2021 was a weird one. The winner was disqualified so the second place winner was declared the winner months later.
Looks like the post positions and morning line odds on the Preakness have been announced:
Briefly, it’s a nine horse field. Post 4 Muth, who beat Mystik Dan in the Arkansas Derby in late March, is at 8-5. Post 5 Mystik Dan, the Kentucky Derby winner, is at 5-2. Next come posts 3 Catching Freedom and 9 Imagination, each at 6-1. The rest range from 8-1 to 20-1.
Those are morning line odds only, and are not indicative of what final odds will be on race day (Saturday the 18th). Those will be determined by bettors as they wager through the parimutuel system. Still, they’re a starting point, and it’s interesting to see how Muth is shorter-priced (i.e. has lower odds) on the morning line than Mystik Dan.
It’s too early for me to make any sensible selections on the Preakness, but I hope to get past performances on Friday. I’ll be more informed then.
Question for you @Spoons. I know that the ‘morning line odds’ are the opening odds set by the track, but how are those odds set? Expert opinion? Educated guesses?
Expert opinion, with a dash of educated guess.
A company called Equibase is the collector and holder of all North American racing records. They are responsible for collecting and collating entries and conditions from all tracks, then digging through their records to find the necessary past performances and other information. In doing so, their oddsmaker determines the morning line odds. So, expert opinion, but since it’s more art than science, there has to be a dash of educated guess. Then they publish them, and this is the past performance information you’ll get in the Daily Racing Form and track programs.
Equibase also assembles and publishes result charts, each of which is a detailed analysis of each race. And I mean detailed; they track every horse at every point of call in the race, with margins, mutuel payoffs, and commentary on each horse’s performance in the race. The oddsmakers will use these too, in setting the morning line.
Note that morning line odds are not set by the track. They were once, but nowadays, they’re set by Equibase, in its offices. The track can have its own selectors, and many do, and it’s not uncommon for the selectors’ picks to differ from the morning line, sometimes significantly.
But to sum up, expert opinion plus educated guesses; and definitely more art than science.
There’s one thing I’ve never known about sports betting, and this seems a good time to ask. I know that the odds change, or the line moves, as people start placing their wagers. The odds makers want the bets to essentially cancel out; no matter who wins the losers pay off the winners, and the house takes their cut.
My question is, do you get the odds at the time you place your wager, or are you stuck with the odds as they change. If I bet on Mystik Dan (I live right near the Mystic River, it’s a good omen) right now at 5-2, and it goes down to 2-1 when the race starts, what’s my payoff if he wins?
Is it the same in all froms of sports betting?
In sports betting you get the odds that you bet. The booking could lose money on any given game.
Horse racing is parimutal. The track takes a cut and the rest is split among the winners. The odds change and you get the final odds.
Phew! An easy question, but one that requires some explanation. I can go on about this all day, so be patient.
In North American racing, all wagers are put through the parimutuel system; often called the tote, short for totalisator. Yes, even Las Vegas race books use the tote. Private bookmakers (“bookies”) for racing are illegal in North America, and every jurisdiction outlaws them.
This is important, because if bookmaking was legal, you could “lock in” your odds with a bookie. I’ve seen this before, when I’ve attended at racetracks in Australia. You can bet through the tote, and take your chances, or you can bet with a bookie and get assured odds, regardless of how he adjusts the odds subsequent to you placing your bet. But we’re not in Australia; we’re in North America, so we only have the tote.
A parimutuel (tote) system is designed such that the odds can change. Very briefly, it was developed to emphasize that there is no “house” that sets odds, which was illegal a couple of centuries ago. But there was nothing stopping bettors from wagering among themselves, which is the heart of a parimutuel system. The odds you see displayed on the tote board are better described as ratios; in that they display the ratio of money bet on one horse against all the money bet on the others. In short, when I place my bet at the track, I’m not playing against the house—I’m playing against everybody who did not bet on my horse. We are wagering among ourselves, and as we continue to wager in the time before a race, the odds must necessarily change as differing amounts of money are bet on different horses, right up until the race starts. If we didn’t go with final tote odds, then the book wouldn’t balance.
That being said, the track does make money off the tote. Every track has takeout percentages, that you can think of as a fee for acting as stakeholder. At my local track, these range from 18% on straight wagers to up to 25% on exotics, which is not unusual across North America. The provincial and state governments will get a cut as well (5% in my province), and the federal government takes a little bit too. They get this regardless, so there is no incentive for the track to try to influence any outcome—it makes money no matter who wins. All that is left over after the takeouts goes into the pool, from which odds are calculated.
