Horse racing is as good an investment as day trading

[Taxmyth]

Here are the basics of wagering on Horse Racing:

Easy Bets: Win, Place, Show

Usually a $2 minimum bet the Win bet is paid out if your choice wins. The Place bet is paid out if your horse finishes 1st or 2nd. The Show bet is paid out if your horse finishes 1st, 2nd or 3rd also known as "In the money". Win bets pay the most and for you mathematically minded people out there the payout is easy to figure. Take the odds of the horse when the race goes off and multiply it by 2 then add 2. A 4-1 Win bet would pay $10 on a $2 wager. A very good wager to make is the "across the board" bet which is a Win, Place and Show bet in the same race on a horse. If your horse wins you score nicely and even if he finishes 2nd you should still make a little profit. 3rd on a good longshot or a horse whose odds are 8-1 and above should also return a profit.

Daily Double - Selects the Winners of two consecutive races. Usually this wager is available on the

More difficult: Exacta, Trifecta, Superfecta.

More money can be made with these type wagers. The Exacta is won by picking the Winner and 2nd place horses in a race. The Trifecta is won by picking the Winner, the 2nd place horse and the 3rd place horse in a race. There is some specific terminology that goes along with these wagers:

Box or Boxed - Choose any number of horses to finish in any order. This can get expensive. For an Exacta if you select 4 horses any two of them would have to finish first and 2nd. The cost of this bet would be $24 for a $2 Box. A Trifecta Box using 4 horses and any 3 have to finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd would cost $48 for a $2 bet.

Quinella - A seperate wager not usually available in every race that allows you to pick the 1st and 2nd place finishers in any order.

The Superfecta is a wager that picks the first 4 horses in a race. The payouts on the super can be substantial, thousands of dollars on a $1 bet is the norm. Most tracks offer a 10 cent Superfecta where a Box of 5 horses costs $12 and the payout is 1/10th of the $1 payout.

Wheel or Wheeled - Choose 1 horse for the top selection and 2 or more horses for the bottom selection(s).
Also known as a Key.


Professional level: Pick 3, Pick 4, Pick 6

This wager selects the winners of consectutive races. The payouts on the Pick 6 are usually in the tens of thousands of dollars on a $2 wager and payouts in the hundred thousand dollar plus range are not unusual. The cost of these wagers is figured by the number of horses selected for each race. Selecting 2 horses from each race for a Pick 6 would cost $128 for a $2 wager.

The Kentucky Derby is the first Saturday in May and the last major preperation races for the horses headed to the Derby are happening now. Any questions about the sport, just fire away.

[NC_Nurse]

1. I prefer the lottery.

:P

[Taxmyth]

2. Lottery is strictly chance

With Horse Racing there is information available to assist you in making an informed profitable decision.

[soothsayer]

3. I have two taxable racing wins to report to the IRS this year (two trifectas)

I love it!

[Taxmyth]

8. Excellent

Congrats. IRS tickets make for a good day at the track. If you know what you are doing you can turn a profit.

[Coyote_Bandit]

4. I used to work with a guy

who had gotten into some trouble with the IRS. They took his house, his car, all his savings and investments and put him on a budget while they garnished his wages for several years. He made playing the ponies a second job. Tracked all the nformation on horses, jockeys, breeders, trainers, owners, tracks, weather conditions, pairings, etc. Took him a while to get up to spped and it required a rather substantial and consistent investment of time. But he did do rather well.

[Taxmyth]

9. The information is there

and it's fairly easy to use. Never mess with the IRS though as your friend found out.

[Coyote_Bandit]

14. Actually he didn't mess with the IRS

He got screwed by his previous employer. He worked as controller of a small oil company in Oklahoma during the oil bust of the 80's. Small privately owned oil company. They filed their tax return but could not afford to pay the taxes owed. The guys who owned the oil company all filed for bankruptcy protection before the IRS came looking for its money. Guy I worked with didn't have a clue they could collect from him because he was a mere employee with no ownership interest in the company. However, the IRS went after him anyway because he had signature authority over some of the bank accounts. Damn near destroyed him.

[Taxmyth]

18. Ouch

Could have been 941 returns, Payroll Taxes. Those are "Trust Fund" monies that the IRS goes after pretty hard. They will seize anything and everything from whomever they can to get the money for these. Poor bastard. Hope he's back up and running again.

