i have a question about a show

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I rarely bet pick-fours, pick-fives or anything like that. I'm pretty much a win and place bettor. But I would think that when you lower the minimum bet by alot and allow tons of people to hit the all button, that would lower the payout on a sequence where a lot of longshots win, but raise the payout of a sequence when a lot of chalk wins. The reason is obvious. This is an extreme example and would never happen, but let's just say there was a race where every single person hit the all button. That would mean that a 50-1 shot winning the race would have the same effect on the payoff as a 4-5 shot winning the race. So if the 4-5 favorite won the race, the payout would obviously be higher than it should be. But if a 50-1 shot won the race, it would pay far less than it should because if everyone marked the all box then everyone would have the 50-1 shot.

Basically, you're correct. It could lower the payoffs on outliers, especially cases with two longer priced winners, just as with doubles involving two long prices, it rarely plays close to the parlay ( when people playing birthdays and the like can actually affect the payoffs ). The notion that overall, lowering the minimums is a reason payoffs are lower makes no mathematical sense, as ex-takeout, it's still a zero sum game. If one goes down, another must go up.

The pools may have gotten more efficient, as players become better at playing multi-race bets, and the CAW players got more involved as well. However, because of dispersal of takeout, the Pick-4s and Pick-5s still rate to create value as long as the pools are big enough. The continued insistence that lower minimums have ruined payoffs somehow is simply mathematically impossible over time ( though your outlier argument has great merit ).