A long setup to answering your question, but now that I’ve explained all that, you should understand that in spite of Mystik Dan being at 5-2 on the morning line, he can shorten to 2-1 on the tote. And if he does, then no matter what the morning line or the tote says when you place your bet, you’re going to get 2-1 when the race starts. Hey, who knows? He might lengthen to 3-1 at the start. Either way, if you bet $2 on Mystik Dan to win when he’s posted at 5-2 on the tote, and he goes off at 2-1, and wins, you’ll collect at 2-1, which is $6. That’s $4 in winnings plus your original $2 bet.
No. Sports such as football, baseball, hockey, among others, use a bookie system, where you can lock in your odds at the time you place your bet. These are recorded as “+100” or “-110” or similar. The bookie will cause them to change as play goes on, because it wants to balance the book and make a profit, as you note. But if you bought the Steelers at -110, you’re locked in, regardless of where the line on the Steelers goes subsequently.
On futures (bets placed on an outcome long into the future), Las Vegas books will show X-Y odds. For example, in April, they may offer the LA Dodgers to win this year’s World Series in October at 5-1. Or, in June, they might offer 5-2 on the Dallas Cowboys to win this season’s Super Bowl to be played next February. You can lock in those. But that’s only if Los Angeles and Dallas, respectively, make it to the final. If your team doesn’t, you lose your futures wager. You are welcome to bet Kansas City at -110 over San Francisco at +100, however. (All odds fictional, used only as examples.)
Like I said, an easy question requiring a lot of explanation. Hope I succeeded. But I’m not sure I did. Anyway, if you have any more questions, just ask.
Let me go all math geek for a bit.
Is there only one pool, or are there multiple pools for the different types of bets? I can see how it would work if all the bets were win bets. Only one horse wins, so the payoff is easy; (amount in the pool) / (amount bet on the winner).
So how do place and show bets figure into it? Is there a distinct pool for place bettors, which pays out to the two winning place bettors; or is there one pool for all wagers, and the payout for place bets is based on some fraction of the win odds?
Well, yeah, I kinda figured that if I bet on Dallas to win the Super Bowl, and they don’t even make it to the game, that would probably lose the bet.
It occurs to me that if the Celtics (I’m in Boston) are favored to win a game by 10 and I bet the under, then the line changes to 8 and I bet the over, I can’t lose both bets. I probably won’t break even, since I’ll have to pay a percentage on both bets. But if the Celtics win by 9 I could clean up.
Does that sort of thing happen, or is it considered an act of craven puppyhood?
Ha! Do it. As a former girlfriend, who was as much of a racing fan as I am, once said, “Spoons may have failed high school math [which I did], but express things in odds and/or put a dollar sign in front of them, and he’s infallible.”
There are multiple pools. One for Win, one for Place, one for Show, one for Exactors, one for Triactors, and so on. Each is separate from the other. The tote displays only Win odds, but Place and Show players can get an rough, kinda-sorta idea from Win odds. Mostly in the sense of “Any horse going off at 20-1 to Win is going to pay more to Show than a horse that goes off at Evens to Win.”
In addition, most tracks offer probables on exotics. Mostly exactors, though Doubles are often displayed as well. Again, these exactor probables depend on the exactor pool, and are any two horses against any other two horses in the race. For example, A-B against A-C, A-D, A-E, B-A, B-C, B-D, and so on. Give me a calculator and an exactor pool figure, and I can figure out exactor odds. I’d rather not; that’s why we have computers.
As I said, there is a Place pool and a Show pool. Thing with these, is that there will be two horses to Place and three to Show. So their pools will be divided in two and three, respectively. Suppose we have a race where horses A, B, and C finish in that order. Horse B has $10,000 in the place pool. That will be divided, $5000 to be divided among winners to Place on horse A and $5000 to be divided among winners to Place on horse B. Show wagers work the same way: a $12,000 Show pool will be divided as $4000 on horse A, $4000 on horse B, and $4000 on horse C. Work the ratios, calculate the odds for Place and Show players, allow for breakage, and there’s your payouts.
As for your example of the Boston Celtics, I can’t even begin to guess. I understand how over/unders work, but I’m not so well schooled in them that I can offer informed commentary on your hypothetical.
Just for fun, we race fans at the local track do run an over/under on race days; on “How many Bloody Caesars will the bartender pour?” during the racing day. No money is at stake; it’s points on a scoreboard and bragging rights. Hey, it keeps us occupied between races.
You asked for it.
I’m trying to decide if this could lead to unusual payouts.
Just describing place bets only:
$1000 has been wagered on horse A.
$2000 has been wagered on horse B.
$3000 has been wagered on horse C.
$10,000 has been wagered on all place bets combined.
If I understand your description, there is $10,000 in the place pool, to be paid out on all winning place bets. If A and B finish first and second, then there are $3000 worth of wagers that will collect the $10,000 pool. Does that pool get split evenly between the two groups of bettors, $5000 to each? That would be 5-1 for A bettors, and 2.5-1 for B bettors.
