Just before the Preakness Justify’s odds were 5-2. The announcer said, “That means if you bet five dollars you get two back.” Sure enough, Justify’s odd paid back a little over two dollars.
Why would anyone bet five dollars if they knew they would lose three dollars?
Some people bet $2 to have a memento; they keep the ticket instead of cashing it in.
Lol, no you get the $5 back plus 2. What you see on the tote board is how much you get on a $2 bet.
Yes, Thanks Cupid. In some situations the tracks run a " minus pool" where a heavy favorite actually pays out more then was taken in. The better gets $2.10 in a $2 bet. In Pari Mutual wagering, if the horse finishes as you bet it, you cant lose your initial investment. That’s not always true in private wagering not regulated by the Pari Mutual system. No idea how they work in in Europe with no Pari Mutual controls or at tracks where you bet directly with individual, independent bookmakers setting their own odds.
They also bet in trifectas etc, so when people pick Justify, his odds go up when really they are betting on a pool of horses.
Thanks for explaining this. It still seems like a small return on a bet, Isn’t it also true that the greater the odds against a horse winning the larger the payback?
They must pay back a nickel on each dollar bet so it is the track that loses money, not the bettor. Eons ago, I bought a 2.00 win ticket that would have earned me a whopping 1.60 as a payout; in those years minus pools were paid as the odds read.
Yes. The odds are initially set by professional handicappers and then go up or down depending on how much money is bet on each horse.
Somebody mentioned trifectas as betting on a pool of horses! Only partially correct, you have to pick them in the exact order they finish, exacta is two horses, trifecta three, in the correct order. Sometimes there are 4 or 5 horse options as a Quinella, but see those less these days. And there’s a superfecta which is 6, you can bet it for a dollar and get a huge payback but picking 6 in the correct order takes way more luck then handicapping skill.
Years back, you used to actually get a pool of horses. It was called " The Field". It was the 3 to 5 longest shots in the field lumped together and you could bet it to win, place or show. So if you took the field to show and bet $2 bucks on it and any of those field horses came in 1st, 2nd or 3rd, you got a payback. Haven’t seen that for years, not as many horses in the races as there used to be anyway.
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