Showing posts with label carryovers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carryovers. Show all posts

  • The Jackpot 5 Show Parlay Opportunity

    POSTED Aug 22, 2013 By Unknown
    One thing I've tried to do lately is think of wagers as opportunities. If I'm not overjoyed at the chance to enter into a particular pool then it's not worth my money. Different pools can work together to offer multiple opportunities. E.g., the win pool can provide a way to hedge against uncovered opinions in a Pick 4.

    TwinSpires.com's Jackpot 5 wager offers multiple opportunities with one wager since 20% of the net pool goes toward the jackpot (only ticket with all five winners) and 80% goes toward the show pick 5 (any ticket with all selections finishing third or better), but one of the great things about the pari-mutuel system is that an opportunity for one could create a separate opportunity for another, as is the case with Jackpot 5 if you have some good opinions on who can finish third or better.

     Consider the first two sequences of the bet TwinSpires.com debuted last weekend:

     A show parlay on the five shortest-priced (to show) horses in the Jackpot 5 wager on Saturday, August 17, on TwinSpires.com would have returned $42 for an initial $2 investment. Those same five horses with Jackpot 5 came back $155.36 for a dollar.

     The same approach on Sunday, August 18, would have returned $7.87 for $2 but came back $7.92 for $1 via TwinSpires.com's Jackpot 5 wager.

     If you take the approach that you will not be the only winner if your five short-priced to show horses win, anyway, then there's no harm in punching multiple tickets on favored sequences.

     A five-race show parlay of horses who pay $3 each would return $15 for 13-to-2 odds. If you think each horse in your parlay has a 75% chance of hitting the board then the fair odds of completing the parlay is 7-to-2, so you're getting great value on a bet you'll lose ~76.27% of the time.

     But based on Sunday's Jackpot 5 results, which included a pair of horses who paid $2.10 (the minimum) to show, it's fair to assume that same parlay on $3 show horses could have returned $15 for a dollar. By targeting one aspect of the wager you've created tremendous value even while giving up on the jackpot.

     Yeah, it'd be awesome to take down the Jackpot, but part of the fun of the pari-mutuel system is knowing that when you won your peers have lost, and zigging with a show strategy when they're zagging toward a jackpot can be quite lucrative.

  • Cheering your favorites home

    POSTED Jul 23, 2013 By Unknown
    As the below video illustrates, there is no shortage of ways to cheer your favorite horse home when watching them race.

     Unless I'm cheering for the number two horse (affectionately known as "the deuce") then I find myself most typically cheering for jockeys to get my horse home. In anticipating a close finish, I will plant my feet but lean with the rest of my body in the direction of the wire while making a sound that most resembles an elongated ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh to a crescendo of either jubilation or dejection depending on the outcome.
    There will (hopefully) be much to cheer for on Wednesday when carryovers totaling more than $500,000 headline afternoon racing coast to coast. First there is the $245,278 Pick 6 carryover at Saratoga then there's the $238,499 Pick 6 and $46,740 Super High 5 carryovers at Del Mar. If that's not enough by the end of the day there's a $6,223 Pick ("Win") 4 carryover at Assiniboia Downs.

     If picking 6 winners isn't your thing but show wagering is then check out week 2 of Summer Showdown, which is on Saratoga races this week after TwinSpires.com gave away $7,500 to seven winners last week. Six people swept cards Thursday-Saturday while the seventh winner on Sunday won $1,500 by virtue of lasting the longest. If nobody sweeps the card on Wednesday (or Thursday, or Friday, or Saturday) at Saratoga, then each day's pool carries over. Sundays are must-win days, and the pool pays out to whoever lasts longest.

     Good luck to all those playing in any capacity on a big hump day! May your cheering horses home be followed by a dance to the withdraw button.

  • Four-five is the Rainbow Six

    POSTED Apr 4, 2013 By Unknown
    I don't know many horse players who haven't had April 5 circled on their calendars for some time.

     Whether it's the Rainbow^6 mandatory payout, opening weekend at Keeneland, Derby Championship Series presented by TwinSpires.com weekends at Aqueduct and Santa Anita, or all of the above, this is unquestionably the biggest weekend of racing in the United States since the Breeders' Cup World Championships five months ago.

     I'll be in wagering action starting at 1:10 p.m. EDT when Keeneland lifts the lid on its 16-day season. It'll be a whirlwind three weeks with big fields and big prices, but the flurry of activity coast-to-coast expected over a 30-hour period will leave many people's head spinning, no doubt.

     The Rainbow^6 carryover will be around $2-million going into Friday's races, which is closing day at Gulfstream. That it's closing day means the whole net pool--which any other day only pays out to a single winner--will be paid out to all winners. It's an extremely unique opportunity to chase after a seven-figure pot for as little as a dime. Estimates for new money into the pool range from $4-million to $8-million! Imagine that: a $10-million pool on a base wager of a dime!

     Of course, the TwinSpires.com Players Pool is looking to hit it for more than a dime, as me and handicapping champions Michael Beychok & Patrick McGoey will have tens of thousands of dollars (i.e., hundreds of thousands of dimes) to wager on the sequence that begins with race 8 at 4:34 p.m. EDT.

     FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE: Well, we're off the turf at Gulfstream, which is a slight monkey wrench considering pending scratches and having to re-handicap some races for dirt/off track. The biggest change is in wagering strategy, though. The Players Pool is putting $100,000 into this, and the goal is not to hit the Rainbow^6 but to make money. Some combinations will absolutely need to be covered multiple times--maybe as many as 100x ($10) or 200x ($20) times.

    On the plus side, we're "fast" (Polytrack) and firm at Keeneland, so tab below is pretty current. The Gulfstream tab will be updated as scratches come in. The Gulfstream "picks" below is my grid only and does not reflect the approach of the Players Pool or its other panelists.