place betting w/ big odds

[RICH]

 I can\'t ever recollect having placed a place bet before, I usually will protect with exactas on big odds horses. However, Is there times where a place bet on (10-1++) horses make any sense. Jerry B, I believed may have recommended a place bet on Volponi. I find it hard to make that bet. Any comments?

[TGJB]

I very seldom make place bets-- instead I use my horse in the second postion in exactas under the horse or horses that could conceivably beat my horse even if he runs the race I\'m betting him to run. How many horses I\'m willing to play him under is a function of how long he is, and I would point out that if you have to play a 10-1 shot under more than 3 horses (or a 5-1 shot under more than 1) you shouldn\'t be playing him to begin with-- you are diluting your play to the point of negligible overlay, at best. This is why the wide spread position Friedman takes with his \"picks\" is ridiculous-- he does it not because it\'s a money maker (it\'s not), but because he wants it to look like he \"hit\" the race. If you listen to a lot of the guys who have 900#\'s etc., you will find they do something similar. On our analysis we make tight plays, which are more likely to result in a total loss for the race, but will give you a much better ROI in the long run. This is also the way I play myself.

Having said that the BC Classic was a little different. My main play in the race was MDO-- he was on about 75% of my tickets.I liked Volponi to run well (the very first time I went through the pre-entries I told Alan he was the live longshot in the race), but thought he was more likely to get in the exotics than win, partly because he was spotting weight to the 3 year olds. At the price it was easy to make the win bet, but I decided to bet place rather than exactas because it was a huge field with too many possibilities (if he ran second to someone I didn\'t use I would have had to shoot myself), and a lot of payoffs were taxable, complicating matters. So I ended up betting 80w 120p. I also had the exacta OK, but had it much more if MDO would have won-- effectively cancelling out the win bet.

[Mall]

I used to make very occasional place bets, limiting myself to situations were my key was 25-1 or higher and I was playing the key with two or three favs, the theory being that if a horse other than the favs won & my key finished 2nd, the place payoff would be high enough to show a profit on the race. After a debate on this board, and researching both my records & the literature, however, I eliminated even the occasional place bet, although I still believe there is a psycological benefit to avoid not cashing when you\'ve correctly identified a 25-1 or higher overlay. If you have a serious interest in place & show betting, you might want to read Barry Meadow\'s chapter on the subject in his book \" Money Secrets At The Racetrack\", which among other things explains why the algorithms for the Dr Z system are wrong, although the best part of the book deals with pk3 & pk4 wagering strategies.

If you do, you will find the accepted wisdom, namely that as a general proposition it is the low odds horses which are underbet to place & show. However, Meadows\' book was written in the pre-rebate era, and I am still trying to get a handle on how some of the perverse incentives rebates cause are affecting win,place,show and other bets. Let\'s say, for example, that you\'re one of the 120 customers of RGS(a subject I hope to address in another post), which means that your per capita betting is $4.7 million & you are entitled to a 10% rebate. In other words, if you break even for the yr you actually end up with a $470k profit courtesy of the rebate. Moreover, the rebate apparently applies to place & show bets, so it\'s easy to see why in a variety of situations such bets might have a a much greater attraction to a \"whale\" than they ever have had in the past.

[TGJB]

Yeah, that DRF article was pretty interesting alright. Hegarty is pretty much the only serious journalist covering the industry.

[Mall]

I agree, which is why I was very surprised that Matt did not get the Eclipse for his coverage of the fix six scandal. Perhaps he would have if he had done the article on how easy it is to hack into Catskill OTB from the outside.

One thing from the article(http://drf.com/news/article/43492.html) which I found both interesting & a little implausible was the Mgr\'s claim that 60% of RGS\' customers were not horseplayers before they came to RGS, which has only been in existence for 5 yrs. I think that the learning curve is a lot longer than that for an avg player, let alone someone who is betting $4.7 million a yr. It also would have been of interest to me know what handicapping products & betting strategies the 120 members use, where they concentrate their action, what kinds of bets they focus on,etc. At the very least, you have to admire these guys for their stamina, as the sums they are wagering would not appear to allow for much in the way of gambling downtime.

