The great debate rages on and on in 2008 - EACH WAY FOREVER - OR SHOULD IT BE NEVER?

* Practical Punting Monthly, Australia's leading horseracing magazine

Some people might argue that all that needs to be said about each way betting has been said and that anything else would simply be repetitive. On the other hand, it is one of the most hotly debated areas of racing and remains so, year in and year out. I have periods where I am convinced that it is the salvation for the ordinary punter who cannot stand a series of losing win bets, along with other periods when it seems to me that you either bite the bullet and back your selection for the win, or you don't have a bet at all.

It comes down with some people to a question of holding your nerve when the inevitable losing run occurs. With others, it's got nothing to do with nerve: they just liked to collect much more regularly than a win-only plan will allow them to do. Of course I am not a psychologist, or a psychiatrist like Clive Allcock, and I don't have the ability or the training to try to get inside people's heads. But a great deal of psychology and psychiatry is based on what these trained experts have learned over the years, and in the same way I have been in the racing game long enough and spoken to enough people about it, to be pretty sure in my own mind that these two categories dominate thinking on each way betting.

To encapsulate it then, you are much better off betting each way if losing sequences really put the wind up you, and/or if you like to collect much more frequently. A good punting friend of mine told me not so long ago that my theory of "insurance" had changed his whole philosophy on race betting and that, consequently, he enjoyed the races much more. I asked him if he was winning any more money and he said he wasn't, and that in fact in 2006/2007 he didn't win as much as he'd have won if he had stuck to betting only for a win.

On the other hand, he was enjoying his racing much more. He said on balance he was much more comfortable about the whole deal and he was more than satisfied to win a little less without the accompanying stress. What he does is a variation on each way betting: he acknowledges that TAB place dividends are going to pay (generally speaking) proportionately less than is considered a fair thing (which is one quarter for the place) on races which contain eight or more horses. He concentrates on fields of six and seven where he believes that he can find a horse that will only be beaten by some remote circumstance, and that if it is beaten it will run second.

This ensures a place dividend (first and second for the place is paid at one third the win dividend, with the bookmakers). My friend's twist on this is that he concentrates on TAB dividends for the place and he invests those bets before he comes to the track. He has to, because he wants the best TAB place dividend and he can't get that on track. (Well, he has one chance and three, doesn't he?)

I find this quite an interesting variation on place betting and one which, since I've been watching it, comes up with some very attractive place dividend anomalies. For example, I have seen horses starting around the $5 mark paying place dividends of $2.50 and up as high as $3! (A place dividend in a seven horse race would, at $5 the win, be expected to pay around $2.30.)

These anomalies can be astonishingly lucrative, but my pal tells me that the anomalies are even greater on very short priced favourites. And apparently it doesn't even stop with the horses; it happens with the dogs and pacers as well! In fact, he has been amusing himself on Sky television by betting on short priced dog favourites for the place in fields of 5, 6 or 7. Sometimes it backfires, but he assures me that over a period of time it's a license to print money.

Getting back to the trips to the races, he will have placed his bets, after scratchings, for the place. Remember that he is focusing on fields of six or seven. I know I mentioned fields of five above, but he tells me that so far as the thoroughbreds are concerned there is no future in

place betting on fields of five, whereas in races of six or seven starters there are frequent opportunities. He therefore arrives at the track with the place portion of his each way bets (remember, races of six and seven horses only), invested on the Internet at best TAB return.

His next step is to get the best win price from between what the bookmakers offer and the local TAB. He is the first to admit that he probably would do even better if he just stayed at home and took an Internet offering such as "starting price or best TAB dividend".

However, he enjoys being at the races, he has attended for years, and he is not prepared to set aside his Saturday afternoon sport. He even maintains that with his place bets already established, he feels much more comfortable about his overall situation and is much more relaxed, just having to get the best he can for his win investment. Everybody to his own preferences I say, and while this one isn't necessarily mine, I can see that it makes a lot of sense.

Needless to say, there are going to be times when the place dividend is going to be disappointing; but my friend assures me that these times are rare and that the strange thing about "small field place betting" seems to be the more even spread. This simply

doesn't happen for the win portion of the bet, but he avidly maintains that TAB place betting markets on these small fields are more often than not illogical, and that anybody can take advantage of the "overs" available to backers of the first and second favourites. That's weird, but some of my readers might like to test the idea over a significant period of time and a meaningful number of races, and we can see where their findings take us.

Insurance was mentioned earlier. Well, this has been one of my major arguments in favour of each way betting since before the ark. The trick is to try to find some way of getting a better value about the place portion of your bet. The bookmaker is not in the business of philanthropy and if you ever think he is, you have a problem. Think about that. Go outside to the restricted parking area and any racetrack and find the BMWs or the Mercedes, and you will probably find initialled number plates which you can match up during a brisk stroll around the betting ring.

A quarter of the win odds in a normal sized field is, fundamentally, a good bet, if the field is no larger than ten. Theoretically, if you have nine or ten horses in the race, each one of them has one chance in nine or ten of filling first place, and therefore three chances in nine or ten of running in the first three.

Let me explain a bit further. There are three places, right? There are nine horses, right? One of them will win. Six of these horses will be unplaced and three of them will place. So each horse has one chance of placing and two chances of losing, that is to say, only one in three of placing. OK? So odds of a quarter the place, that is to say one chance in four of placing, are not exactly generous.

Now, by the time the field gets out to 12 horses, the chances (forget everything else, just concentrate on the raw chances), are going to be three in 12 of placing and nine of not placing, one in four, 25 per cent at best. After that, the chances get worse, not better. The more starters, the worse the place odds get. With nine runners, odds of ¼ represent a line ball situation, even a slightly good one; by the time the field has been stretched to 12 starters they should be offering you 1/3 the win as a matter of course, because your chances have in fact diminished.

And every new horse added to the field will decrease every horse's chances of filling a final place. Yet in a 16 horse race, you are still offered ¼ the odds for the place. Rough? You'd better believe it!

But just a minute. The mathematics might look reasonable, but there are only three placings and surely the chances of coming first, second or third, theoretically remember, are one third of the chances of winning? True, the probability concept points to one....p2