Handicapping Question
 

I understand the practice is often frowned upon in handicapping circles, but when -- if ever -- is betting two horses to win in the same race a good idea? If one of you "math guys" could break it down for me, I'd really appreciate it.

Every great once in awhile, I'll come across a race where I think the top choice(s) are very beatable and I find my top choices to win are going to post with (for instance) 8-1 and 10-1 odds.

I understand by putting ten bucks on each that I'm really now betting 4-1 and 5-1, but if I feel strongly about each having a legitimate shot to win, wouldn't everyone take 4 or 5-1 on their top choice?

Or, is their a better way to approach this situation? In other words, does anyone know the "textbook" way to play this? How would that hypothetical $20 be better used?

For my 2 cents...play an exacta box! But that's just a way to cover your butt if you didn't pick the winner. GRL

Exacta box?

Its a diff. bet of course.

I think the one thing people forget
is that you have the distinct possibility of
losing twice. You kinda took that into account
with your math.

But it might be better to go with one horse at 8-1
or 10-1, and bet less. That way you do not have the
chance of "losing twice". As much as odds change now
its also dicey to bet dutch. So much late money. I believe
there was another thread on this subject.

Its that type of quandry that seperates gamblers. Me personally, I wouldnt bet two horses to win. I think if you have favorites that are beatable, you have to capitalize as much as you can. Personally, with a 20 dollar budget, I would bet exactas placing my 2 horses over the weak favorite or even better, a price horse. I think long term, you will make much more money this way then as opposed to betting them straight up. Also, You want want to include those horses in a pick 3 or 4. Even in a pick three if you can drop a nice price horse in, it will still pay nicely.

So much determines how you should play this. There is no textbook play. Each gambler has to find his/her own acceptable level of risk and stick with it.

Pgardn, while your theory has some pratical applications, one can't "lose twice" whether you split your 20 dollars into 8 diffrent horses or into one horse, its still the same bet, just in diffrent increments. Exacta box is not a bad idea but like you said timmy, if you have 2 horses you really like to win, why would you bet a 3rd horse to win as well. Much better value for your money to put your top two horses over a set of horses.

Absolutely nothing wrong with betting two horses to win. The threshold for odds you are willing to accept is up to the individual player of course but there is nothing wrong with getting 5 and 10 to 1 if your certain the horse really has a chance to win.....when you think about it multi race wagers P3,P4 etc. are predicated on this.

The short answer is pretty simple. It's a good idea if you're getting value. I just worked out the math on a few examples and it seems to me (as expected) that you'd be much better off betting whatever horse you think is the bigger overlay. You're just diluting value by betting two horses even though you're increasing your likelihood of cashing.

why would you bet two horses to win, knowing one of them is automatically a losing bet?

Why would you ever play more than one exacta, knowing that only one can come in?

Lose twice was taken to mean bet 10 dollars on one horse, instead of 10 dollars on horse A and 10 dollars on horse B. This is why I said bet less... not lose twice as much money. The "covering" costs more the way I was looking at it. Covering taken to mean you are very sure one of the two is going to win, you just dont know Which one. Covering can also lose you a lot more in exotic bets as I am sure everyone is aware of. I see that I have boxed to cover more horses and looking back it should have been a straight bet. The cover was not needed. This of course comes after the race. It has just happened too many times to me. Then I realized I should straight bet (talking mostly exactas) sometimes for the total amount instead of wasting half on part of a box that was painfully uneccessary.

I also realize this is not a handicapping question.
It is a wagering question. I have learned that
I can fail at both just fine thank you very much.

That question is easy to answer.

If you like two horses that are 8-1, 10-1 and if you going to play 20 bucks anyways then I suggest you play a daily double with those two horses in the first leg and 5 horses in the next. Typically it will pay more than playing 10 bucks each to win.

95% of my bets are pick3, pick4 and sometimes DD. I would say it requires some patience but your patience will be rewarded.

Apparently not that easy to answer. . .

How would you play it?