What the article did address, for the 1st time to the best of my knowledge, are actual results of the supposed \"cream of the crop.\" The daily settlements originally referred to by Ray Paulick show that RGS\' bettors recieve back 90% of their gross wagers, as opposed to 80% for similar operations. In other words, the RGS bettors are only able to break even because of the rebates, hardly a ringing endorsement for the claim that they are best \"professional\" gamblers in the game. Unless I\'m missing something, it makes no sense to claim that one is a \"professional\" in a money making endevour when one does not, in fact, make any money.  And wouldn\'t it stand to reason that this group would be doing better than losing 10 cents of every dollar if they could take advantage of past posting or some other edge?

For as long as I can remember, racing books have fairly consistently claimed that 2-5% of horseplayers either were making money or making a living betting, which are obviously two entirely different concepts, which itself makes the claims suspect. Just as consistently, no one has ever offered any indication of where these nos. came from or how they were derived, so that I have come to believe that this is just another instance of something gaining credibility for no other reason than the fact that it has been repeated over many yrs. Now that we have some actual nos., it appears that many players have been doing a lot better than they thought.

[TGJB]

My guess is that less than 1% of those who play regularly show a profit without rebates-- work out what a 20% takeout does if you churn your stack 20 or more times in the course of a year.

The stat that I always thought was interesting was the one that Alan Gutterman developed when he was head of marketing in Jersey and at NYRA-- 2% of the players contribute about 40 to 50% of the handle. Don\'t know how he got there, but since most of those players will ultimately get rebates (more on this soon)...

[Silver Charm]

TGJB wrote,

  \"The stat that I always thought was interesting was the one that Alan Gutterman developed when he was head of marketing in Jersey and at NYRA-- 2% of the players contribute about 40 to 50% of the handle.\"

And I will bet you that 100% of the players who make up that 2% use Thorograph or some flawed derivative supporting my hypothesis in a previous post




Re: Measuring The Variant Objectively.?
Author: Silver Charm
Date:   12-18-02 14:47



\"The reference I made to the Ragozin players and this Breeders Cup race was because I have the belief that Sheet/Graph players as a whole, control the tote.\"

Any disagreements?

[TGJB]

Flawed yes, derivative no. I would also say that on the BC and other big races (notably Triple Crown) the 2% aren\'t that high a % of handle, which is one reason why the are such good betting races.

[Frank]

Mall,

I believe that if as a group, the 120 clients of RGS are outperforming the average players by 10%, then they must have some of the \'best professional\' gamblers among their clientele.

I agree that one should not claim to be a professional unless he is making money. But I would wager that among the 120 RGS players some professionals as we have defined them do exist and certainly a higher percentage than exists outside of RGS.  

I will also add that anyone gambling on horse racing that considers themselves to be a pro, or semi pro at the least, that does not take advantage of the rebate system is doing themselves a great disservice.

Frank

[nunzio]

Mall

I am looking for a reputable REBATE house myself.
I find that when going over my records for the year that I was barely in the black but not by enough to boast about, with the rebates I would think about boasting.  If it wasn\'t for the WAR EMBLEM score in the Derby, I\'d of been in the red.... Can you recommend a rebate house ?

Nunzio

[TGJB]

Nunzio--

The e-mail address we have for you is outdated. Send us a new one, or give me a call.

[HP]

Can you post this info on rebate shops or is it by private consult only? I would be interested. HP

[TGJB]

Private. Call me.

[ExPlayer]

   Who\'s the better pro:

   1) Bets 5 million a year and nets 500k after rebate.

   2) Bets 200,000 a year at the track, and nets 25,000.

   eom.

[Friendly]

The dirty secret that very few in the industry know is that a lot of these \"rebate shops\" are laundering money from internet racebooks. Many internet sites that are advertised as racebooks are actually sending their action to these off-shore pari-mutuel operations in exchange for a very high rebate. This way the \"books\" can take wagers on the TVG and Magna tracks at no risk to their bottom line.


Jerry, JR.