I\'ve got a quote and a question. The quote is from Steven Crist\'s last Breeders\' Cup Diary entry on drf.com:
\"My primary personal-investment lesson for the day, which I shall try hard to remember a year from now, is not to put 80 percent of my eggs in the pick-4 and pick-6 baskets as I did yesterday. There is plenty of money to be made on Breeders\' Cup Day by being right in just one spot.\"
My question is: why do people find multi-race bets so attractive? They\'re obviously all the rage now. From my perspective:
1. It\'s not often that I have a strong opinion in 2 consecutive races. Forget about 4 or 6. And when the races are at different tracks (as in the NTRA National Pick-4s), my confidence in my selections drops further.
2. The takeout is high.
3. You\'re betting blind with respect to the amount being wagered on horses in all but the first race of the sequence (see Artie Schiller).
4. As someone has previously noted on this board (HP?), such bets have a high now-I-have-to-kill-myself factor.
Maybe players with more well-rounded handicapping skills and bigger bankrolls feel like that gives them an edge. Maybe it\'s about the buzz of a big score. In any event, I\'d be interested in anyone\'s comments on why they play in these pools.
I played a few Pick 3\'s on BC Day, but I played them small (for $1 and the ticket had to be less than $20). I think you get some wacky money on BC Day and there is the potential for payoffs all out of proportion to the odds of the winning horses. I hit one P3, two favorites and a 36-1 shot in the first race, and that broke my fall for the day. For me it\'s a small hedge if I can\'t really hammer a tri but I have winners...
As a general rule unless I have a strong single I stay out of them. The other good thing about Pick 3\'s is that you can actually make some money with favorites...
HP
OK, I\'ll give this a try. Cashing a big pick 6 can be a life changing event as it was for me in 1992. No, you can\'t retire on $133,000 but as a pro handicapper who tried grinding out a 2% profit year after year, often just breaking even, the pick six did the following for me:
1. Got me out of debt ($20,000)
2. Put nice furniture and other things in the apartment.
3. Got a decent car.
4. Afforded me the opportunity to travel to many race tracks seeking a better paying job than my then current gig at NYRA.
5. Got me hired as a race track TV and radio host in New Mexico which led to many other opportunities and endeavors in racing and music across the country.
In 2000 I retired from playing the horses professionally (another story) and only occasionally play races like the Derby, BC or a few days at Monmouth. My pick 6 investment of $32 on Saturday represented less than 10% of my bankroll for the day.
As a rule, I don\'t play the pick 6 anymore. There are other ways to make a big score WITHOUT HAVING TO DEAL WITH AN IRS AUDIT at the end of the year. And my lifetime profit betting horses remains intact. See you next May and best of luck to everyone!!
Mo,
Can you elaborate on why you quit playing the horses professionally?
In a word, larceny.
Mo,
Larceny?