Avoid These 4 Betting Mistakes When Playing Favorites at the Horse Races
Posted by: willie in Horse Racing Handicapping, horse racing betting, horseracingThere is an old saying that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. That is certainly true at the horse races where a little knowledge can cause you to make some costly betting mistakes. Probably knowing that favorites win about a third of the races has cost many people dearly and made some false favorites.
The problem is that the public’s choice isn’t always the same. The chalk, as it is sometimes called, does win about a third of the races and completes the exacta roughly half the time, but that means it does so in all the races. That statistic doesn’t show how many win in races with short fields or how many win at 5-2 odds as opposed to 3-5 odds. If you break it down, the stats reveal that the favorite is not as likely to win in a field of 10 horses as it is in a 6 horse race.
Furthermore, the chalk isn’t as likely to win at 5-2 as it is at 3-5. Yet many people scan the toteboard and see a favorite in a race and go and bet it or use it in exotic betting and expect it to win about one race out of three. That is a recipe for financial disaster. Playing the public choice is a losing proposition over the long haul though you may experience brief times of being ahead.
If you are betting based solely on the odds without any further handicapping, consider the following;
Here are some things to avoid when playing favorites…
1. Don’t play favorites in races with fields of more than 7 horses. As field size increases, your favorite’s chances decrease exponentially
2. Don’t Bottom wheel favorites in exactas. They win roughly a third of their races and finish in the exacta about 50% of the time. That means they actually place only about once out of 6 races.
3. Don’t bet the chalk across the board. While the win bet is a losing proposition place and show are even worse because of the hidden cost of breakage (discussed in other articles I’ve written).
4. Don’t use progressive betting to try to make up for your losses when chalks fail. Some people think that there is a law of averages that if a favorite fails a certain number of times it is bound to win because of the “law of averages.” There is no law of averages and even if there was, who would enforce it?
If you must play the toteboard, then look for value in the pools by doing a little math such as the method in True Handicapping for finding live horses or even the old standby of Z betting, made popular by Dr. Ziemba many years ago.
The most consistent horse racing systems have to have the basics and a handicapper must understand the basics. I have been around horse racing for 50 years including as an owner. Without the basics the rest is not going to do any good. If you want to learn how a horse owner and insider handicaps just go to http://williewins.homestead.com/truecb.html and get the truth.
Bill Peterson is a former horse race owner and professional handicapper. He comes from a horse race handicapping family and as he puts it, “Horse Racing is in my blood.” To see all Bill’s horse racing material go to http://williewins.homestead.com/handicappingstore.html, Bill’s handicapping store.
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