Apparently Harville published 5 years earlier than Scott I understand he was looking for opportunities in the place market, where a runner's win odds indicated that its place odds should be shorter than what was on offer. (Aside: Harville's trifecta odds for your race were $354,649.49 - which is so far different from the other result that it makes me suspect that either one - or both! - of my calculations is wrong)

*but* The "Discounted" part of it came about because his results didn't fit the actual data well. It was noted that horses were coming 2nd only 81% as often as their win odds indicated they should (and only 65% of the time for 3rd). I haven't seen it explained very well why this is the case, but the next mob of statistician/mathematicians took these "discounts" into account for their formulation

The figures seem dependent on the track though (or rather, I suppose, the pool of bettors/bookmakers working a track/s). The figures for Japan (vs the Hong Kong ones stated previous) were 88%/80%. Was it 'cause the fave/longshot bias wasn't demonstrated in the Hong Kong data, was it due to different styles of racing between the two countries? It wasn't really explained.

A final tidbit: odds of exotics better estimated the finishing order. It was surmised that that was where the smart money was. Not necessarily that more canny gamblers were betting there, but that it wasn't such an obvious source of information as the win odds are to an ordinary punter (who would presumably overbet the horses already highlighted by the market as the likelier chances). Plus it's more difficult information to get.


Went off tangent a bit, but I happened to be reading about all that when you presented your odds estimate.

The VIC pools (and dividends) for the Exacta (especially) were markedly higher for that particular race and compared to the other TABs. I guess if you can manipulate the price on one TAB you can choose those TAB's odds at any number of online operators, load up and still keep the TAB's odds long. Seems the right race for it: 2 runners at low odds, pretty much the remainder of the field 20s and up. Would anyone else bother betting the longshots? If you were certain those 2 at low odds would finish out of the placings you'd make a killing.