Are tote odds better than bookmaker odds?

Many punters come up with a standard comment like, "I'm not interested in betting with bookmakers. You get better odds on the tote anyway."

That may well be the case for many longshots, and midweek meetings with relatively weak bookmaker betting rings. But it's certainly not true of Saturday racing in Melbourne and Sydney where bookmaker odds are consistently far superior to tote odds for the horses that win most races - the fancied runners that start around $5.50 or shorter with the bookmakers.

For example, on Saturday 9th. February, there were ten winners from the 16 races in Melbourne and Sydney that started at $5.50 or shorter odds with the bookmakers. At starting price, the total bookmaker odds for those nine winners compared to SuperTab was $3.30 more, an average of nearly 37 cents more for each winner. But at top fluctuation the bookmaker odds absolutely destroyed SuperTab. They were $6.40 more than SuperTab, an average of over 71 cents more for each winner.

That means a $100 bettor would be $71 better off for each winner backed compared to backing the horse on SuperTab.

We have a number of bookmaker betting offers on this site. If you're not getting the best odds, you owe it to yourself to check them out and get yourself better dividends on the horses you back.

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Trifecta betting advice?

We've heard all sorts of horrible suggestions from alleged media racing experts.
One favourite method is to base your trifectas around odds on favourites. Odds on favourites of course usually destroy the value in trifectas.

One trifecta suggestion we heard which takes the cake goes along the following lines:

"Race one, it's a pretty thin race. I'm not really interested in betting here. Only four starters. Take a box trifecta."

Now that has to be one of the most silly comments you can possibly make. As far as intelligent betting advice goes, we would give it a mark of zero out of ten.

For a $24.00 outlay punters would have "won" a dividend of $7.60 on the New South Wales tote and an even more paltry $5.60 on SuperTab.