Good morning all. As a lot of you are horizontal players I was curious to hear what your thought are about the Rainbow Pick 6. Our local consensus is that it\'s nothing more than a lottery and should be named as such. If you don\'t realize that a unique ticket is the only way to win you could also be easily sucked in. I realize that if it brings $ to the track it\'s a good thing but I also believe that when the pool gets this high it\'s improbable that a unique ticket will exist because of the amounts that folks will invest. Just curious to see what most of you think.
Completely agree on the payout for the whole pool but the 6/6 payouts have been pretty decent along the way (don\'t mean to imply that I have hit any of them because I haven\'t) so all in all, I think a positive for the game even though its gimmicky.
What I hear and see is that the Whales and Conglomerates do not play this bet until the last day when there is a mandatory payout. For me, and several friends, it is a fun way to get involved in a pick six because of the 20 cent minimum amount.
I can make a ticket that would cost $600-$800 in NY or California for $60-$80.
Most days, the playoffs are still substantial and I, in fact, did hit one for around 4K earlier in the meet.
I agree that at this point, with so many players, throwing darts or playing addresses may be the methods of choice to pick the \"only\" ticket.
The general consensus is indeed that the Rainbow 6 is a sucker bet. Andy Beyer has said as much, as has Steve Crist, who advised not playing the bet unless there's a 7 figure carryover or it's the last day of the meet.
Their reasoning? The fact that 30% of the pool, after the initial 20% takeout, goes into the jackpot pool unless there\'s a single winner, resulting in what they see as an exorbitant 44% effective takeout. Critics like Beyer argue this makes the Rainbow 6 a worse investment than the lottery and that it's pointless to fight such a takeout.
But are they right? Or is Jim's observation earlier in this thread that "the 6/6 payouts have been pretty decent" more accurate?
The best way to answer this question is by comparing the actual Rainbow 6 payouts to those predicted based on the equivalent win parlays. As some may recall from my posts in a thread last fall (Robo Betting (https://www.thorograph.com/phorum/read.php?1,82034,82212#msg-82212)), I've tracked actual vs. predicted Pick 6 payouts for a number of meets over the years. I've also been tracking the Rainbow 6 payouts at GP since they began.
Here are the results for the 10 meets (from Aqu/Bel/Sar and Hol/SA/Dmr) that I've tracked over the years, for both noncarryover and carryover days, along with the results for the Rainbow 6 (based on an equivalent $2 bet). To be conservative, for the Rainbow 6 I've excluded all lone winner carryover days and mandatory payout days, which are almost always massive overlay payouts relative to the equivalent win parlays.
NYRA/SoCal Noncarryover days (10 meets, 290 days): Median Payout: 27% higher than equivalent win parlay - $14,092
NYRA/SoCal Carryover days (10 meets, 102 days): Median Payout: 78% higher than equivalent win parlay - $31,082
GP Rainbow 6 (12/2/12-3/15/14, 158 days): Median Payout: 98% higher than equivalent win parlay - $30,448
That 98% figure is not a typo. At $30,448, the average Rainbow 6 payout is almost twice the equivalent win parlay. That's over 3 times the value seen on a typical noncarryover day at the NYRA/SoCal circuits, and over 25% more value than that seen on a typical carryover day.
How can this be? How can such a derided "sucker" bet be offering more value than even carryover days at the major circuits??
Well for one thing, the bet doesn't pay out for consolation tickets. At NYRA/SoCal circuits, 25-30% of the pool is distributed amongst those who correctly select 5 of 6 winners. This one fact alone largely offsets the 30% takeout for the Rainbow 6 jackpot. And while one could argue that consolation tickets account for a big portion of a horseplayer's income from Pick 6 wagers, it can also be argued that consolation tickets are a relative pittance compared to Pick 6 payouts, and that they act as a huge additional tax on Pick 6 winners because winners must share 25-30% of what are rightfully their winnings with the other 99% of bettors who didn't hit the Pick 6 but managed only 5 winners.
