By Steve Davidowitz | I received a note from a reader who asked me how I rankgambling on horse racing vs. other popular gambling options on sports, cards and the like. My reply to him was short but sweet. I said simply that there are many reasons why I think horse racing is the best gambling game man has ever invented. For your benefit, however, I have put together a list of my ‘Top 10 Reasons Why Horse Racing is the Best Gambling Game Ever Invented.” In reverse order, here is that list…
#10. Horseplayers are matching wits against other players who may not be as prepared or as knowledgeable as you. If you are not prepared or knowledgeable, yes, you probably should go to the craps table or stick with slot machines.
#9. Unlike college and pro football or basketball — as well as other sports that invite gambling with point spreads — I prefer horse racing for a reason that is rarely considered, yet it might be as important as anything on this list: When your horse wins, the margin at the wire does not have any bearing on whether you will be paid. Conversely, when you are betting on football and/or basketball, you are always at the mercy of the winning margin and no team factors the bookmaker’s point spread into its game plan.
#8. With Daily Racing Form supplying high quality past performances on every horse in every race as well as numerous web sites, such as Bovada.lv, BRIS.com, TrackMaster.com and my own GradeOneRacing.com providing meaningful statistical insights, the horseplayer has more valuable information to make his or her plays than any other gambling game. Yes, there are stat sheets for all sports, but they practically require an advance degree in mathematics to understand. Meanwhile the majority of racing sites that provide top notch stats or invaluable workout reports are specifically directed to help predict today’s performance, not merely to explain what has occurred in the past.
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#7. Trainers who win races at high percentages tend to use repeatable patterns that can be detectible merely by comparing the similarities found in the past performances of their winning horses. This is one of the great professional ‘secrets’ of the game. Horseplayers who spend time doing this research are way ahead of players who do not do this research. Trainer patterns also are among the best tools to uncover live longshots — horses that are well meant and capable of scoring at juicy prices.
#6. Horses that show early speed and race to the front rarely reverse themselves into slow breaking stretch running horses. This consistency of running style is not found in poker for example, where aggressive players regularly turn into conservative ones and vice versa when they are perceived as one dimensional during a given game. Likewise it is good strategy for a football team with a running attack to use play action passes to fool the defense. This flexibility changes the dynamics of a seemingly predictable matchups. While in horse racing — as volatile as it might seem on the surface — the way any individual horse will run is quite predictable and thus, the race itself generally plays out in a formful manner. Consider this: With more than 45,000 races in America each year, the percentage of winning favorites continues to hover at 32-33 percent, just as it has since before any of us were born. Moreover, this 32-33 percent strike rate is not derived from races involving only three horse races. No, a favorite wins once out of every three races when about 8 or more horses are in each race.
#5. A wise man once said that “variety is the spice of life.” Want variety in your gambling options? Consider this: There are many more ways to bet horses than any sport, or table game, including dice or roulette. In horse racing there is win, place and show; quinellas and exactas; trifectas, superfectas and super high fives; daily doubles, pick threes, pick fours, pick fives, pick sixes and even pick sevens. And there are varying units of wagering — from dimes to dollars — for many of those options.
#4. One of the best things about online horse racing is that you do not have to bet a lot to win a lot. Unlike 11-10 bets in the sportsbook’s favor for point spread based sports bets; or the even money and 3-2 maximum payoffs in blackjack, or the rare 33-1 in roulette, a horseplayer can win tens of thousands of dollars with a relatively modest investment via the mutli-race wagers cited above. For just one personal example, I have scored hits that paid more than $10,000 with an investments that did not exceed $100 and several that paid more than $100,000 while betting less than $500.
#3. The only real Triple Crown is in horse racing. All other Triple Crowns are failed attempts to copy the historic link between the great Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. Simply put, the Triple Crown has been a staple of American sports since 1919 when SIR BARTON became the first of 11 thoroughbreds to sweep all three. It also is great that these three races are so difficult to win, because they not only attract large fields and more than $100 million in wagers each year, they invariably provide juicy payoffs that can guarantee a profit for many months. If you do not believe me — check out the payoffs for last year’s Kentucky Derby, when ANIMAL KINGDOM won at 21-1 odds despite having strong winning form and having worked strongly on the Churchill Downs racing strip to prove he could carry that form on a dirt track.
#2. Some of the venues where racing is conducted are national treasures, beautiful places that favorably compare with August National Golf Course, Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. Places like Del Mar by the Pacific Ocean, Saratoga in upstate New York; Arlington Park north of Chicago, Illinois; Keeneland in Lexington Kentucky and Churchill Downs in Louisville, just to name a handful. If you go to Saratoga at daybreak, you practically will hear the ghosts of Man o’ War and Secretariat thundering down the stretch. If you go to Churchill Downs you know you are at a living museum of racing history. These venues make the act of wagering a transcendental experience that you will never forget. The ambience at these spectacular facilities also will improve your concentration and in turn your handicapping. (Trust me when I say that I know this to be true… it has happened to me.)
#1. While I truly love baseball, the (current) NFL playoffs postseason, college basketball’s ‘March Madness’ as well as the frenzy and drama of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, there is nothing to compare with the thoroughbred racehorse as a spectacle worth seeing time and time again. At the bottom line, first and foremost, thoroughbreds are among the most beautiful, most powerful, most graceful and fastest creatures on earth. It is hard to take your eyes off them when they are on the track… and it is hard to dismiss their feats of wonder when they are in competition. Think ZENYATTA and BLAME; think AFFIRMED and ALYDAR; SECRETARIAT and SHAM; think any field of thoroughbred horses majestically parading in front of everyone the grandstand…as they make their way to the post. With that, I rest my case.
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