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Old 07-03-2020, 11:49 AM   #1
rdiam
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Why You Can't Win Betting to Win

Why you can't win betting to win: in a nutshell, the win betting market is too efficient...

Remember, we do not bet ON horses, we bet against OTHERS in the pari-mutuel pools. Due to current conditions, the win pool is generally efficient (of course, there are always exceptions on a case-by-case basis), and it is extremely difficult to find positive expected value (+EV) these days betting horses to win. Let me explain:

Betting favorites are currently winning roughly 38% of races, probably closer to 40% as time goes by. The main reason for this is smaller field size, closely followed by cheating (MTH had favorites winning close to 50% in 2019, with Navarro (cheater) the leading trainer, not a coincidence), and finally, rebate syndicates.

Can we bet these favorites and achieve +EV? Well, consider that horses going off below 1-1 ONLY win around 50% of the time, and horses going off below 3-2 ONLY win around 40% of the time. If you do the math, betting on such horses still produces -EV. Even favorites that "only" win 33% of the time (the old "standard" for winning favorites) on average go off below 2-1. No Bueno...

The problem with betting favorites is that, as a group, they won't produce +EV. What about favorites that go off 3-1? They, on average, win less than 25% of the time.

What is going on? Small fields, cheating, and rebate syndicates. Small fields and cheating should be obvious in how it causes favorites to become underlays. What about rebates? Consider that in 2019, if you bet every horse in every race, you LOST $0.25 out of every $1.00 bet. Wait, you say? The takeout and breakage on win bets is only somewhere between 15-20%, so how does one lose 25%? The answer: the winning horses are "overbet" by rebate syndicates, who are getting up to 10% back on every dollar bet. They are willing to "pound" low odds favorites to odds where they breakeven or even lose a bit, making up the difference in their generous rebate. It is no coincidence that the 0.75 ROI betting every horse in 2019 roughly corresponds to the extra spread below the takeout and breakage. MORE IMPORTANT, swimming in the pool with the big rebate syndicates has the effect of actually RAISING the takeout on those with smaller or zero rebates. If you thought beating a 20% takeout game was tough, how do you feel about playing into a 25% takeout?

Those are the facts, boys and girls. So how do we play the game? Well, there is not a whole lot we can do about cheating, so we have to live with that. But we can try to avoid playing in the win pool with the rebate syndicates and playing races with small fields:

First, pass on the win pool if there are fewer than 8 runners. Yes, I know there will be exceptions, but the rebate syndicates prefer chalk in small fields. As a corollary to this, pass on races taken off the turf: it tends to cut down on field size, and you do not know which horses are "stuck" (grass horse that the racing secretary has asked the trainer to leave in to have enough horses to run the race). Similarly, pass on races on "wet" tracks, as it is hard enough to handicap a race without having to deal with how a horse will respond to running on a wet trace.

Second, if you are going to bet a horse 7-2 or lower, make sure you can identify at least one other horse with 20% of the win pool (i.e., going off 3-1 or lower) that has little or no chance to win today's race. If you can do this, and your handicapping is superior to that of the rebate syndicates, you can swim in the pool and create +EV. Otherwise, stay away.

Third, try to find races where the rebate syndicates are staying away: start with looking for a race where the ML favorite is 5-2 or higher. Make sure your horse or horses you are looking to bet have a ML or 5-1 or higher.

Finally, bet into pools where the rebate syndicate "sharks" are not playing. Exactas are difficult to handicap due to the place horse (IMPORTANT: READ and RE-READ "The 55% Solution", probably the most important contribution Sartin has made to racing literature), so if you can analyze contra-energy and other factors, you can create +EV with Exactas. Similarly, rebate syndicates tend to stay away from most horizontal pools. DD and p3 pools are generally too small, and there is too much uncertainty for them in p4 and p5 pools. Look to structure your horizontal bets properly, and let the takeout spread over a series of races allow you to lower the ROI requirements in each race to create +EV relative to the win parlay.

In sum, minimize your win bets as discussed above. The win pool has been bastardized by small fields, cheating, and rebate syndicates. Chalk wins a lot these days, but the prices on the chalk are too low to actually make $ betting them to win (see Selections by LT1 in recent days -- lots of winners, no prices). Be more selective in choosing races where you bet to win, and use horizontals and verticals to "fish" in larger fields where the cheaters and rebate syndicates don't swim. Good luck.

Richard
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Old 07-03-2020, 01:19 PM   #2
mick
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Excellent post, Richard. Thanks. I've been sweeping cards and losing money.
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Old 07-03-2020, 02:06 PM   #3
Mitch44
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Good stuff Richard.

There is no doubt that win betting has become much harder. The advent of computers has also been a huge contributing factor. There also hasn't been much innovation in the field of handicapping lately, most of it is just massaged in a different way or weighting of importance etc.

