What does it take to make a living at punting?

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by bellsbendboy

JJP Indeed thanks for the correction, the median would be a much better measurement. The state breds in Louisiana and Arkansas are delicious, in Illinois a nightmare.

Rupert The average $1.00 pick 4 for the Fairgrounds this meet is $2458 (sample size of 30) but the median would probably be two thirds of that.

Philski Can you explain "You will never hit a $3000 pick 4 on a ticket structured (4 x 3 x 2 x3) or any other structure for that matter. I of course read Christ's book but he did not coin the logic, rather his contribution was in the "A" selections "B" selections etc. which I did not go into, but certainly use.

Oracle You are exactly correct, there are no easy winners and if you are a vanilla player its a hard game. Incidentally your pick six analysis a week or so ago at Aqueduct was very good. I am certain a reasonably competent handicapper ( not named Matt Carrothers) could hit ten percent of their plays with a $48 ticket, as for getting the $3,000 go back to Christ and the "A" "B" etc. BBB

A sample size of only 30 races is not nearly a big enough sample. Even if you use average rather than median, I still think that the average payoff at most of those tracks is well under $2,000.

With regard to the question of whether a person should use the "average" or the "median" payoff when trying to figure out whether these bets are profitable or not, I think that if a person plays really big tickets and they can use a lot of big longshots, then it would be fine to use the average payoff. But if you're playing $48 tickets, you should probably use the median payoff because you're not going to be able to spread all that deep, so it's going to be very tough to hit any of the huge payoffs. If the median payoff is $1,500, you would make a lot of money if your $48 tickets could hit 5% of the time.