You may ask how then, with the insidious takeout for consolation tickets at the NYRA/SoCal circuits and the notorious jackpot takeout in the Rainbow 6, can any of these bets routinely pay more than the equivalent win parlay?
The reason is that you only get hit with the takeout once. And it's part of the reason why, even with such exorbitant takeouts, the Pick 6 is still a great bet (the other reason being that your edge is multiplicative, which means you can string together horses with small edges or even slight negative expectations in the win pool and still come up with a positive expectation on the overall bet).
At SoCal tracks, where the win takeout is 15.43% and the Pick 6 takeout is 23.68% with a 30% payout to consolations, the Pick 6 should pay (1-.2368)x(1-.30)/(1-.1543)^6 -1 = 46% more than the equivalent win parlay on noncarryover days. NYRA tracks used to be around the same until recent years - now that the takeout on noncarryover days has been lowered to 16%, the bet has a much higher expectation of 79% more than the win parlay. Of course carryovers at both circuits offer substantially more value than noncarryover days due to the "free" money in such pools.
In the GP Rainbow 6, where the win takeout is 17% and the Pick 6 takeout is 20% with a 30% takeout for the jackpot pool, the Pick 6 should pay (1-.20)x(1-.30)/(1-.17)^6 -1 = 71% more than the equivalent win parlay.
So just based on the math alone, it's clear that the Rainbow 6 offers better value than noncarryover days at NYRA/SoCal circuits (+71% vs +46%). The study results shown above support this conclusion. But they also show that the Rainbow 6, at 98% more than the win parlay, is offering even better value than the math would indicate.
Why might this be? There are two big reasons:
1. As dreamers focus on low probability combinations of underlaid longshots in their quest for the elusive jackpot, the favorite-longshot bias has never been more in effect and is creating tremendous value for astute handicappers playing logical contenders.
2. So-called "sharpies," having deemed it a sucker bet, have shunned the wager, making for much easier competition and therefore great value.
There are also a number of other advantages the Rainbow 6 has over its NYRA/SoCal brethren:
1. Deep-pocketed whales like the computer guys cannot simply buy the pool when the carryover gets large the way they can with traditional Pick6\'s, because they won\'t get the jackpot unless they have the only winning ticket.
2. The $.20 minimum bet levels the playing field for everyone. It\'s no longer a \"big fish\" vs. \"little fish\" game - players with limited bankrolls can now put in fully fleshed out tickets rather than basically making daily contributions to the pool with their $100 tickets full of obvious contenders that even if hit result in tiny underlaid payouts.
3. The $.20 minimum wager also greatly lowers the chance of players overbetting their bankrolls and subjecting themselves to gambler\'s ruin.
4. With roughly 50% of the payouts falling below $5,000, the $.20 minimum wager prevents Uncle Sam from confiscating your gross winnings. Regular Pick6 players are therefore less likely to wind up sitting on their hands and knees at the end of the year waiting for their tax refund.
5. If a player happens to be the lone winner, the takeout is only 20%. HUGE overlays often result after only a few days of the jackpot building. Payoffs 10-20 times greater than the equivalent win parlay, involving easily haveable sequences, are very achievable.
So contrary to popular opinion, this is far from the sucker bet everyone thinks it is. Other than the 14-15% Pick5's currently being offered at many tracks, it's arguably one of the best bets in racing, even without considering the jackpot potential. And if you do happen to be the lone winner once in awhile, which happens often early on before the jackpot builds, that's just an added bonus.
Rocky R.
Amazing post. Thanks.
Rocky-- you touched on this tangentially, but- because everyone is trying to have the only ticket, they play every combo only one time. No weighting of favorites. So if you\'re going 6 deep in a race you are using the favorite as heavy as the 10-1 shot.
It\'s a 20c ticket, so far more combos than usual are being played, and the favorites are on an abnormally low percentage of them.
