Thoroughbred betting systems and methods cost ten cents a dozen and most of them are worth even less. Every month, the endlessly fun and entertaining Phillips Racing Newsletter publishes a few of the “good ones,” but even these rarely stick around for long. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they’re nice to play and do remarkably well compared to the results of the average bettor left to their own devices, but you’re not likely to show a profit from them at the end of the year. There have been maybe one or two exceptions over the years that showed a small gain, but that’s about it.

So imagine my surprise one day, while killing time between races, when I dreamed of this one in the clear blue sky from far, far away in left field. As soon as it occurred to me, I knew it could work. That is, I did not see any obvious flaws. After all, it was based on solid game fundamentals and statistics. And it was very, very simple. Very few moving parts, so to speak. So without wasting any more time, here it is, as Rod Serling would say, “submitted for his approval.”

The system

Well, it’s based on the statistic that the public betting favorite wins the race about 33% of the time. What, you mean like last year? what a thing No. Since they have been keeping records (approximately 100 years). This statistic holds up week after week, year after year, decade after decade, on every track in the world. A little creepy, but it’s absolutely true.

Now yes, some days the favorite will win only twice, or maybe only once. Other days, the favorite will win 4 or 5 times. But it all evens out at 33%, 1 out of 3. Check the stats at your own track. You will find that it is close to that figure. Some tracks run a bit higher, others a bit lower. But it’s always right there.

OK, so what does this buy us? Are you saying that we should bet on the favorite in every race and collect a third of our tickets and get rich? Oh that would be nice. No, that won’t work. You see the problem with that approach is that you win one third of the time but that means you lose two thirds of the time. So obviously, to show a win, you need to make more money when you win than you spend when you lose. Now sometimes the favorites pay 5/2 or even 3/1 if you’re lucky, but most of the time they pay very little. In any case, this method has been proven to be a loser since the dawn of horse racing betting.

Now another noteworthy stat is that in addition to the favorite winning 33% of the time, the second favorite in betting wins about 20% of the time. The third favorite bet wins about 12% of the time. And the fourth favorite bet wins about 5% of the time.

So my approach makes use of these stats and works like this:

1. First, we bet on the exact one, we do not bet on winning. (The exact or perfect, as it is sometimes called, is a bet that you win when you correctly select the first and second place finishers in exact order.)

2. We bet on the favorite in addition to the second, third and fourth betting favorites.

Usually you will get 2 or 3 exact per 9-run card. The operative word is “generally”. Sometimes you will hit zero. And sometimes you’ll hit 5. But the cool thing about this is that when you hit, you’ll usually get a decent score that more than makes up for your losers.

variations

The basic method is fairly simple and straightforward, but I’ve used a few variations that have given fantastic results (although they add a bit to the risk).

Variation 1 consists of placing an additional bet on top of the basic method: betting on the second favorite over the favorite. This allows you to watch those races where the two horses battle it out down the stretch and the second favorite meets the favorite (which happens frequently).

Variation 2 is betting on the favorite at the top of the entire field. In other words, don’t stop at options 2, 3 and 4. Bet them all! Why would you make so many bets? Because from time to time (once a day, or once every other day) you will hit a monster. Your favorite will run first and a 45-1 shot will somehow miraculously finish second. And when that happens, and it will, oh happy day.

Go ahead and try this out on paper for a while. Just grab your local race results paper or online and see how you would have done. It will surprise you.