Each Way Horse Betting
p1chance in four with 12 starters, but straight out logic says that whatever price is on offer for the win, one third of that price is surely a fair thing for a place.
I'm not sure whether you never thought of it that way before but if you have you will realise why; as the field size increases, more and more bookmakers are prepared to offer you ¼ the win odds for a place.
They are not keen when the field is down around eight or nine, as the horse has three chances in eight or nine of running a place, whereas in a field of 16 it has the same three chances with double the number of runners. In other words, throwing everything else out the window and just concentrating on this one point, the more runners the less chance. And yet the bookmaker offers you exactly the same chance!
So maybe each way betting on shorter priced animals in smaller fields (eight or nine) is the way to go? Only if you are a big enough punter to be able to withstand those possible long losing runs we talked about before, because the place returns of a quarter on a horse at $3 are not going to go anywhere near covering your outlay; you need $5 minimum (we call those each way odds). But when you get out to $5, you are frankly getting into the range of one chance in five (20 per cent) of winning the race. That is not a hot favourite. chance in four with 12 starters, but straight out logic says that whatever price is on offer for the win, one third of that price is surely a fair thing for a place.
I'm not sure whether you never thought of it that way before but if you have you will realise why; as the field size increases, more and more bookmakers are prepared to offer you ¼ the win odds for a place.
They are not keen when the field is down around eight or nine, as the horse has three chances in eight or nine of running a place, whereas in a field of 16 it has the same three chances with double the number of runners. In other words, throwing everything else out the window and just concentrating on this one point, the more runners the less chance. And yet the bookmaker offers you exactly the same chance!
So maybe each way betting on shorter priced animals in smaller fields (eight or nine) is the way to go? Only if you are a big enough punter to be able to withstand those possible long losing runs we talked about before, because the place returns of a quarter on a horse at $3 are not going to go anywhere near covering your outlay; you need $5 minimum (we call those each way odds). But when you get out to $5, you are frankly getting into the range of one chance in five (20 per cent) of winning the race. That is not a hot favourite.
Remember when we slightly deviated from the topic of my friend and his six or seven starters? Let's go back there now.
In a field of six or seven, you will get 1/3 of the win odds for your place bet, but I am assured that you can quite often do better than that, if you can bet on all three the TABs (and this simply is not a problem on the Internet). If you are capable of carefully selecting horses in this size range, so that on average two in every three can run in the first two placings, you would require, say, one win in every three bets at $3, and two place dividends of $1.50, to cover your three each way bets.
That's the equivalent of a 2/1 winner and two 1/2 placings. Remember that your $3 winner is one of those placings, so one of the other two have to place and return two to one on for the place. (Also note that the 2/1 winner would still cover win only. . . we are looking at the insurance side, and we don't have the space to go further here.)
My friend says that he can identify three or four horses with enormous chances in small fields, over the four major eastern programs and Perth on a Saturday, on most weekends. And that when he can't, he shrugs his shoulders and awaits the next weekend.
Now this is the bit that really floored me.
He simply invests his place bets on the Internet and occupies himself on the train, on the way to the track, by deciding what kind of a price he will accept for a win. In other words, he has put the place proportion on at what he anticipates will be the best possible return, and if he can't get what he expects, or better, for his win portion, then he rides with his 1-2 place investment!
So, he asked me, is that throwing new light on your theory of insurance?
I had to admit that it certainly did. There he is averaging for his 1-2 place investment, he tells me, two placings in three, and often significantly higher than that, at $1.80. He's a good judge of many years' standing. If the win dividend is in his view unreasonable, it is confirmation of his assessment of the horse anyway! Isn't it amazing how many different ways there are of approaching what you might think of as the same issue? I think this is probably more true of racing than in practically anything else we can imagine.
Here is what looked on the surface to be a pretty basic decision to restrict racing investment to races which contained six and seven starters, but then we have the twist. Based on his own research, our man invests his place bets ahead of time, and later on he will decide whether or not to make his bet on the win component. This will be based on his own expectations as to what the win component should have been, and whether he is receiving value in his own mind.
He never has any doubt that the horse will run in the first two: he has already backed it to do so. But if he believes, for example, that this is a $2.80 horse and he cannot get more than $2.40, then okay, he is on for the place (which he expects to collect!) and the horse can go around without him for the win.
At the beginning of this long article, I suggested that some people might think "each way", or perhaps more correctly, win and place betting, have little left to be mulled over. Well, I never cease to be surprised by what punters can come up with, and when they find another way of winning I'm delighted for them. This certainly looks to be one, doesn't it?
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