neither of these strategies has really proven to me that one is far superior to the other.

I would be more inclined to play the Place strategy with larger wagers and the exacta with a smaller amount. Just based on the odds of coming up with a place vs. coming up with an exacta and the practical bankroll considerations.

Nah, I just haven't really wrapped myself around it enough, or summoned the energy, to give a good response. I will.

I bet grits wins the bottle of scotch, anyone want to bet against?

The contest ended after the 4th at Aqueduct and three above 10-1 horses ran first or second. The exacta won by a minor amount.

Yes, the first race was a nice exacta hit, if it wasnt for that, it would have been REAL close, especially with that $108 horse in the 4th

I look forward to examining the next 250 place payouts Dunbar tracks.

This is an absurd mentality. What does " if " mean? If some of those ridiculous big priced horses at Gulfstream hadn't won, or had run second to the favorite, the exacta would have been substantially higher. " IF " is absurd to use.

I agree that I thought the exacta pool would win by much more, and Gulfstream was pretty much out of the ordinary for awhile there. It will be interesting to see what the next 250 results are.

Just pointing out how close of a race it was and evaluating the final strides...

There is no need to wait for future results. You can just as easily use past results.

The reason the exacta is better is for a variety of reasons. One, the breakage hurts the place payoffs enough to raise the takeout to at least a couple points higher than the 15 or 16%. Another is that favorites are overbet in place pools for the most part and as they finish first or second around 50% of the time they will artificially deflate place payoffs on the other horse. But, the biggest reason is that with exactas you are effectively making a parlay of two different results, one horse to win and another to place, with a takout of roughly 20%. It's not wholly dissimilar to making a football parlay on the point spread AND the over/under while only paying the vig for one bet. So, even though the exacta takout is, say, 20% vs. 15% for place, you are effectively ( though not exactly ) lowering it to 10% on each outcome. Now, when you add on the actual increase that breakage brings to the place takeout you have a substantially better mathematical proposition.

The truth of this contest is that an aberational result which caused place bets to appear the better bet would have sent a TERRIBLE message to people. This idea that place betting is a sound strategy is flat out wrong and yet another reason people have trouble making money betting horses. The idea is to find ways to maximize one's profits or returns. Place and show betting, simply put, minimizes returns. Place and show bettors are suckers and losers at the windows.

You are of course evaluating this on the basis of someone looking to make money through wagering as opposed to people wagering as a hobby. For people wagering as a hobby I don't think they are going to be happy to know that statistically they made the right play when they bet an 80-1 shot under the favorite in the exacta and it winds up second behind another horse and they get nothing. It is actually more Game Theory than anything. Some people are risk seekers and want the best longterm payout and are willing to come up with nothing on several occassions when they are right on a long shot. Others are risk averse and want the utility (or happiness) of getting a payoff every time. That happiness of winning every time you are right is worth more to them than the difference in both methods for the longterm.

This is why it drove me nuts majoring in statistics and economics. They contradicted each other in so many ways. I could give a 100% statistically correct answer to a question on an economics exam and get zero points for it.

That's correct. However, when the difference after 250 bets is less than many of the individual exacta payoffs, you can be reasonably sure that the result is statistically meaningless. If one side or the other had finished ahead by 3 or 4 exacta bets, we could at least say that the result supported one side or the other.

--Dunbar

I understand, and I believe the place bets had a strong run of luck in this short sample.

I understand what you said in the previous post but I am not concerned with people who play the game for a hobby ( and only wish there were more of them ) as I think people who are following this honestly want to better their play and results. Place betting is a major mistake if one is trying to do that.

Are you volunteering? ;>) I'd be interested in past results, as long as the begin and end points are clearly stated before whoever does the looking starts checking.

No, it doesn't. The average place payoff was about $15. The average breakage on a $2 bet is 10 cents except in NY where it is 5c. 10 cents out of $15 is 0.67%. 5 cents out of $15 is 0.33% So the takeout climbs to 16.67% in Kentucky and 15.33% at AQ. Those increases hardly made a dent in the gap with the exacta takeout. (Besides, with an average exacta payoff of $51, the exacta takeout climbed 0.20% in Kentucky and 0.10% in NY due to breakage). In short, breakage has negligible effect on the contest.

