Come home to horse racing

Each year in the autumn, I like to make a recruiting pitch on behalf of horse racing.

The future of horse racing rests with some diverse elements of the population: the little girl in pony tails who saw "Seabiscuit" four times; the offspring of people in the business and horse players as well; those into the natural grace of animals; those who like puzzles; seniors with lots of time and money; those who like thrills; and psycho gamblers.

Who could come up with a way to gear a national advertising campaign to glassy-eyed gambler who can afford to lose.

Ad campaigns feature well-dressed clean-cut young couples and feisty seniors grinning and winning hand over fistful of dollars.

But the truth is, a good portion of the future of horse racing belongs to the wild gambler who is going to have a drink and bet them up.

Many psycho gamblers are currently deeply involved in sports handicapping, the euphemistic phrase for betting on football, both college and pro, where you have to bet a lot to win a lot, but where you can also somehow bet a little and still lose a lot.

People pass on horses and bet football for the illusionary reason that picking one team from two is easier than picking one horse from a dozen. The truth is, when you bet football, you're not picking between one of two. You're betting on many dozens of players, including referees, any one of whom could screw you out of a bundle on any given Sunday.

How about that pass interference rule in the National Fizzle League, in pro football. That's where a football can be moved 60 yards for no reason whatsoever. The pass interference regulation in pro football is the worst rule in the history of sports because it assumes the pass would have been caught. The refs should march off 15 yards and go home and lift their weights and be quiet.

Betting on teams is a bad risk because after a point spread has been set, most games are 50-50 propositions.

You want to pay 10 percent when you lose calling heads or tails?

Your best way to win a team bet is by finding a bad line, a point spread that's out of whack.

Bad lines happen so seldom, you're too far in debt to notice -- maybe one line of 50 is a little off.

Most people who bet on games are victims of the obvious.

The obvious is the majority opinion based for the most part on what just happened.

There is the popular misconception that the typical situation for a bookmaker is to have a line that causes half the people to bet each side. That might be the case with a huge sports book most times. But do you think that half the gamblers recently took the Cincinnati Bengals plus six measly points with the mighty Kansas City Chiefs? No. Most bookies large and small were probably heavy on the undefeated Chiefs. Who lost outright.

I know a local bookmaker who had a heart attack cheering because he was so heavy on one side of a game.

It's amazing the way some so-called experts justify bets on football teams. It's called technical handicapping. So-and-so covered nine of the last 11 years the first time on the road after losing by five to nine points while playing in a wheat field. Please. Whereas some dome-to-grass angles are worth a look, here's one thing to remember when playing nonsensical technicall junk: THOSE TEAMS HAD DIFFERENT PLAYERS BACK IN THE DAY.

Some alleged expert football handicappers promote technical plays based on things that had happened in different stadiums!

There are only two ways a person can consistently make money betting team sports. One is by putting yourself in the bookmaker's position, which is to be on the other side of what's obvious, which takes courage. The other is to bet against really bad expert pickers.

This is the time of the year when many team sports handicappers give up on college and pro football and move to the slots for relief. Come home to horse racing.

Just look who sets the numbers: your friends, neighbors and loved ones at the horse races; tough guys on the gridiron and hardwood.

http://espn.go.com/horse/columns/misc/1666408.html

when you bet sports you lay 11/10 11/10 11/10 you risk a lot to win to win small amounts even if you can pick 60% which is very tough horses you get odds if you are right you can win you can win large amounts for small risk rebates also help

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> But the truth is, a good portion of the future of horse racing belongs to the wild gambler who is going to have a drink and bet them up.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The pain i have felt when being here.

I love horse betting. I've been going to the track with my family since I was 8, in fact my first bet was on the horses. Of course my dad or uncle had to place the bets for me, but studying the racing form and handicapping was the funnest part for me as a kid.
When the rainy season starts, I love betting on the mudders.

Horse racing is year round and with offtrack betting and the internet site there is always a track and a good horse to bet on.

Unlike a football/baseball/basketball game that take hours to play....a race is over in minutes and to me that's great entertainment.

More sports betters should be playing the ponies and they might find they won't lose as much. And I love th odds and sometime you may get lucky on a 20 to 1 longshot.


And the best part is you NEVER pay any juice!

if your BM told you he was gonna take 15-20% of your money OFF THE TOP , depending on what kind of bet you made, would you still bet ? of course not........but that is EXACTLY what the takeout does to you.........dont get me wrong, i bet horses 2-3 times a week and daily during the Saratoga andDel Mar meets , but i accept thr fact that i'm taking WAY the worst of it .....it's recreation for me whereas fighting a flat 7-10% on sports allows for a more realistic ROI ......while even single digit vig is hard enough to overcome 20% or more at the track is damn near futile .JMO

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>And the best part is you NEVER pay any juice! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
You're dreaming, ghost.

Horse racing vs. Sportsbetting.

Horse racing is virtually impossible to win. The house hold is what, 16-18%. Compare this to sports betting with a house hold of 4.54%.
Amazingly, horse racing seems to have a group of followers that studies much, much more to come up with picks! It's just like 21 vs. Baccaret. An alien watching the guys would say "Look how smart the baccaret players are.....they are tracking the cards". And the true advantage player just shakes his head.

In sports, I can get solid rogue lines, reduced juice etc. In horses, the best I can do is find offshores with 10% rebates.

EVEN WITH 10% REBATES THE PROS HAVE A TOUGH time. Just imagine what any idiot would do to any sportsbook with a 10% rebate.

