Pick 4 methodology

[ArlJim78]

Originally Posted by pgardn

I will give you one. I have given others, its a big list.

1. You have no flippin idea the size of the pool. Therefore you have no flippin idea what the reward will be. Example. I won a pik 3 this year that paid more than the same overlapped pik 4. Did anybody know there was a discrepancy in the pool so they could bet it? Hell no. There is no risk v. reward determination because you do not know the reward.

If you want more I will go on at a later time. Got lots more on the pik bets. By the way, lets not get this confused. A pik 4 bet is ONE bet on 4 races. Dont falsely assume someone is going to play the same 4 races separately, as you have already done in your example. You have already made a huge ASSUMPTION that someone is forced to play those 4 races.

And dont think you can accurately estimate the payout by taking the odds of the 4 winners and multiplying them.

And yes I occasionally play pik bets because it is FUN and challenging to arrange a ticket that is not too costly and has a chance.

pgardn, do you really have no idea about the pool sizes of PK3's and 4's? The pool sizes are published daily in the results charts so you can get an idea of the size of the pools for the tracks you like to play. at Saratoga they are in the range of $250K to $400K or more. 3's and 4' offer great rewards. take a look at the two pick fours at Toga today.

[SCUDSBROTHER]

The pick 3/4 bets aren't perfect.They are I.M.O. the best bets out there.You are playing 3 or 4 races without paying 15-20 % take out on each race.You pay 14-25% one time.If you can't see the value in that,then I have learned that nothing I can write will change your mind.There is a flaw in the p3/p4 bets,and that is what Pgrdn is referring to when he says you don't know what the payouts will be.See,if somebody wants to put 15-20 k on their hidden horse it is difficult to do that without it impacting the win odds severely.It depends on where the race is etc.,but I will use an example of a last race on a Sunday at Hollywood Park.I think the horse paid about $38 to win.The win pool was only about 170-180k or so.They couldn't put 20k into that pool.I think I calculated that they would only get 6 or 7/1 if they did that.So,they left the win pool alone(hence $38 for a horse who was really ready to win in his 1st start,and even with a bad start,and chasing a lone speed favorite.)The late double,and late pick 3 also paid about what you would expect for a combo with a $38 horse in it.However,the pick 4 paid less than half what it really should have paid.The horse paid off like about a 9-1or a 10-1 in the late pick4.This is where they put their 20k.They got paid 9-1 to 10-1 for their 20k versus 6-1 or so(if they had put the money in the win pool.)They need a pool that has like 400k in it.Their payoff is less impacted by their 20k in that pool.It happens,but it doesn't happen enough to make the p3/p4 a bad bet.It is a way to hide money though.It is not a perfect bet.It is the best bet they offer though(even with the risk that somebody is hiding a large amount of money in that pool.)