That's an interesting idea, but I'd like to see some data. It should be very easy to substantiate that. If it's true, then place bets placed on favorites should lose at more than the track take. (I can't think of any other definition of "overbet" that would apply here.)


This may be correct, and it's what I thought you were getting at when you said there was a "mathematical" reason earlier. Maybe it should be obvious to me, but it isn't yet. I plan to keep gathering data for another 250 bets, but at the same time I'm working on the math of a simple example that I hope will demonstrate which is better.


I think that's excellent general advice. However, I don't think it excludes the conclusion that place bets on > 10-1 horses are a better bet than betting the same horses in exactas using the race fav in the 1st position of the exacta.

--Dunbar

NY does not break to ten cents above $10 I don't believe.

I'm too weary of this to argue anything else. I may spend a few hours up at DRF going through past data....if not this week then soon.

Honestly I don't think you can say that one is right or wrong all the time. Perhaps on average the best play is the favorite over your horse in the exacta but really the best play is to examine the percentage of your horse and the favorite in the place pool and project a payout and then examine what the exacta probable pays. I think there are plenty of cases where these pools would tell you that for that particular race betting place is a better play.

Interesting about NY. Didn't realize that.

If you do get into the past data, I'll be very interested in how it comes out.

Also...

I should have written "the average loss to breakage...", not "the average breakage...". But the percentages are correct, except that the NY cost should be the same as the KY/CA tracks for place payoffs above $10.

--Dunbar

It's all over, folks! Well, sort of over....

Day 34 (No dark days included) April 18, 2007
Carryover differential: PLACE BETTING +$80.50

AQ, KE, SA

AQ: Race1-- PL 15.40 EX 64.00
AQ: Race2-- PL 14.20
AQ: Race4-- PL 32.40


Today's races: EX $64.00, PL $62.00
Today's differential: EX +$2.00

Final Totals: EX $3853.40, PL $3770.90
OVERALL DIFFERENTIAL: EX +$82.50

Total Number of 10-1's or higher in spots 1 or 2: (250) Will Stop=250
Total Exactas so far: 75 (30%)

Total races run at all tracks during the contest--755 (we stopped as soon as we hit the 250th place bet. I'm including 3 races at Keenland in the total of "races run".)



Congrats go to Grits for winning the bet with Randall.

The exacta bets won by $82.50. That's 2.2% more than the Place bets. However, the $82.50 margin is less than many of the exacta bets. It looks like we will need a LOT more races to see a difference that is big enough to consider meaningful.

My intention is to follow this out for another 250 place bets. However, if BTWind comes back with some historical data that is compelling, I'll probably hang it up.

--Dunbar

???
 

During this whole excercise, I've never understood why it has to be THE favorite on top of your longshot play? Why, if you like a longshot, would you just robotically play the favorite on top of your horse anyway? What about using a few horses, or even the all button (although this might dilute your return on investment)? Andy, my question has always been, would I be better off playing my choice to place (obviously to win as well), or underneath (and on top) in exactas. I would reasonably put my horse underneath all that I believe have a chance to win, no?

You should never bet to place. That's where you start. I'll try to answer better when I'm more awake tomorrow.

Andy are you saying that betting a long shot ATB is a terrible idea
 

I have wandered in here on page 18 so I probably have missed far more than I will be able to use successfully but if I take this one step further......

Andy if you have an angle on a LS say at better than 10-1 and you really like a horse to win which you play with your typical "X" or unit play. Does not the concept of "saver bet" at times on long odds with horses you have already played to win make sense. Although I want the 33-1 payoff 27/$2 and 14/$2 are not returns that will likely make you a loser for the day.
I thought the most important thing at the end of the day,other than making some kind of profit was to be able to look back at all of your wagers and objectively evaluate risk and return favorably. You can certainly on occasion win by playing stupidly, albeit not very often, but making sound wagers should eventually give you a decent chance long term to be a winner over all.

An example is a 33-1 shot that paid 68-27-14 allow you to still make quite a profit if the horse finished 2nd or 3rd.

I certainly agree that playing short odds will likely make betters go broke but there has to be a time when investing in returns that can be worth the risk at certain potential ROI is a sound play.

DrD