I'd need PPs and prices to tell you that. Every situation is different. For you to suggest that OP should play daily doubles 2 X 5 w/o considering any relevant factors shows you don't really understand the fundamentals of betting.

Doubles are a good approach (especially if there's a vulnerable favorite you're trying to beat), but playing a straight up $2 wheel in this fashion makes no sense. If I decide to play a 2x5 double, I'll split it up to maximize value in response to the probables, i.e. if there's a $40 probable and a $200 probable, I'll play the first one for $5 and the second one for $1.

After adding up all of the double costs, if the desired ROI of the double is less than that of a win bet on the two horses, I'll make the win bets or roll the dice and stretch it into a Pick 3.

Basically what I'm saying is I don't like to do 'flat' bets. Even in your $10 win on each scenario, it makes little sense if you think the horses have equal chances and are 8-1 and 10-1. $11 win on the 8-1 and $9 win on the 10-1 would guarantee you $99 regardless of the winner.

Of course. Just like Ateam said: The DD approach should be balanced wager and not a straight 2 dollar wager. As far as the situation is presented by the poster is exactly the way i will approach it.

I will indeed compare my DD probables to my win bet ROI and see if its a worthy bet.

Go with your gut.:zz:

I agree.

I must've missed the part where he mentioned a second race in which he likes five horses. . .

I at least gave him my answer. Other than criticize other peoples responses, I really dont see you providing any insight to this topic.

$20.......5 exacta 1-2/1-2-3

i don't know, but i was asking a legitimate question. why would you place two bets, knowing one is a loser? when playing exotics, i've seen some put a 1/2,3,4 for example. now, that makes sense. you have your winner, but you recognize one of several can come in second.
or i've seen some do 1,2/over one or more picks.
but, if you have $20 to play, why would you go 1-$10, 2-$10? i guess like some said, it would depend on the odds and how it would pay off. i just didn't think it was the best way to play $20.

If you like two horses in most cases you have not finished capping. I'd keep at it and narrow to one and bet W/P. Not keen on the double thing unless you have a strong opinion.

To me the worse thing is not cashing when you're right about a $20 horse. Albeit, I'm a small time better so I can't afford to take too many chances. Sometimes I'll bet an exacta box and W/P.

Spyder

i agree with you, even though someone else gave you crap for your answer. play the double or pic's. with 8-1 or 10-1 in the first leg its a nice score. of course you have to handicap some more but you are getting value for your 20 bucks. personally, my biggest tickets come in pic 3's. but i love doubles too. why settle for 70 or 80 bucks when that 8 or 10 to 1 shot could bring way more?

Dean ,as you can read there is as many opinions on betting as there is stars in the sky. Which answer is right? all of them, because each person will bet with what they are comfortable with. If you bet two horses and can make a profit then you are right. Trust your own opinion before others, unless you think one is better than yours.

I don't see the difference between betting 1/2,3,4, which you say makes sense, and betting 2 horses to win. In either case you are guaranteed to have some losing tickets.

--Dunbar

I disagree with this. It's not rare to end up with 2 horses that have value in a race with a vulnerable favorite.

--Dunbar

I almost never bet two to win, but I don't necessarily disagree with the practice of doing it. If the price is right, bet them. The Sartain guys were famous for dutching win bets and created a whole movement of play that did just that by winning an extremely high percentage of races. You would really have to hit big percentages to cover the lost ticket.

The example of boxing and wheeling exotics is a good analogy. If the payout is right, you can absorb the cost of losing tickets and still come out ahead.

I will have to disagree here. The objective is to maximize our profits. To choose a two horse win bet over DD, or pick 3 just because you are comfortable with it
will have you end up in the negative in the long run.

Of course, a DD is a slightly higher risk but its payoffs is typically higher than a $10 win bet. You will need to compare your probale payoffs of your DD to your payoff on your win bet and determine if its worth the slightly higher risk. A determinate for me will be if the DD pays 1.5 times more than the win bet then its a go.

