Howdy Dopers,
I was just at the Super Ex (our fair here in Ottawa) and I lost $5 on a game in which there are 6 arrows and you put money on where the arrow is stopped sorta like a horizontal Crowns and Anchors. Unfortunatly there aren’t any vegas experts offering to sell me tips for these carnival games in my email so I was wondering if any Dopers know any way that I can get more of an edge in winning.
Horse racing it is possible to garentte a win. It goes something like this (and the win is becasue of a min. payout limit):
1 You have a strong favorite in a small field of horses.
2 You watch the pools of bets, if you see a large show bet on this horse (something like 100x as much as all other horses combined), you could garrentee a win (assuming no last minute bets screw this up but very unlikely)
3 the payout for a $2 bet will be $2.10 at a minimum, even though the odds are determined bythe amount bet on each horse, $0.10 on $2 is the lowest it will go when the payout should be something more like $2.02.
4 You bet a large amount of money on that favorite to show.
5 you bet a much smaller amount on each other horse (apx 100x less).
6 If the horse comes in you make 5% profit minus about 0.6% of the other horses that didn’t win so apx 4.4%.
6a if the horse does not win/place/show then the payouts on the other horses will be high enought to make back the orignal amount and then some, if you do it right it’s about the same 4.x%. (remember all that money bet on the favorite will be divied up amoung all the longshots.
I have seen it happen and it is quite usuasal to see the payouts, something like:
Win:
1a Watamader you
Win = $4.10
Place = $7.80
Show = $62.00
Place:
4 Cecil’s Girl
Place = $10.50
Show = $40.80
5 Boardsdamslowsometimes
Show = $86.80