In racing the cream comes to the top or water seeks its own level. With that in mind there are more cheap horses or lower class horses than better or Graded horses. These cheaper horses tend to be less form full and more inconsistent. I'd say look to the lower class races on the card barring MSW. They'll have fuller fields and better prices. While a Grade 1 can have a full field normally there are only 25% real contenders or 3 horses. Ditto for other race classes. The best races for prices are full fields that are competitive with multiple true contenders. Smaller tracks can produce good prices with fuller fields. Even so they have their own hierarchy of classes and can also produce favorites but generally are more productive.In real competitive fields( 4 or 5 true contenders) it pays to take the longer priced contenders as the public tend to be wrong in those situations.

The use of something different from the masses will get better prices. In RDSS tools such as % Med., concepts such as the Counter Energy horse. While many today are using pace few are using advanced concepts of pace such as compounding of Fractions and Sartin's later advancements. They tend to be very generic in their approach and prefer factors such as Phase 1 because they can comprehend it. Well everyone is using that and their overly bet down and no longer profitable. The masses shy away from anything that's hard to understand or too complicated, especially if it involves work. The Sartin concept as a whole is a difficult discipline which doesn't come easy or overnight, although its never been easier.

I think angles are place for great opportunity. They require search, patience and discipline but employed properly are still very profitable. Sometimes form isn't hidden and is right before your eyes for good prices. They could be repeaters or trainers moves etc. Risk reward must always be evaluated.

Good capping,

Mitch44

Last edited by Mitch44; 07-03-2020 at 02:19 PM.
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Old 07-03-2020, 05:07 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rdiam View Post
Why you can't win betting to win: in a nutshell, the win betting market is too efficient...

Remember, we do not bet ON horses, we bet against OTHERS in the pari-mutuel pools. Due to current conditions, the win pool is generally efficient (of course, there are always exceptions on a case-by-case basis), and it is extremely difficult to find positive expected value (+EV) these days betting horses to win. Let me explain:

Betting favorites are currently winning roughly 38% of races, probably closer to 40% as time goes by. The main reason for this is smaller field size, closely followed by cheating (MTH had favorites winning close to 50% in 2019, with Navarro (cheater) the leading trainer, not a coincidence), and finally, rebate syndicates.

Can we bet these favorites and achieve +EV? Well, consider that horses going off below 1-1 ONLY win around 50% of the time, and horses going off below 3-2 ONLY win around 40% of the time. If you do the math, betting on such horses still produces -EV. Even favorites that "only" win 33% of the time (the old "standard" for winning favorites) on average go off below 2-1. No Bueno...

The problem with betting favorites is that, as a group, they won't produce +EV. What about favorites that go off 3-1? They, on average, win less than 25% of the time.

What is going on? Small fields, cheating, and rebate syndicates. Small fields and cheating should be obvious in how it causes favorites to become underlays. What about rebates? Consider that in 2019, if you bet every horse in every race, you LOST $0.25 out of every $1.00 bet. Wait, you say? The takeout and breakage on win bets is only somewhere between 15-20%, so how does one lose 25%? The answer: the winning horses are "overbet" by rebate syndicates, who are getting up to 10% back on every dollar bet. They are willing to "pound" low odds favorites to odds where they breakeven or even lose a bit, making up the difference in their generous rebate. It is no coincidence that the 0.75 ROI betting every horse in 2019 roughly corresponds to the extra spread below the takeout and breakage. MORE IMPORTANT, swimming in the pool with the big rebate syndicates has the effect of actually RAISING the takeout on those with smaller or zero rebates. If you thought beating a 20% takeout game was tough, how do you feel about playing into a 25% takeout?

Those are the facts, boys and girls. So how do we play the game? Well, there is not a whole lot we can do about cheating, so we have to live with that. But we can try to avoid playing in the win pool with the rebate syndicates and playing races with small fields:

First, pass on the win pool if there are fewer than 8 runners. Yes, I know there will be exceptions, but the rebate syndicates prefer chalk in small fields. As a corollary to this, pass on races taken off the turf: it tends to cut down on field size, and you do not know which horses are "stuck" (grass horse that the racing secretary has asked the trainer to leave in to have enough horses to run the race). Similarly, pass on races on "wet" tracks, as it is hard enough to handicap a race without having to deal with how a horse will respond to running on a wet trace.

Second, if you are going to bet a horse 7-2 or lower, make sure you can identify at least one other horse with 20% of the win pool (i.e., going off 3-1 or lower) that has little or no chance to win today's race. If you can do this, and your handicapping is superior to that of the rebate syndicates, you can swim in the pool and create +EV.
Otherwise, stay away.

Third, try to find races where the rebate syndicates are staying away: start with looking for a race where the ML favorite is 5-2 or higher. Make sure your horse or horses you are looking to bet have a ML or 5-1 or higher.

