I split the difference and give the horse a 21.75% chance of winning.

My new odds line makes the horse slightly unprofitable.

What adding the public odds in is doing is eliminating the very marginal overlays according to your own line. If the public odds were 5-1 he'd still be a play.

[thaskalos]

If we readily admit that the "public's" odds line is more accurate than our own...wouldn't it be wiser for us to look for another gambling game to get involved in?

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

If we readily admit that the "public's" odds line is more accurate than our own...wouldn't it be wiser for us to look for another gambling game to get involved in?

I've never understood the perception that there is a dearth of opportunity these days. I increasingly allow the public to handicap for me, as Dave basically stated, but I reserve usually one, sometimes two horses as my definitive overlays, almost always double digits to include in verticals, sometimes horizontals (a Steven Crist "C" horse, e.g.), not only ignoring the public but insisting on obvious overlaid odds in my judgement. The exponential number of combinations makes the lower rungs of a vertical an inefficient market.

These horses have nondescript form owing to my philosophy that horses aren't as good or bad as they look on paper, due to the inner dynamics of a race. The public is obsessed with the finish of races.

In Churchill's opener I identified #1 as such a horse, before the scratch of heavily bet #6. I constructed a super based upon public odds (as long as I don't "hate" a horse, such as successive rail trip good races and now widest, and other countless inner dynamic scenarios), and got a 3-1 return emphasizing him running fourth, to winning as my least emphasized combo.

I don't care about supposed red boarding, it's the approach that one can criticize.

[thaskalos]

IMO…the most important thing for the horseplayer to do is to avoid self-deception. We’ve all been in the game long enough to know where we stand, as far as “profitability” in the game is concerned. If we keep losing long-term and we keep fooling ourselves into believing that the “next idea” is the one that will turn us into the ‘winner’ that we envision ourselves to be…then we are asking for serious trouble.