BCBC Wagers and ITP Interview

[Fairmount1]

People on the board have discussed if the BCBC (A cash contest) affects double payoffs significantly since it is the only horizontal available for BC contest purposes.  

If you are curious how anyone in the contest wagered such as Hellmers who asks us on here to watch his videos, or others in the contest world, here you go.  If you click on the 3 dots in the upper right hand side of the web page (below the X of the browser), go to FIND and you can search for specific names you may be interested in looking up.  

http://www.breederscup.com/sites/default/files/2018%20BCBC%20Final.pdf

Also, for those of you that aren\'t twitter inclined, here is an interview many of you many find interesting that has been posted several times the last day or two.  I think a previous interview with ITP was posted on here a few years ago.  This is Part 1, I believe.  It is worth your time to listen.

https://extra.betamerica.com/barn-podcast-11-7-18-inside-pylons-day-1/

These are the type people along with robots that you are competing against in the parimutuel pools, by and large.

[Boscar Obarra]

Even if its the only horizontal , it would not account for someone betting down an 80-1 to 20-1, unless they were on drugs.

The player, not  the horse.

[Fairmount1]

No disagreement here.  Just thought it was a nice segway to the BCBC wagers in the contest which are public this year probably to the chagrin of many including those so protective of their exact wagers in these contests.  

One example of double play though: J. Kinchen played a total of $39k worth of doubles of Enable with McKinzie, West Coast, Yoshida, and MYB in varying amounts.  The largest involved Enable with McKinzie for $13k+ as I understand the document.

[bluechip21]

This is very interesting. At the very least to see how big players build their tickets (Kinchen and others), and how the trash ones do as well. I won’t name names but it’s quite disparaging, imo.

[billk5300s]

Thanks for sharing that podcast Fairmount.  Admittedly I have fallen into many of those bad bet traps.  I consider myself a decent handicapper but a terrible bettor.  With that said I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been tossed from horizontals by horses that I thought had no shot, were 10/1 ML, and won at 8/5. I guess that doesn’t happen to btp.  In any case that podcast is a great listen.

[BitPlayer]

Interesting listen.  Thanks for posting that.  I have a couple of comments.

I’ll start by saying that I don’t play exotics involving more than two legs (either horizontal or vertical) for the reason ITP mentioned.  Since my handicapping skills are not strong, the more choices I make in structuring a wager, the more likely I am to make a bad one that kills any value I may have built up in my other choices.

That said, one of the comments ITP made about the A-B-C system of structuring multi-race bets did not make sense to me.  Based on what I’ve heard from talking heads, I think he is right that people tend to make the mistake of designating horses as A’s, B’s, and C’s based on win probability rather than expected value.  His comment about not making a favorite a “C” does not, however, make sense to me from a purely mathematical perspective.  If you are allocating horses based on expected value (or edge), and a ticket with all A’s in the other legs has an expected value of $1.30 per $1.00, and the expected value of a bet on the favorite in the last race is $0.80, you want to bet the favorite as a C with all your A’s because that ticket would have an expected value of $1.04.  If you also have a B in one of the earlier legs, the ticket with one B and the rest A’s will have a lower expected value than the all-A ticket, say $1.20.  You do not want to bet the favorite as an A or B with that ticket because the expected value would be only $0.96.

I was also interested in ITP’s comments about lowering bet minimums.  He indicated that, because of his big bankroll, he did well with big minimums because could afford to cover more combinations than small-bankroll players.  He then said that lower minimums are bad for both types of players.  To me, parimutuel wagering is a zero-sum game.  If someone is doing worse, someone else is doing better.