[amihol]

5. Gambling?!

I love to gamble! IT is kind of risky but very nice activity indeed.Adrenalin...

[Taxmyth]

10. Investing in the markets is gambling

For me it's not the gambling but the racing. I see at least 20 races a week without wagering on them though there are those times I wish I had.

[sam sarrha]

13. WORST POSSABLE ADDICTION TO KICK

[Taxmyth]

19. Addictions

Gamble with your head, not over it.

[Warpy]

6. It was for me

I tried it as an intellectual exercise back in the 90s with a hundred grand of imaginary money. You remember, the 90s were when it was hard not to make money in the market.

I found out I was really, really bad at day trading.

If I need to gamble for a living, I'll stick to poker.

[Taxmyth]

11. Love playing poker

The Silks Room at Tampa Bay Downs, combines the best of both horse racing and poker.

[tkmorris]

7. I grew up around horse tracks,

Harness racing in the main (Rosecroft Raceway and Laurel, now called Freestate). Other families I knew would take road trips each year to see distant family, or vacation at the beach; we would go to see the Adios or the Little Brown Jug. I loved the track, even taking as one of my first jobs a position as a waiter in the dining room there. I had to leave that job as I could not simultaneously wait tables and watch the races.

I recently visited our local track here a few times, after a several year hiatus from the sport. It seems to me that the breakage the track takes has just gotten to be absurd, making it almost impossible to show any profit over the long term at the track. That percentage varies from state to state of course, but from what I have been hearing it is up across the industry.

I still love the horses of course, but I just don't go as much as I used to.

[Taxmyth]

12. VLT's

Video Lottery Terminals have made a huge difference in the quality of racing in some states. They can afford better purses because of the VLT's and that attracts better horses and trainers. And that makes for better opportunities for wagering. Yonkers Raceway is getting full fields for every race with the added purse monies and New Jersey's Meadowlands and Freehold racetracks are being especially hard hit because of the slots in NY and PA.

The breakage is the amount of pennies that are left over in the dividend when figuring pool payouts and usually goes to the racetrack. The take is the amount set by each state for each type of wager that is kept back from the payout pool and is split by the state and racetrack. The take can be as much as 30% or more for some types of wagers. Still, that's better than the average state lottery with a 50%+ take.

The problem with making long term profits with racing is that there is so much temptation to wager on every race. There are profit making opportunities on every race card but definitely not on every race.

[tkmorris]

22. I know what breakage is

Thanks for the explanation I suppose, there may be someone here that does not understand what it is. My point however is that the house "take", if you will, has become so much higher in horse racing in general that it becomes quite hard to just break even for anyone but the most knowledgable bettors. VLT's and other such gaming devices (Florida tracks offer poker rooms for example) have increased revenue for some tracks, enabling them to draw better horses, trainers, owners, and presumably crowds to their tracks but it comes at the expense of tracks in other states that do not allow such devices or additional attractions.

You are correct of course that the track take does not approach that of state lotteries, but so what? One is a game of chance, while the other is not. Further, anyone who thinks they can manage a profit playing the lottery has lost their marbles. Frankly, unless you are an EXTREMELY capable handicapper of horses you likely be better off playing the roulette wheel at a casino than betting at the tracks, at least here in Florida.

Now, your point about not wagering on every race but rather looking for opportunities to present themselves as they will, you are absolutely correct. If one can follow that advice, and become an excellent analyst of past performances and all the other variables, it is still possible to have a respectable season at the track. But it sure aint what it used to be.

BTW, for anyone who wants to learn about horse racing, either thoroughbred (the kind with jockeys) or standardbred (the kind with drivers in sulkies behind the horse) I highly recommend reading the Complete Guides from Tom Ainslie. That man knew more about horse racing than any 100 normal fans.

[Taxmyth]

24. Thanks

I will read the Complete Guides, I wasn't familiar with that work previously. I was just down at Tampa Bay Downs (Gulfstream was too far a drive from where I was). Didn't play much Poker at the Silks Room there but did pretty good at the track the few times I visited in January. January in Tampa sure beats January at Aqueduct or the Meadowlands. Got to say Hi to Rosemary Homeister Jr. who I hadn't seen since she was riding regularly at Monmouth Park. I don't think she was the leading rider at that point in the meeting but she was up there pretty close. Who do you like for the first Saturday in May?