I’m thinking that must be how it works, otherwise you’d get a different payout depending on which other horse placed along with the one you bet on.
I know 2.5-1 probably looks weird to you. In racing terms that would be 5-2, right?
Haven’t been to the track in a while (the local casino got rid of OTB). But what’s with the oddball payouts? $39.22 to win? $16.32 to place?
Is that because of the neophytes making sissy penny bets?
At the risk of introducing another level of confusion, I’ll chime in here by saying that an over/under bet isn’t exactly what you’re describing here. If the line is Boston by 10, you will either bet on Boston to win by more than 10, or the opponent (Cleveland?) to lose by 9 points or less or win the game outright. If Boston wins by exactly 10, the bet is a ‘push’, and everybody gets their money back. That’s why most point spreads are listed at 1/2 points, like 9 1/2, which guarantees that there will not be a push. Right now, for instance, on DraftKings, Boston is favored by 15 1/2 points over Cleveland in their next game.
An over/under bet is a bet on total points in the game. The total points in tonight’s Knicks/Pacers game is 216.5. You can bet the ‘over’, meaning you think that the total points will be more than 216.5, or you can bet the ‘under’, meaning that you think the total will be less than 216.5.
Back to your hypothetical, using the current spread of Boston favored by 15.5. The odds on these bets are -110, meaning that you would bet 11 bucks to win 10, for a total payout of 21 bucks (your original bet of 11, plus the 10 you won.) If you think that Cleveland will cover that spread (losing by 15 or less), you would bet 11 dollars on Cleveland. Then the line changes to Boston favored by 13.5. Now you place an 11 dollar bet on Boston to cover that spread. If Boston should win by 14, you will win both bets and take home 42 dollars on your two total bets of 22 dollars. But any other outcome means that you will win one bet and lose the other, and you will lose one dollar. (You have bet 22 bucks and won 21.)
This is known as a “middle” and it’s a sports gambler’s dream.
Back to horse racing and the different pools. I used to go to the track from time to time. I have a vague memory that on rare occasions a horse will pay more to show than to place for example because of this.
D’oh! I knew that, just got the terminolgy wrong. Can you tell I’ve never actually placed a bet on a sporting event?
Right, if one of my bets wins, I lose $1 to the house. (The “vig”, I think.) If both bets win, I get $42. In essence, I’m getting 42-1 odds that the Celtics will win by exactly 14.
Do those sorts of circumstances ever happen, or is it frowned upon?
They definitely happen and they are not frowned upon. On rare occasions it can be several points.
Not really. 42-1 odds would imply that you bet 1 dollar and won 42.
Either I’ll lose $1 or get $42. I suppose that works out to 41-1 odds.
Collectively it can bite the bookmakers in the butt. Super Bowl XIII had a starting line of -3.5 in favor of Pittsburgh, but apparently a lot of money was bet early on the Steelers, which drive it down to -4.5, at which point a lot of Cowboys bettors came onboard, moving it back to -3.5. So when they lost by 4 a lot of bookies lost many bets on both sides of that score.
Nobody’s making penny bets. The tote only accepts whole dollar amounts. Regardless, you ask a good question. What you’re asking about is the breakage, or how the payouts are calculated.
At one time, tracks used dime breakage, and some still do. This is where a payout is calculated down (always down) to the nearest dime on the dollar. Since race payouts are generally based on $2 wagers (although a bettor can bet any whole dollar amount), this results in payouts of $X.00, $X.20, $X.40, $X.60, and $X.80.
So what happens if the math says that a winner should get $2.38? Under dime breakage, we break the number down to the dime on the dollar, and the winner gets $2.20. What happens to the leftover $0.18? The track gets it. We never break up, so $2.38 would never become $2.40.
That’s not so advantageous to the bettor, so nickel breakage was developed. Just like dime breakage, but this time, we break to the nearest nickel on the dollar; and again, always down. Easy to spot in result payouts, as under nickel breakage, you’ll see payouts of $X.10, $X.20, $X.30, and so on. A payout of $2.38 mathematically would become $2.30, and the track gets the leftover $0.08.
And now, we’re seeing penny breakage. Same principles at play as in dime and nickel breakage, just to the penny on the dollar is all.
So how do we get penny breakages if all bets are made in whole dollar amounts? Because for simplicity’s sake, the tote only shows approximate odds. Close but not always exact. For example, the tote may show 8-1, but the mathematics happening in the computer indicate that that is really 8.345-1. When you include decimals in the calculations, you can easily see how penny breakage can work, and that $2.38 payout will indeed be $2.38.
You have bet $22. You’ll either get $21 or $42. You will either lose $1 or win $20.