I think the problem with beating horse racing is that it's really not fair as far as the odds pay are set. When you place your bet you don't know what they odds you are getting will be. In any other sports betting the line may change at any time for future bets, but the odds when you placed your bet are locked in. For horse betting the odds you get may change even after you make your bet, so the current odds given are really almost meaningless.

I grew up around horse racing, and really the problem with beating it is the rake. The odds changing until post time a quirk, but the amount the track takes is too much to overcome even though the average horse player might be worse than the average poker player.

Here are the percentages, and there is no cap. Good luck!

https://www.sportsbettingacumen.com/...can-racetracks

Interesting. I thought that was just a local quirk. Didn't realize it was universal to horse racing.

True, but you can always rationalize it.

If people are generally betting on horses other than yours, your odds will improve and you should be happy.

If your odds drop it means more people think your horse will win, and they might be right!

Went on one of the most brutal stretches of my poker life last night. I was up 5 racks and about 50 minutes later I was stuck. Had many playable hands but missed every draw and had some big hands not hold up. Some highlights included missing a straight plus flush draw in a 7 way capped pot and making top two against the guy who was playing every third hand or so completely blind. Finishing up 10 bets felt like a huge loss.

Heh, that's how I found out how horse racing worked. I placed a bet at 9.5:1 and then it dropped to 8.5:1. I gleefully pointed this out and the guy who took me explained that my odds weren't fixed and that I wouldn't be paid 9.5:1. Then I looked at my ticket carefully and realized why there were so many people lined up for betting the previous race at the very last minute.

NotMitch is right. Rake (takeout) is the issue. Horse racing was my first gambling love (my parents loved it and took me to the track from the time I was an infant).

The fluctuation of odds is a big issue at small tracks with small betting pools (where the odds fluctuate a LOT), but at large tracks it's really not that big a deal. You just give yourself a cushion-- e.g., if you would normally demand 5 to 2 on a horse, you demand 3 to 1 instead to protect against a late drop. (And yes, late drops aren't horrible anyway because betting action sometimes indicates a live horse.) And with online wagering, you can now bet 20 seconds before the race starts, which protects you against a lot of the big swings.

But a 17 percent takeout-- or higher-- is deadly for most players. To give you a comparison, 8-16 in California plays at about a 5 percent takeout, and 20-40 at about a 2 percent takeout, and these are considered exorbitant rakes!

It's parimutuel betting, which means that the money goes into a pot and the winners get their share and the losers lose. It seems like a fair system, albeit different.

The primary difference is that horse racing is more like poker. You're playing against the players while the house is taking its cut. You have to be better than the average bettor plus rake to be a winner in the game. In other forms of sports betting, you're gambling against the house.

When you sit down at a poker table, you have no guarantee that you'll get a "fair share" of good cards. You can get crap all night. But that's not the casino's fault and the game isn't fundamentally unfair as a result of that.

It actually makes sense to argue that horse racing is *more fair* than poker because you at least have a sense of the odds you should expect in any given race, as opposed to poker where you can get crap or coolered and that's just the game.

This claim is an exaggeration by quite a bit. Unless some guy comes in at the last minute and dumps a huge amount of money into a particular position, the odds are going to be approximately correct 5-10 minutes to post.

casino I used to play at had nearby OTB and we would place small bets for fun, but I got tired of missing hands to run there so somebody in game starting taking the horse action, easy enough to see what closing lines are. However, I only liked to bet the big favorites in harness racing (they win a lot). Often these races have purses that are in the low hundreds of dollars. It took a while before the wait a minute moment when they realize you get a horse at 3-2 but if you bet it at OTB and parimutuel and doubled the purse it goes to 1-2

I didn't say the parimutuel system was unfair, just that it is very tough to beat a game where you don't know the odds. I'd say it would be more like playing poker with a random rake where you just know what the average is. I guess one could still win under that system, but I wouldn't prefer to play under it.

Sportsbooks don't change your odds and they still make plenty of money; never have understood why racetracks didn't just use the same type of system.

Ummmm... okay.

...

Historical tradition is certainly a reason. But another is risk management. Smaller tracks probably couldn't afford the swings of setting their own numbers and wagering against the bettors. It's way more complicated to do this in a risk-managed way for a 7-12 way race than it is a to do head-to-head.

There's probably issues from the past with regards to cheating that could also swing that since the tracks control so many of the conditions that surround the horses.

Edit: I won't get into the muck with your analogy, but it's pretty broken and doesn't make any sense in context. The rake is fixed in parimutuel wagering.

The tracks have zero incentive to change anything. They grab a huge percent of the pool and to heck w/ everything else. It's a dying sport anyway which is kind of too bad bec I liked going to the trotters but it's also not much fun when you have to wait 25 minutes between races. If you don't drink, that is.

In other news 'Howard the tiltless' has gone on such a massive downswing featuring every bad thing that can happen happening that he has lost his mind. This time it's really time for a break.

Oops, ok I did say I thought it wasn't fair. I guess it really is after reading the comments of others here, it just puts in extra variance for the bettors to try to save the house from the variance. It just feels unfair though which IMO hurts the industry in the long run. I imagine when Callipygian won but got paid less than he expected it didn't help his chances to become a regular customer.

I know this feel, sir. It explains all of my poker history at limits below 6-12.

Don't take a 2p2 break, though. This simply will not do.

I doubt it. They haven't had issues with this in its rather long past, and they aren't having issues now*. It's done this way internationally. This is how horse betting works.

You will need to come up with a more robust argument than "it just feels unfair" because that's just a reflection of a mismatch between your personal expectations and reality.

It's the player's responsibility to know the rules. You're welcome to not play if you don't like the rules, but that's a far cry from claiming some sort of fundamental issue with the system.



Edit: *Internationally

Parimutuel wagering also allows the tracks to have a fairly predictable revenue stream which they need to fund the purses for the races. The way it works is probably a little confusing if you have only ever bet sports, but craps is pretty confusing if you have only played poker and that doesn't seem like a great reason to change how it works.

Not knowing what the **** is going on adds to the charm. The first five minutes after the race were spent figuring out if we won or not, and the last 10 was spent deciding which horses to bet and presenting ironclad math based decision making criteria. Fill the gaps by creepily ogling scantily clad underage girls sitting in the row in front, and 25 minutes goes by like a bullet.

Oh, I'll still be on here.

You only get a week or two, then it's Vegas. That might fix you up.

I go this weekend for a conference, which will make it tough to go again later in the month around Christmas like I had hoped. I get sick of Vegas if I go more than once a month.

That 25 minute wait is probably one of the things that prevented me from tilting off money when I switched to poker. The ability to sit for 25 minutes and NOT have any gambling action is hugely important. You sometimes have to sit for a lot longer than that.

It isn't saving the house from variance. The tracks would actually LOVE to be in the business of booking bets. Bookies make more money. In many parts of Europe, they still have bookies at the tracks, and the tracks make tons of money off it.

It's a state regulation, that prevents the house from having an interest in who wins the race. Because horse racing in America, prior to the introduction of pari-mutuels, was incredibly corrupt.

I'm am sorry to read that you are on a "massive downswing". But your luck can turn around.

I have been playing live since 2012, and September 2017 was my second worst month since playing live.

But it turned around in October 2017, which was my best month since playing live.

And November 2017 was my second best month since playing live.

So stay positive and play well.

Thanks for the morale booster.

Things I'm looking forward to this holiday season (in order of importance):

Howard + Mom Vegas TR
Hanging out with MY mom
Winter Break
Getting a haircut so I don't look like a bum
Playing tight-aggro way above my current bankroll and hoping for some run-good