[jmowreader]

15. Here's the $64,000 question...

What technique do you use to pick the horse you want to bet on?

[soothsayer]

17. Several. Always bet on the gray. Go with the cute name that calls to you. Bet on numbers you like

or colors you like (the silks the jockeys wear). Bet on the horse who pooped just before the race went off (you can't bet in advance on this one!). Bet on the winning-est jockeys. And lastly...handicap. (well...most of these are how you win longshot trifectas and exactas and superfectas...!)

[Taxmyth]

25. ROFL Reminded me of something

"Bet on the horse who pooped just before the race went off (you can't bet in advance on this one!)."

I had always heard this but never put it to practical use until last October at the Meadowlands during their Thoroughbred Meeting. The horses were walking towards the saddling area and one of them relieved himself mightily on the track. Remembering that adage about betting on the horse that poops, I put a few shekls on this one. The race goes off and this horse was running OK when in deep stretch, he died. Literally. Went to the ground and died right there on the track. Luckily the Jockey didn't get hurt when the horse went down but it was a shame to see. And that will be the last time I wager on a horse simply because he poops before the race.

[soothsayer]

27. Man, he really WAS pooped! (poor horsey---that's actually a sad story)

I still feel bad winning $1800 on my bets against poor Barbaro in that race where he came up lame. If he had stayed in, I would have won only like $5 (would have lost $100s, actually!).

[Taxmyth]

21. Learn to read the Racing Form

for Thoroughbreds, the Racing Form and The Sheets are good tools to learn to use. For Harness Racing there is The Eye. By looking at the Past Performances of a Horse you can infer how that horse will do against the other horses in the field.(I used Past Performances extensively when telling people not to vote for GW Bush in 2000 and 2004 - his were a complete bust and if you bet on a horse that had those kind of PP's then you would deserve to lose your money). In Horse Racing and politics, Past Performances are usually a pretty good indicator of future performance.

There are any number of strategies to pick a Winner and you don't even have to pick the Winner to show a profit. A good priced longshot finishing in the money can make a nice profit for you. One of my own favorite techniques is using the "Will Pays" or probable payouts for the Exacta or Pick 3,4 or 6 races. Just about every track will show a Grid View of the probable payouts on these wagers and by looking for a horse that shows a "Will Pay" that is far lower than what that horses odds for winning currently are is a good horse for an across the board bet.

Pick 4 and Pick 6 is where the money is though. They are extremely difficult to win but win just once and you could make more than most people earn in a year. The Trifecta and Superfecta are also good money makers. You have to learn to read the information first or get hooked up with an excellent handicapper.

Races with a huge favorite, odds less than 1-5 and with the bulk of the Show Pool wagered on them, make for an excellent wagering opportunity if you are not faint of heart. This is Horse Racing and the favorite will not always win. Or finish in the money. This situation is known as betting against the Bridge Jumpers (These are the people who bet large amounts of money on the favorite to Show because the minimum payout at most racing facilities in the US is 5%. Theoretically, when their horse finishes out of the money, these are the people most likely to leave the racetrack and jump off of a bridge.) If this situation arises and the favorite finishes out of the money, the corresponding Show payouts on the top 3 finishers can be enormous, I've seen $100 payouts on a $2 bet in this situation. Of course, if the favorite wins and your horse still finishes in the money, you will still get a nickel for each dollar you bet plus that dollar back.

[BlooInBloo]

16. And the study comparing the two (noncomparable) activities is where?

Oh - you're just making shit up.

[Taxmyth]

23. Enjoy your shares of Bear Stearns

No difference in reading their Annual Report and deciding to bet on their stock and reading the Past Performances and deciding to bet on a horse. And in many ways, Horse Racing is more tightly regulated than the markets. And taking tips from an analyst is no different than taking tips from a handicapper.

[tuckessee]

20. So is sports betting. n/t

[burrowowl]

26. Day trading is a rip off for small investors

only the rich make money in the market and get richer after depressions, read Kevin Philips Wealth and Democracy or his shorter book on BFEE.
Small investors probably would make more money at the tracks and watching the horses is a beautiful thing to see.