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Originally Posted by Dunbar
You suggest that succeeding for 10 rounds is relatively easy, and yields a return in the 350% range. A 350% yield means a profit of 2.5-1. If the bet was fair, the chance of winning a 2.5-1 bet is 29%. For the 10-race show parley to be a good bet, you'd have to win it more than 29% of the time. Do you think hitting 10 show bets in a row has more than a 29% chance of happening? For that to be true, many of the individual show bets would have to be paying better than fair odds. I see no reason to believe that's the case.
IMO, you had a lucky run in two samples. I'm not saying that it isn't a fun way to try to build up a profit. You may get more bang (in terms of time/$$) for your buck than many other ways. But in pure $$ value, I don't see any advantage over just taking a 5/2 shot to win.
You can do a test of this over in the "Contests" forum, if you really think it works. (See randall's ongoing place vs exacta test as an excellent example of how to proceed). Because the odds involved in your test are so low, you would only need to do maybe 20 attempts to get a reasonable estimate of how good the idea is. (the more, the better, however) You would need to specify the number of total attempts ahead of time, then you'd need to post the 10 show bets ahead of time before each attempt. (you don't need to post all 10 at once, but each "pick" would have to be posted before its race.) I'm pretty confident you'd end up with a negative ROI.
--Dunbar
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No, I don't mean to make it sound like it is easy. It requires a degree of patience, picking your spots (maybe one or two a day that are "mortal locks" in the mind of the bettor), strategically selecting races with fewer than 7 entrants, using confirmed angles for the track being bet. I do think it's possible to do more than 29% of the time...I have no statistical backing at this point, but based on my experience I do consider this to be a risk well worth taking.
This last contest I did, in fact, post my picks to the board until I was eliminated. Were I actually betting, I probably would have schnitzeled a little off at about round 10 as profit. And, based on my experience in this contest, I think I could have done this over a course of 5 to 10 days.
What's more, I think this can be done at least a third of the time if one is patient enough to pick races with small fields of 6 or less.
I may take up this experiment at a time that is not so hectic. Right now, I'm a little too busy to commit to it. If someone else would like to try it out, feel free. I will join in when the studies aren't demanding so much of my time. for now, consider my string of 12 and 17 to be the first of 20 attempts. Fair enough? Unfortunately I don't still have the picks from the first contest as that was a good 3 or 4 months ago. But, I suspect the return was very similar. I do still have the picks from the round of 17 if anyone is interested enough to confirm....I suspect no one is so I will leave it at that!