People Love Jackpot Bets, Maybe.

One of life's many mysteries on gambling twitter is the Jackpot Bet. 

Oftentimes people like @shottakingtime, echoed by others, will post a jackpot bet pool (not a mandatory) where $15,000 or $20,000 was bet into it. The resulting discussion revolves around the statement, "who the hell are these people."

I don't know, and I wonder if 'racing' knows who they are either. The data is sporadic, there are computer teams who are probably trying to game it with some sort of contrarian ticket, huge rebatees; or it could be Russian bots, many of whom frequent this website. 

If they don't know, and don't seem to care, shouldn't it worry everyone?

Back in the 1870's Thomas Edison created Menlo Park to do what he called, "the invention business". He assembled 200 scientists and craftspeople to, according to Matt Ridley, "find out what the world needed and work relentlessly to meet that need, not the other way around,"

It worked. In only four years the team had over 400 actionable patents, some stemming, like the Nickel-Iron battery, from 50,000 or more trail and error tests. 

An idea is broached that a market demands, the idea is studied, implemented, then data is analyzed and married to market concerns. Sounds so simple, right?

When it comes to jackpot bets, racing makes the same mistakes that many businesses and entities make even today. They weren't Edison. They created something for them, not for you. 

They have not created something you demanded; they have not analyzed what these bets do to customers' bankrolls, frequency of reups; they have not determined how detrimental they are to lifetime value; they have not tweaked them, or changed them, or completed "50,000" experiments to make them better. Hell, they don't even seem to want to tell us when a jackpot is a jackpot carryover or a real carryover on ADW websites. Revenue by hoodwink.

Do people love Jackpot bets like Bucky likes to opine on twitter? Do they help the game, hurt the game or something in between? Is this a bet something players want or wager on them only because they are offered?

Your guess is as good as mine on those questions, but the worst part: Racing is right there with us.

Have a good Tuesday everyone. 

It was an Odd North America Cup Night

Hi Everyone. Last evening's North America Cup card is in the books, so please allow me to share a few thoughts. 

Handle came in pretty solid, although it's hard to compare historically because of the number of races and a super high five mandatory; the latter in what I hope is another indication shows this is a gambling game, as new money for the carryover was more than was bet on the North America Cup. To those of us who gamble, this makes sense, but really, it was about the only thing that did most of the night. 

We saw massive form reversals like American History at even money in the open, horses stopping, numerous breakers including Atlanta who seemingly never breaks, the best pacing filly in the country who looked like she should've stayed home; we had horses racing off the course for no reason. 

And it in the Cup itself, well we had some head scratchers. 

$1 million on the line, glory, biggest pacing race in the world and everyone but one horse tucks? 

Most of us made serious light of Bob McClure choosing to drive a longer shot rather than an elimination winner, and that was not the case as his choice was inexplicably lower odds than the elimination winner. I say inexplicably on paper. Captain Kirk, who is two and ohh against Papi Rob Hanover and almost beat Tall Dark Stranger in his pace elimination, raced exactly like the dead on the board horse he was. Jody was ducking faster than a solider on the Maginot Line in summer of 1940. Maybe Bob knew the horse would be no good; I have no idea. We peons are usually in the dark about such things. 

Why so few other horses came to race - this is still the richest pacing race in the world - is something maybe more than one or two of the local drivers would like a do-over with. That no one other than Bob tried to get placed near the front is bizarre. Kudos to Drury with Moneyman Hill. A recent purchase for a reported $80k US, the horse fell into third, sat third and came third, pocketing $120 large.

Something surely a lot feel haoppy about as do I, is for Gingras. The dude moved to Canada, quarantined and did so primarily because he wanted to win this race. 

The race was a total snoozer, but the best horse and driver won. 

Overall, and bigger picture, I'm happy for all involved, as they got this race into the books. Still, I can't help but think of next year with better horses, better drivers and a deeper undercard. It should be back to its old self.  

Have a nice Sunday everyone. 

#theyknew Hold it Who Knew?

 The Theyknews are the talk of the town on the twitter very often. And also very often they're pretty good, especially in smaller pool tracks where it's easy for the connections to be on something that you aren't. But, last card at Mohawk, there was a theyknew where I have no idea who the they were. 

In the second we opened the PP's to a two horse race. Free Flying Ticket had beaten better and was going for three in a row as the 2-1 morning line chalk, and favorite in the doubles. The five was a close second choice in multis, and had a nice win last time. 

The betting started off weird, and especially because I thought the five had a shot to beat the chalk, I was dismayed (intervals below). Then I checked the perfecta payoffs and saw a decent edge with like a $10 and $12 payouts (two was still chalk in ex's) and I told a friend, "I can't believe I am thinking of boxing these two, it can't come any other way can it? Is something up here, they are too high?"

The two came out on the track, looked perfect, the five looked good as well. It felt like a green light, but something also felt very, very odd and it got odder at the gate: The five horse went to 1-2 and the two horse went from 7-5 to 2-1. 

You're probably saying that you've seen this before and it was the typical #theyknew. But here's where it gets interesting. When we see a theyknew, the rider or driver is usually in the know - they know the horse isn't great; she felt off, the connections told her she was sick last week; whatever. And they underdrive or underride the horse. Not this time. Paul Mac pulled at exactly the right time, was aggressive, and at the half looked like a 1-9 shot. He drove her to win. 

 

 And pffftt, the filly crumbled. So, if Paul didn't know, and if by deduction, the connections didn't know, who the hell knew?

I have no idea. 

Have a nice Thursday everyone.