Belmont Odds Lines, Big Days and Quick Quips

Happy Thursday people!

" If you go five deep in all four legs of a 50 cent pick 4, you will on average hit it more than half the time, but you won’t recoup your $312.50 ticket cost because the average payoffs won’t be enough to make you any money"

"Frosted is the only runner with lineage on both the sire and dam side with proven distance ability at the Belmont Stakes distance of a mile and a half"

"Any reporter who knew about the colic and didn’t report it, I’d say dropped the ball and let the game and the players down

"I realize that NYRA is taking some serious flak for capping attendance - they should be squeezing every last dollar out of the event, so people tell me. To them it’s clearly much more than that. They are being driven to create a better customer experience on Belmont Day so fans can come back in non -Triple Crown years."

"Business was good at the drugstore but not that good. Doc needed a supplementary source of income to support these expenditures. Enter Hall-of-Fame trainer "Sunny" Jim Fitzsimmons"

 "The bettor flattened the owner, shoved his tickets in the guy’s mouth and by the time security got there nobody saw NUTTIN..."

Those are some quotes and quips from articles in this month's Horseplayer Monthly, the free emagazine. It can be downloaded here. 

Zayat's lawsuit is thrown out, as per Matt Hegarty.

Western Fair's handle was up over 20% last meet. Well done Greg and crew.

The Belmont "big day" is a little bit of a juxtaposition. The first five races have about $2M in purses, but the fields are short, the chalk formidable. The last seven races are good betting affairs, for the most part. Handle has been up on "big days" which is to be expected. Handle, by culling low handle racetracks, or cutting dates in some areas for larger tracks or days, does tend to work to grow handle, marginally. The key word is marginally.

The Belmont Stakes field was drawn yesterday and everyone knows who's who. Here is my fair odds line for the race.

#Moobie	12-1
Tale of Verve	20-1
Madefromlucky	15-1
Frammento	70-1
American Pharoah	9-5
Frosted	6-1
Keen Ice	25-1
Materiality	5-2

My Belmont line will be off the board line, but it's always off when there is a Triple Crown try. I suspect American Pharoah will be below even on the board, but much closer to 2-1 in serials.

Doing an odds line for the Belmont, I believe, is a good idea. With all the public money it's easier to see what's what, and it helps you design your plays. It's pretty obvious I will be playing Materiality in the win pool. I expect I have Tale of Verve, Madefromlucky and Moobie a little lower than they should be, but that's the 12 furlong at play. Keen Ice is a horse who I don't really like, but he did some good stretch running in the Derby. If something strange happens from a pace perspective, who knows. When I have AP at only around 35%, there's some room to play around.

Have a nice Thursday everyone.

Wednesday Headlines - Ambivalence, Good With the Bad & Short Term Thinking

Today on the twitter, a response to some articles like this from SI's Tim Layden about American Pharoah:

@Pullthepocket Gossipy stuff. Patterns established, though. Hints why there's apparent in-game ambivalence about this TC bid.

— Railbird (@railbird) June 3, 2015

I have been trying to get my head around this Triple Crown try and the seeming lack of true buzz, or pull, from the business. I was slowly moving towards the camp that believes the more Triple Crown tries we have, the more we are desensitized to them. But maybe it's simpler than that. Maybe that does explain it. Regardless, there is a real, palpable difference this year, in my opinion.

If I love animals how can I love horse racing?  An answer might take a philosophy degree, or a trip to Dr. Phil. The chasm between racehorses being pets and livestock is something that is hard to digest for almost anyone in this business.

Beyer takes a look at the lack of stamina in the breed. It appears he is on to something, and it generally has to do with the economics of breeding. Having precocious horses who race at two and make money fast, is good for the farms. Purses can be earned before the sales in large quantity and then spent on other horses. If everyone is waiting on a pedigree horse to season, there's less quick cash to spend back. Breeding, ironically, depends on churn, so they do their best to increase it.

It does interest me that this short-term view probably breeds less sturdy horses, which has allowed for bad headlines, more breakdowns, polytrack, race day medication bans and a want to ban lasix. If the sport bred Zenyatta's instead of 8 furlong specialists would some of the real issues go away? Perhaps.

Lenny Moon has a great betting piece on the Paulick Report today. It's filled with some good gems. The problem with change in racing's betting menu is that, like with breeding, the results will not be felt immediately.

American Pharoah will be even money or less come Saturday, just like every other horse who is going for a Triple Crown. Why? Public money and buzz. I would submit that every modern horse going into the race with a chance at history has been overbet. The Belmont is a strange animal, and needs to be looked at as such. When you do that, the odds on these chalk are probably five or six ticks too low.

"It’s probably better to think of Pharoah as a comet", yep.

Gambling is bad. Very bad. Unless it's a lottery, or government run slot machine, that can use the money for something really good.

I pitched @spotify on @twinspires sponsoring a crowd-sourced @KentuckyDerby playlist but @SpotifyPR didn't want to be involved w/ gambling

— Ed DeRosa (@EJXD2) June 3, 2015

NYRA forced you to sign up at NYRA to watch the post draw? Really? I, like most, can wait for the post position tweet storm. Interesting, since this is fresh off the news that Yahoo will be streaming an NFL game to over a billion potential users.

American Pharoah's connections secured a marketing deal with Monster Energy Drink. A racehorse promoting a stimulant, that if he gets tested for, he will lose his purse and his trainer will be suspended. That's like Amgen sponsoring a long distance bike race.

Have a nice Wednesday everyone.

