[BJennet]

Originally Posted by For The Lead

You are correct. tfm did not say anything 'specific' about the nature of his play. I was "reading between the lines", so to speak. I'm sure when he reads these posts he will confirm one way or the other.

You are also correct that there are those who successfully make profits through the WIN pool, I just doubt that those profits come anywhere near $35mil. on an individual basis.

As far as "proving a negative", I think I read or heard that somewhere before.

As to Benter, as I said, if he is making $35mil a year with a 28% ROI, then he is putting about $125,000,000 through the window. That is about 2.5mil a week. Now if that money is going into WIN pools, I would think it would drastically reduce the odds on any horse he is betting, thus making it harder to achieve the ROI stated. Also, now I don't know this for a fact, but I feel reasonably sure that more money is bet into exotic pools than there is in the W,P,S pools, by far. Also, betting into the exotic pools "hides" the money that is being bet. That is to say, there is no way for anyone to see what horses are being bet in a pick 6 pool. Same would hold true for superfecta's. In both these cases there is no money in the WIN pool "signaling" action on a particular horse. example: A trainer I know once told me, the race he would love to have a horse in and feel he had a VERY GOOD chance of winning, would be the 2nd race at CD on Kentucky Derby day. First, there is A LOT of money in the pool. It is the beginning of the day, so people are betting it up (they're not broke yet) and who is paying attention to the pools? His money would be "hidden" in the DD pool. If he came out with guns blazing after the first race, oops, to late for everyone else. He already has the bulk of his money bet in the DD.

As to Tom Brohamer, I have been fortunate enough to spend a couple of days at the track with him. I am not bragging, we don't go to dinner or drinking together, we don't call each other and discuss tomorrow's race cards, I just happen to be fortunate enough to have spent time with him at the track on a couple of occasions. That's the extent of that. However, as a result of those couple of days, I can tell you that he seized every opportunity to bet into pools OTHER THAN the WIN pool in an effort to maximize his profits.

So, there you have it.

FTL,,

Your main point, that no one can make substantial profits (a living wage) from win betting has been refuted. Obviously what really interests you is the fortune made by Benter, and given the distraction, I'm sorry I included him as an example. All of Benter's play was in Hong Kong for the specific purpose of being able to bet into its huge pools without having it affect his odds. He bet both straight and exotic pools, and given his high hit rate, had action of some kind in nearly every race.

Re Brohamer, I believe you're wrong in claiming that any kind of exotic betting was a significant factor in his play, especially based on only a couple of days of observation of the kind that was available to hundreds of Sartin clients. Jim Quinn and Brohamer spent an entire winter meet at Santa Anita playing together, with Quinn documenting their decisions and bets on a day-to-day basis. From this, it's clear that he was primarily a win bettor. Dick Schmidt, self-acknowedged as primarily a win bettor, spent years working closely with Brohamer and also described him as primarily a win bettor. Lastly, Brohamer often described himself this way. This doesn't mean he never bet exactas or any other kind of exotic - just that they weren't a substantial part of his income.

Cheers,

B Jennet