Finally, bet into pools where the rebate syndicate "sharks" are not playing. Exactas are difficult to handicap due to the place horse (IMPORTANT: READ and RE-READ "The 55% Solution", probably the most important contribution Sartin has made to racing literature), so if you can analyze contra-energy and other factors, you can create +EV with Exactas. Similarly, rebate syndicates tend to stay away from most horizontal pools. DD and p3 pools are generally too small, and there is too much uncertainty for them in p4 and p5 pools. Look to structure your horizontal bets properly, and let the takeout spread over a series of races allow you to lower the ROI requirements in each race to create +EV relative to the win parlay.

In sum, minimize your win bets as discussed above. The win pool has been bastardized by small fields, cheating, and rebate syndicates. Chalk wins a lot these days, but the prices on the chalk are too low to actually make $ betting them to win (see Selections by LT1 in recent days -- lots of winners, no prices). Be more selective in choosing races where you bet to win, and use horizontals and verticals to "fish" in larger fields where the cheaters and rebate syndicates don't swim. Good luck.

Richard

I like everything you wrote here. Excellent advice Richard
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Old 07-03-2020, 07:50 PM   #5
MJS6916
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Originally Posted by Raptor View Post
So let's just quit?
I don't buy that for two reasons.
Number one I don't think like the masses.
Number two there is so much chaos in life.
And I'm not going to change my opinion.
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Originally Posted by Raptor View Post
The only rule is (and I borrow this from Pizzolla) there are No Rules.

If you win you win-- and that could be by betting to win.

Raptor,


Richard (aka rdiam) was just sharing observations and putting out general advice on how to deal with today's wagering market in the win pools.

Didn't see anything about him suggesting we should quit handicapping.

Mike
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Old 07-04-2020, 12:09 AM   #6
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Touche and Glad to discuss it further Mike.
It's chaos out there and nobody has it all figured out.
I contend it is patently incorrect to say win betting is the problem.
That's why I got involved in this thread. The problem is, in a gambling sense, how good is your vision?
It's definitely not in my opinion a question of bet type or so called market efficiency.
Earlier, in #4, I should have wrote "I agree with the main point.", instead of liking everything.

I still think, overall, rdiam's advice is solid on how to deal with: if a handicapper is having more struggles finding winners in the odds range they used to get .

The whales/syndicates are an issue to deal with today, more so than years past.

Your point of "It's chaos out there and nobody has it all figured out." still holds and the apocolypse is not approaching.

The whales clearly love their "sure things" and I think it's now a matter of us
regular people having to sit out a few more hands per 100 than we used to before cashing in on their mistakes.

Just like us, they make mistakes too.........and more of their money is in the pools than mine.

As long as I keep staying at the table, their chips ultimately come my way.
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Old 07-04-2020, 08:20 AM   #7
Mitch44
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FWIW it was Sartin who said; "There are no rules." Pizzolla stole that from him along with other stuff and was kicked out of the group along with Dick Schmitdt.


Sartin believed in guidelines and not hard and fast rules which some people need.


Mitch44
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Old 07-04-2020, 09:38 PM   #8
Mitch44
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Only given credit to where the no rules comment originated. That's not my argument but Sartin's as it pertains to guilt, no one would be in a better position to make that call them him and therefore definitely not hearsay.


The post was on topic and about your post and comments. Yes lets stick to the main topic of which I'm a firm believer in.


Mitch44

Last edited by Mitch44; 07-04-2020 at 09:41 PM.
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Old 07-05-2020, 01:14 AM   #9
MikeB
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I am a win bettor, and a winner at the window. I only bet win, rarely more than 1 or 2 races on a full card. It is not a style for those looking for action.

Last edited by MikeB; 07-05-2020 at 01:26 AM.
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Old 07-05-2020, 08:53 AM   #10
Mitch44
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What rdiam was saying is that the market or game is very efficient or the public has become very good today verses yesterday or yesteryear. Many reasons for that but the facts are there for all to see on a daily basis.

Where there is inefficiency and the general public has problems are in races with limited data such as Maiden races where form belongs to the connections. Now the public does make mistakes on a daily basis but few. Those that have a great deal of patience such as MikeB and wait for spots and situations where the general public makes a mistake do very well. Few have the discipline to employ that.

There are other situations where the public has holes in their game such as Ex. betting (getting the place horse), dealing with stretch out and cutbacks etc. Another huge mistake the masses make is hammering down a horse that's no longer sound or the same horse.

They are also inefficient in horizonal betting such as DD. P3,P4. P5 & P6 betting. With these bets they tend to play too many combinations causing larger payoff than they should. Additionally get just one good paying horses in a series and the payoffs increase tremendously. It only takes one good race sometimes and even in that race one can play more than one horse.

All rdiam was saying is that its more efficient to play multiple winners in multiple races for profits than to only play single win betting. Even in these bets if there isn't a good paying horse in the sequence(preferably two or more) the payoffs are paltry. There usually is one or two out of ten where they're wrong.

To get these horses become more efficient that the public and exploit their weaknesses.

Mitch44
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