Cub Reporter ® Goes Inside Racing's War Room

I found an excellent email in my inbox this morning from someone I have not heard of for a long while - Cub Reporter. Cub, as he is known to his friends, got his hands on a piece of audio tape. This tape is a long, rather drawn-out meeting of racetrack braintrust, trying to come up with ways to increase horse racing handles. He transcribed a few parts via Wordperfect (yes, Cub still uses that), and told me to not release it to anyone; that it was just for my eyes only. So, I post it for you here.

Exec1: Hi Everyone. It's time for our monthly meeting. Before we start I'd like to introduce [redacted]. He's here to add some new blood. Tell us a little bit about yourself [redacted]

Redacted: Hello and thanks for inviting me. I have little background in horse racing, but I like gambling a lot. I have studied statistics and gambling economics at Wharton, and play all sorts of skill-based gambling games as a hobby and vocation. I hope that maybe I might help you along, giving my opinion on what bettors may want so we can improve horse racing handles for the long term.

Exec2: Who do your parents train for? What tracks have you worked at? What year did you get your Racetrack Industry Program degree?

Redacted: Oh no, I don't have a background in the business at all. My dad is a plumber, my mom is a law clerk. I have never worked in horse racing, but did work consulting for some gambling websites.

Exec3: OK, thank you.

Exec1: Let's discuss some new bets and what we can do to steal them, or piggyback them, if you will. I see Grand River and Georgian announced a new jackpot bet today, at the behest of Woodbine. Woodbine announced a new jackpot too, a month ago, at the standardbred Mohawk track. What should we be doing.

Exec2: Those are good ideas. Woodbine had some big pools with their jackpot bets. They also created a 25% pick 5 bet, and they don't tell customers the takeout. I bet people think they're at 15% like everyone else and bet happily, not knowing they're getting a raw deal.

Exec3: Smart.

Exec2: Yes, surely. Some publicize takeouts, like the HANA magazine and twitter feed, but they don't even have as many followers as people like Sid Fernando. Not many know.

Redacted: People might not know, but they know when they are paid $400 instead of $450, because they have $50 less to rebet, so it is a big problem in horse racing when we look at the long term.

Exec3: I'd be happy with $400. I never win. Horse racing betting is hard.

Exec2: Yes, $400 is fine. It is hard.

Exec1: Well back to it. Following Woodbine's lead on jackpots, how about a win pool jackpot bet? If no one has the winner, the whole win pool carrys over.

Exec3: I like it. If we get some longshots we can have a carryover a lot. More than Woodbine does.

Redacted: I don't think there would be a win pool carryover. Plus, the win pool is this sports' main advertiser to bettors, and number one bet for churn, I don't think we'd want to mess with it with a high takeout jackpot bet to take money out of circulation. Longer term our customers will lose money quicker, and slowly leave. We might want to look at lowering win takeouts instead, or dynamically pricing. Other gamblers see a tote board with two 4-5 shots in a 10 horse field and know there's no value for them.

Exec2: I'm not sure about that [redacted].

Exec3. Sounds mathy. Let's form a committee and look into it. Win pool jackpots could help handles.

Exec3: Now, what about Frank Stronach's idea of a quadrefecta twin superfecta tri super quad. As he detailed it, it might be hard to hit, but what if we add a jackpot component?

Exec1: Jackpot it? Interesting.

Exec2: People love the jackpots.

Redacted: If a bet is too difficult and with too high a takeout, people would not play it in big numbers, so there is an opportunity cost, and a problem with churn. Handle and customer utility is a function of bankroll health and the inflection point is real. New money can't come in any gambling game if the marginal utility is not there.

Exec3: So you're saying the twin superfecta component is okay, but we should probably ditch the tri super quad?

Exec2: ... but keep the jackpot.

 Exec3: We need to keep the jackpot component.

Redacted: No.... we should look at these bets as churn killers, and only use them sparingly, as an introduction to new bettors, or bettors out for a good time who like lotteries. They can't be a staple. As Andy Beyer said these bets are like crack cocaine, they can feel good short term, but long term they can be deadly.

Exec1: Beyer is still around? He must be getting old.

Exec3: He is, I read his columns and to this day I don't have the slightest what he is going on about.

Exec2: OK, Let's make this happen.

Exec1: Now, last but not least, big days. Big days are the rage. Churchill Downs upped the takeout good on the Derby and handle was up. Belmont had great handle on their Belmont Stakes day last year. We can charge a high signal fee on big days too, which can earn us a few extra dollars.

Exec2: Did they have jackpots those days?

Exec3: Probably, people love jackpots. But they had big days. Big days are good. They're the future.

Exec1: I propose we make every Saturday a big day. People will bet a lot of money. Because it's a big day.

Exec2: We'd need a jackpot bet. Use both of them, in tandem. Captain is better with Tenille.

Exec3: Maybe this is where we unveil our new win pool jackpot bet. Do it on a big day because a lot of people show up for big days.

Exec1: Hear hear.

Exec3: OK, so, we'll create a win pool jackpot bet, push the new super quadrefecta super high six jackpot, and promote our other jackpot bets, we'll create a new 30% pick 5, don't tell anyone the takeout and hope no one notices it's a rip. And we'll do it all once a week on a big day.

Exec2: That should help handles. What sports bettor or Daily Fantasy Sports player could resist?

Exec1: If it doesn't add to handles it's probably because of small foal crops.

Exec2: Solid point.

Exec3: So what did you think of your first betting strategy meeting [redacted]?

Redacted: It was interesting. I'll say that.

________________________________________

There's your glimpse inside the betting war room courtesy Cub Reporter, folks. Expect more big days, more jackpot bets and a whole lot of handle. Racing is in good hands.

Enjoy your Monday everyone.