14/12/2001 edition

Trifecta Tote Plunge

Plunge the tote..hmm?

What do you think this trifecta in the big race at Doomben, the Group 3 Summer Stakes, should pay? It was an 18 horse field.

The winner paid $57.10, the horse that ran second paid $11.50 for the place and the horse that finished third paid $4.10 for the place?

On the New South Wales tote it paid $88,487.
On the Victorian tote it paid $22,946.
But on the Queensland tote it paid $2,404!!!!

That dividend bares absolutely no relation to the chances of that unlikely trifecta combination coming up. Anyone who got that payout got so far under the odds they are entitled to feel quite disgruntled.

What has happened? Presumably a punter with more money than sense has plunged the Queensland tote trifecta pool. The result being the punter has massacred the tote payout. The punter has overbet the tote pool and effectively bet against himself, because there is no way the tote is going to lose on the race.

That punter should have spread the bets into the other states' tote pools and made many, many thousands more dollars. With the sort of staking that took place, it looks very much a case of simply recovering some heavy past losses.

Footnote:
The Queensland trifecta dividend of $2404 was reported on Sky Racing. From recollection that same dividend was also given on the Queensland TAB website in their race results. Apparently the dividend was $67,940 which is now on the Queensland TAB website. Clearly something went very wrong!

However that does not alter the main point of the article. You cannot plunge any tote. The more money put on any trifecta bet, the lower the payout to everyone should that trifecta win.

That is also why horse racing trifecta software is self defeating when it is marketed with the same parameters to all purchasers. The vast majority of trifecta pools are not big enough to cope with many punters putting on the same trifecta combinations. That means the payouts will be reduced and punters will of course lose money. All losing bets will continue of course to lose but the winning bets will not make enough to cover those losses.

It is also dubious marketing of trifecta computer software to say that the dividends will not be affected. Totes are not bottomless pits of money paying out bottomless pits of dividends irrespective of the number of winning collects.

It's a certain winner

Last Saturday in the first race at Doomben, a 3YO Class 6 over 1350 metres, Regent Street, resuming from a spell of six months, was sent out the very short priced $1.50 favourite. Sky Racing's very good Brisbane race caller, Alan Thomas, made an interesting observation after the race.

"Gee, that was hard work, wasn't it for a $1.50 and $1.30? ..Gee, is there any such thing as a good thing in a horse race?.. a lot of the races I see I don't think there is. You can do your best, you might have a fair idea. The days of saying this is a lay down misere and all that business that used to happen 20 years ago, I think that's finished. You're lucky if you win."

There was obviously a bit of reminiscing in there - since when were horses lay down miseres 20 years ago? But the important point made by Alan Thomas is that there is no such thing "as a good thing" in a horse race.

That is not quite correct - if a horse has better than a 50% chance of winning a race it must be a "good thing" but that does not necessarily make it a good bet. In the small five horse field Regent Street just defeated All Points North, but they were lengths ahead of the rest of the runners.

Regent Street was probably a 4/5 on chance ($1.80) and so a "good thing", but a poor bet at 1/2 on ($1.50). Punters were taking well under the odds.

Same old betting trap - same old result

This must be one of the most repetitive segments of our column. But it happens every week and punters just refuse to learn. It's like lemmings going to the slaughter - do punters really want to lose money?

In the first at Randwick, a five horse field over 1800 metres, punters took $1.65 about Abeel Hostess winning. The four year old mare had convincingly won her previous race in similar class over the same distance at the same track. But she only carried 55.5kg. Now she was up to a hefty 58.5kg.

Abeel Hostess led, but sure enough, when the pressure was really applied in the home straight all she could do was battle into second. She was anchored by the hefty weight and in the run home never looked like winning.

But plenty of punters took odds on.

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