This has been exactly my discovery as well. Indeed it is even paying a better overlay than the pic5. I tracked both for the last 35 days, and on 25 of them, the R6 paid a higher overlay than the P5. And the average overlay for the R6 was 2.5 times the parlay vs the average overlay for the P5 was 2.2 times the parlay.
https://twitter.com/InsideTheNumbrs/status/445334538655264768/photo/1
It seems to me ESPECIALLY on the days when you look at the sequence and it looks very chalky, that there is tremendous value. Everyone else will overplay the long shots. I\'d even say it\'s probably right (assuming your sequence is all short prices) to play these tickets multiple times, because of the value. And with mostly faves, you\'re not in any jeopardy of missing taking it all down due to a multiple ticket because low prices means lots of people will have the winners.
That\'s pretty much the conversation we\'ve been having in the office the last few minutes.
Great post, exactly the kind of feedback that I was hoping for with this post. Great discussion as well, my thanks to all!!!
Good point Jerry – hadn't considered the possibility that some players might be betting just as much but are using the $.20 minimum to play 10 times as many distinct combinations as they normally could.
How about a $12 daily Pick-6 special?
you lost me at The
Two basic premises overlooked by way too experienced gamblers guys like Crist and Beyer regarding actual value of these wagers vs parlays:
1. A 6 horse parlay wager is almost 100% mythical, no one would actually go all in as the wagers/stakes progressed. The risk to reward gets highly skewed and cold feet would set in.
2. From a value standpoint their case is mute, they don\'t factor in the greatly reduced odds created by the increased wager amounts as the parlay progressed. You would betting against yourself in the win pool by the end.
Even not admitting those 2 obvious factors your math is still correct as to the value comparison.
barn rabbitt wrote:
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> you lost me at The
LOL - then I\'m guessing you probably missed the fact that the binomial correlation matrix inverted to the calibrational aspect of the whole genomial parallax was completely out of whack.
Just to note:
Today\'s RB6 sequence was $7.80 | $7.00 | $19.80 | $7.40 | $5.00 | $8.20.
The $2 parlay was $10,250.
The $2 equivalent payout was $32,888, only a bit over 3 times the parlay.
rh - I understand what you\'re saying, but the parlay is just a mathematical construct used to estimate what a multirace payoff should pay. Whether or not somebody actually bets a parlay is irrelevant.
The only way to accurately estimate what a Pick 6 should pay is by multiplying together the true probabilities of each winning horse in the sequence (ie. winner of leg 1 had a 35% chance to win, winner of leg 2 had a 22% chance to win, etc).
You get the same result whether you multiply the probabilities together (the hard way) or you calculate the parlay (the easy way).
Rocky R.
I do prefer that analogy better. It is the essence of finding value in any wager, true probability vs rate of return as is often discussed on this board. The closer a handicapper\'s estimate of the former directly correlates in the long run to the latter no matter the betting vehicle. Horse racing always creates opportunities (inefficiencies) due to the variance of opinions and abilities to estimate \"true\" probability.
Directions to the Bowery in NY readily available.Math and true value theorists hover around a nice fire during winter trading methodologies that knocked them broke.
That\'s what she said...LOL....interesting thoughts here
miff –
As I'm sure you're aware, there are two sides to this coin.
Guys like B.Benter, A.Woods(RIP), et al. have been sitting in their McMansions for years quietly laughing to themselves at comments like this while making regular $500K weekly withdrawals from their accounts.
Those campfires are reserved for those unfortunate souls who've either miscalculated their edge or overbet their bankrolls.
Math,
That\'s all \"myth\" until proven up close and personal. Pool liquidity,except big days, cannot be beaten with \"math\" What works in Hongkong monster pools does NOT work here.An ex Aussie colleague who killed them in HK, quit here after a short try with the same software program.
Not speaking of rebate betting whales with other models.
Mike
"A Man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."
― Ben Franklin