The Show Bet

[philcski]

6, 9, 6, 5 horse fields when she ran at Santa Anita, and was 1/20 in three of them. It was a virtual certainty there was going to be a minus show pool.

It's an interesting argument on what the impact of cancelling show wagering is. My take is any time you have a severely heavy favorite like this it hurts handle- the average OTB/home online player is going to see a 1/5 or 1/9 shot and pass.

Los Al cancelled show AND place wagering on the CC "race" with the tomato cans- there was a negative win pool instead. Were they rooting for him to lose to avoid the negative pool? Of course not.

(Note: on this example, while it was a minus pool, the track did not "lose" money- total takeout was roughly $110k vs a minus pool of $60k, so it merely made less.)