Betting two or more horses in a race has been around as a 'betting tool' for a long time. It is called dutching and there are dutching calculators. There was a dutching thread here at one time. I'll try and find it.

again there are many opinions, however he said two horses in one race, a 25% raw average in a 8 horse field, adding horses in another race he could still lose if he's wrong in the second half. he wants to take advantage of big win odds on 2 horses in one race. and ending up in the negative in the long run is just your opinion nothing more to back it up.let me add he wants to cash if one of the long odds comes in, if no win bet and dd pk3 doesn't work, he loses. a two horse win bet is the right bet in one race. if he wants to add dd then ok

Here is the dutching thread

http://www.derbytrail.com/forums/sho...light=dutching

I took a look at that thread. The spreadsheet that was shown uses a "Goal Wager". All the comparisons in that thread (and I think in this thread, too) have been based on the the assumption that you either bet X dollars on one horse or spread the X dollars to two or more horses. That's a weak assumption.

When you bet on more than one horse in the same race, you have increased the chance you will cash a ticket. That lowers your risk. When risk is lowered, you can and should bet more (assuming you are correct that you have an edge). A bettor finding 2 horses with value in the same race should bet more (total) on the 2 horses than he/she would have bet on just one of those horses.

That reduced risk effect is dramatic if you use something like Kelly betting.

The original poster mentioned horses that were 8-1 and 10-1. He didn't mention his estimate of fair odds, so let's just say 7-1 would be fair odds on each of those horses. Let's also assume that the total bankroll for betting horses is $1000.

There's a Kelly calculator at Sportsbookreview.com:

http://www.sbrforum.com/Betting+Tool...alculator.aspx

According to that tool...

If you only bet the 8-1 horse, your optimal bet for bankroll growth is $16, and your expected win is $2.

If you only bet the 10-1 horse, your optimal bet for bankroll growth is $37, and your expected win is $14.

BUT, if you bet both horses, your optimal bets are $21 on the 8-1 horse and $40 on the 10-1 horse; your expected win is $17, which is more than you'd have from betting either of the horses alone.

--Dunbar

caveats:

1. Kelly betting results in dramatic up and downs in bankroll. Most serious bettors DO bet proportionally, but they use a fraction (often 1/4 to 1/3) of full Kelly betting. This would apply both to singled bets and dutch bets.

2. I'm assuming the SBR Kelly calculator is correct without totally checking it out.

3. Obviously, if you are betting without an edge, the optimal bet is $0. So how you spend your money on a race is based on how you perceive the entertainment value, not on math.

I think that you must have an opinion and bet the one horse you think is the most likely to win. If you really think the other horse has a chance, then bet him in some doubles or exacta's just to hedge yourself.

Never been to that site. Now I have something to do tonight.

Thanks Dunbar

I think? LOL

To me, dutching in the win pools is the most direct answer to the original poster's question. Given his parameters
$11 on the 8-1
$9 on the 10-1
that would yield about 4-1 on the blend, so you can figure the fair likelihood for that. There are some adw houses that allow conditional dutching.

Of course, outside the win pool, it depends how you handicap the race. Given the vertical or horizontal wagers available, they depend on what else you feel will occur. I have had many cases where a put a horse only in the top of my intra-race exotics as a non-single.

Like Dunbar said, it's the same thing. Wheeling means that you're guaranteed to have losing tickets and are looking for one winner. In your 1/2,3,4 scenario, the three different exactas obviously can't all come in, so you're hoping for one of your three bets to be a winner. How is that any different from betting two or three horses to win?

Anything other than a straight wager is guaranteed to have losers in it. The idea is to maximize ROI when you don't have a super narrowed down opinion.

some, yes. but i don't think the approach of betting HALF your money on known losers is the way to a productive day.

i guess i just think that there must be a better way to spend $20 then on two $10 win bets, knowing only one of the two will cash, and you just blew half your available money for that race. now, if nothing else is appealing to you, and you KNOW one of the two will come in, fine. but wouldn't you be better off in general in building tickets around those two, rather than taking a ten and tossing it? you'd have to bet 10 $1 exactas (for example) before you spent that same ten dollars, but you've now got ten chances to win rather than just one.