Betting to Win

[Fairchild]

Are any of you making money betting to win only?

I visited Penn. Natl. this evening on my adw. I had the winner #1 tier in four races and didn't bet the horse because the odds were too low. I bet against the horse in 2 races and lost. In 2 other races I flat out lost, fortunately I didn't bet one of the races since my horse was the low paying favorite.

So I would have won 4 of 6 races if I had bet my Tier 1 horse and lost money.

I would like to surf tracks and try to find races that I have a shot at winning, but unless I win enough of those races to offset the cost of data I can't do it
And, so far, I haven't been able to make enough to surf tracks.

If playing only 1 track a day is win betting still viable?
I have considered moving more into exactas, but I am not really good at picking them and my low paying winners coupled with another two horses usually doesn't pay very much either.

What do you all suggest?

Thanks in advance for the replys

[gandalf380]

It is getting tougher to bet win only for a profit. I would suggest that you look at DD and pk-3 if you prefer picking horses to win. Otherwise, study the Sartin manual “55% solution” to improve your exacta play. You might also want to study William Ziemba’s book “Exotic betting at the racetrack”.

[Fairchild]

Thank You Gandalf

You are thinking on the same line I am thinking. DD and Exactas are what I will probably move into. I read the 55% solution a couple of years ago, I guess I will dust of my reading glasses and read it again.

[CheckMark]

Personally I would do WIN bets over any other exotic

You spend more on doubles, Pick 3/4/5/6’s and Exacta/tris/supers than a simple win bet!

I know that does not apply to all but doing Win bets but not every race will make you money longterm. It has helped me boost my ROI and also has saved me a lot of money.

I usually bet a horse or 2 sometimes to WIN if I either feel extremely confident or they meet my odds line which is normally 3-1+ mostly but I have bet lower than 3-1 before.

It’s all up to what you have been used to and you feel most confident about.

[rdiam]

Fairchild:

Do not get sucked into the concept "I can't profit betting to win, so let me make it more complex and bet verticals and horizontals". Consider the following:

Horizontal bets, such as DDs and p3s are simply win bet parlays. The payoff is roughly equivalent to betting (and winning) a race, then putting all the profit plus your original bet on the next race. Sometimes the win parlay pays more, sometimes the DD or p3 pays more. BUT, YOU STILL HAVE TO FIND THE WINNERS AND YOUR PAYOFF NEEDS TO EXCEED YOUR RISK. If you are not profitable betting to win, you most likely won't be profitable betting DDs and p3s.

P4s, P5s, and P6s are even tougher: here, the track decides which races you must parlay, and some of these races may not be ones that you would ordinarily consider betting alone.

Vertical bets, such as exactas, are also a form of parlay. Here, you must pick the winner, and then ALSO pick the horse finish second. If you cannot profitably pick and bet the winner, how do you expect to win betting exactas?
Trifectas and superfectas are even tougher, since there is a high degree of randomness in selecting the right horse to finish third and fourth. Again, if you don't have the winner, none of the other analysis matters.

What you have discovered is that with a 20% plus takeout, gambling on horse racing is a tough game. I would suggest trying to toss horses with 20% of the pool or larger (i.e., whose odds are roughly 3-1 or lower) that you think have little or no chance to win today. If you are tossing the favorite, make sure it's odds are 3-2 or lower to give yourself some added cushion. You will end up passing a lot of races trying to toss low odds horses. Focus on races where you find such horses, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at your bottom line if your handicapping is any good. Stay away from horizontal and vertical exotics until you can show a profit betting to win.
Good luck.

Richard

[Mitch44]

Winners are the springboard for all other bets, if you can't get the winner you can't win any other form of bet.Therefore starting out I would recommend you stick to win betting. Successful gimmick bettors are all good at winner getting.


Sartin was also aware of this and stressed 20 race cycles of getting the winner, not getting EX, DD P3's etc.

Since the Sartin era racing has changed dramatically, more tracks, smaller foaling rates, both resulting in smaller fields and lower prices. Also the proliferation of Pace handicapping has also lowered the average price of winners. None of this should deter you from getting winners at a high rate. It does mean money management is more important and I wouldn't recommend betting 60 to 70% on low paying favorites. First try to determine if the favorite is a false favorite or has negatives and if not reduce the bet to a fun bet of two dollars. The object here is to see how many successful winners you can get in a 20 race cycle.


When you can repeatedly get 65% with two horse betting your on your way, then and only then take on the other forms of betting. There is a lot of money to be made where low paying horses are the key to profits with other bets.


Mitch44

[ScottB]

I agree with Mitch stick with win betting. You don't have to bet short price favorites.
If you are a decent handicapper you will find plays at decent prices but you need to have patience and wait for the spots. You cannot bet every race and expect to make money.