Years ago, Dr. Z (Dr. William Ziemba), a mathematician, showed that profits can be made by comparing a horse’s odds, and consequently his chances of winning, placing or showing, with the actual place and the result of the show. For example, if a horse was even, using statistics, Dr. Z could predict the probability of the horse winning, placing, or exhibiting. If a horse was at 8-5 and you knew he had a chance of showing 80% of the time and the show ticket would pay $3, it was a profitable bet.

Betting on a horse that pays $3 to show and win 8 out of ten bets returns $24 for every $20 invested for a 20% profit. His methods are still used today, although he published them in his book, which was a great success. He can still look at the totalizer and do the math if he wants, but there are easier ways to spot potentially good bets on the spot and show groups.

Naturally, if you take the time to learn the formulas and apply them, you’ll be rewarded accordingly, but if you just want a fun and easy way to get good bets at the racetrack, this is what you should look for.

Good place and show betting generally occurs when one horse is thought to be quite a bit better than the rest of the field and another horse is thought to be better than the rest of the field but not as good as the best horse. The horse with the big advantage in speed or class will usually be the heavy favourite, often walking away for less than the money.

The odds can look like this in a field of five horses…

3-5

4-1

9-2

5-1

12-1

In most cases, this would not create a good situation for a venue or show bet. Venue and show money will generally be distributed evenly among the runners based on their odds. However, if the board looks like this…

3-5

2-1

5-1

6-1

12-1

There’s a chance that the crowd is so convinced that the second option at 2-1 will place that they’ve put a ton of money into the place pot on this horse and actually placed a place bet on the favourite, a bet of worth. Look at the difference between the odds of the second option at 2-1 and its next closest competitor, the third option at 5-1.

When I see odds like that, I usually look at the totals on the spot and show the group. Let’s say the pool at the venue looks like this…

Seating Group Total $1,000

200

450

125

150

75

Obviously, even though the second option has a lower chance of being placed than the best horse, it has more money staked to show for it. This often makes the favourite, a good place bet, and the same situation can be found in the exhibition group. Usually it’s the second option that gets a lot of money wagered, but every once in a while one of the other horses, the guy who’s often in the money but rarely wins, will take a big chunk of the money. well.

While there is no guarantee that this situation will be profitable in the long run and, to be more precise, it is worth doing the math, for short term bets this does at least offer some advantage to the horse player looking for value in the pools. .