It does not take a rocket scientist to easily figure out that if winning any money at horse racing was feasible at track odds, then one should become a millionaire fairly quickly with the rebates. Add 5-10% to every outcome! The offshores would get buried if it truly was possible to overcome the house vig of 18% with any regularity. Heck, you don't even have to win. Just losing at a 3% rate would allow you to become a millionaire with rebates.

The so called "experts" love to talk about pari-mutuels being so much more beatable than sports. Yeah. Right. In sports, I lock in my Buffalo +3.5 and ATL +7.5 bets. I'm not a slave to whatever the closing lines happen to be. I mean, can we be serious? Imagine calling your broker? "Csco is trading at 21, I want to buy it"...."Ok, I'll get it for you, and I'll let you know what you paid for it after the race".

Now don't get me wrong. Horse racing can be beaten. Specifically with some exotic bets where the betting group is underrepresented. And of course with true inside information. But I'm convinced 99% of the populatin will lose for per dollar betting horses than betting sports. And that's saying quite a bit considering the gross incompetence of the average sports bettor.

Fezzik - you haven't got a clue what you're talking about!

True - horse racing bets to higher margins than sports.

True - the average bettor will lose more at horse racing than at sports.

BUT and I'm talking about UK racing where there are fixed odds not this pari-mutuel rubbish you have in the States.

1 - Every horse has to be priced up - thats 240+ horses a day - probably about 2000 a week. Now that is 2000 opportunities for the odds compiler to get it wrong (BADLY WRONG).
That is where the sharp bettor makes his money and this is not very hard at all.

2 - ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE is betting sports where ALL the information is there for the odds compilers to see and they can concentrate on a handful of games - YES the odds are good but where is your EDGE?

Incidentally at exchanges such as Betfair you can bet UK, US & AUS Horse racing at 0-2% juice so why bet sports?

further Fezzik - in the UK where there are a number of sports to bet on Soccer, Rugby, Tennis, Cricket, etc why are there more professional gamblers betting horses than any other sports put together?

ANSWER - BECAUSE IT'S EASY TO MAKE MONEY DOING HORSES IF YOU'RE SHARP - the margims are misleading in this scenario - any sportsbook offering a fixed 5% juice facility on horse racing regardless of the odds would go bust within a month - any sportsbooks out there disagree?

I agree with fezzik in that even the sharpest of the sharp horse players have a tough time beating the game even when they are getting a 10% rebate from one of the rebate shops. Horse racing is awesome, and your post is very good General. However, horseracing really needs a major overhaul. there are so many current problems, that my post would take 5 days to go over every one of them. I will just address the #1 problem in my mind. I believe that until these morons throughout the US realize that with so many race days we are seeing diminished fields, which ultimately means less excitement and less fans. If Hollywood park only opened their gates from friday until sunday, the fields would be massive, and public interest would once again peak. Look at Sha tin in Hong Kong. i went over there, and it was a feeding frenzy. why,because they are only open on weekends. All of these United States tracks should wake up before it is too late. All of these 4-5 horse fields are killing the game, and something should be done about it. good luck to all, and may i hit a pick 6 this year!

Teaser Guru & Fezzik - I clearly see that this is a problem with US Racing and the pari mutuel system. Small fields and fixed juice on pari-mutuel obviously is going to make it much harder to win and the only way to do it is to bet at the exchanges where you get way better than track odds.

Betfair has very low juice on US racing (0-2%) + commission which works out at 2-4% juice overall with massive volumes. A decent horse race bettor should be able to beat that every day of the week! betehorse is not bad but doesn't have enough volume(1/20th of Betfair)and therefore bets to much higher juice but this is bound to improve in time.

Small fields in itself is not reason for decline it's the Pari-Mutuel system that is the problem. In the UK the national Hunt Calendar (Jump racing) is overloaded with races 4-7 runners but as they have fixed odds in the UK,the competition between bookmakers and the exchanges means there is much more value available and this has resulted in a buoyant Horse racing market where there are hundreds of professional horse race bettors out there.

valueman,

Just curious about horse betting in the UK,

popularity (% share) of...

flat vs jump racing

horse racing vs trotters

Ante-Post vs Starting Price


Does the UK have a pari-mutuel system? is that the TOTE? which is more popular, the TOTE or the bookies?

by Starting Price (SP), does that mean the bookie will pay the tote odds?

most of the online bookies offer only ante-post odds.

In the UK - the flat is more popular than the jumps - Trotters don't exist there.
I'd say the flat has 65%-70% of the betting volume but the purist prefers the jumps.

Ante-Post markets refer to markets available prior to the overnight declarations for Horse racing - they obviously have better odds but if your horse doesn't run you lose your money. only typically available for big races.

UK does have a pari-mutuel system (TOTE) which offers win, place, exactas, trifectas etc - and you bet into this pool not only from the track but at most off course licensed bookmakers - the bookies odds/exchanges are more popular by far (95%). In the morning the bookies put up their own odds and then they relay shows from the track closer to off-time. When you bet you can fix your odds or leave it to SP. This is the starting price returned from the track and has nothing to do with the Tote odds.

All bookies offer ante-post odds - but your understanding of ante-post is different to mine). What i think you're refering to as Ante-post in the Uk they refer to as morning odds or early prices. These are odds compiled by their own odds compilers which change due to market pressures - your money is returned if your horse is scratched - not the case for ante-post. these early prices are normally restricted to handicap races or big races. some bookies offer a lot more early prices than others.

I guess the greater variety and choice of odds in the Uk make it easier to bet horses professionally - must be a lot harder here being restricted to pari-mutuel.

valueman,

Appreciate the info. I've been looking into exchanges lately and boy, there are opportunities indeed.