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“Wagering Series”
Part 4 of 5: “Where to Go From Here”
Plus: The Win/Insurance Wager
This is Part 4 of our special five part Wagering Series. This covers three items: First, it
presents recommendations for the next steps to take depending on how well you have
done up to this point based on the first three parts of the series. Second, it describes a
new type of “foundation wager”, the Win/Insurance wager, to use while striving for
reasonably consistent profitable play. Third, it covers the subject of moving up the
logical progression of wager types and staying profitable as you do so.
If you have not read the first three installments, it would be a good idea to do so. See
the box below. This overall Wagering Series is aimed at helping horseplayers who are
losing money to move into the profit column and to help already profitable players do
even better.
We approach this by discussing ideas of how best to integrate your
handicapping and wagering decisions.
All past ALL-Ways Newsletters, as well as a Major Topic Index, are posted on both the BRIS and
Frandsen Publishing Web sites and they are always free. Also, articles already published as part
of the Favorite ALL-Ways Newsletter Article series are posted in the Newsletter Section on the
Frandsen Publishing Web site and they are free as well. See the links at the end of this article.
Recap
Part 1 (“Reasonable Expectations”) was aimed primarily at helping players who are
losing money. It covered the need to set realistic expectations. Then it introduced a
temporary method of play to help losing players “stop the bleeding” while they “retool” their handicapping and wagering approach. Central to all of this is to change the
definition of a successful day of playing the horses to just making a $1 profit. This
change in both objective and attitude is an extremely important element of this whole
wagering series. This temporary approach suggests limiting betting to the 2-horse win
wager and the Show Partial Parlay wager until reaching the $1 profit objective becomes
routine.
Part 2 (“The Three Critical Handicapping Skills”) continued to define and refine the
temporary approach. It introduced what we believe are the three most important
handicapping skills. They are: 1) Being able to classify favorites as legitimate,
vulnerable or false; 2) When the favorite is vulnerable or false, being able to identify
the two most likely non-favorite horses to win the race; 3) Being able to identify a good
non-favorite Key Horse. We also introduced a simple, organized four step process
leading up to your final handicapping and wagering decisions. The steps are: Step 1)
Isolate the likely in-the-money contenders; Step 2) Upgrade or downgrade each of
these horses based on some fundamental handicapping areas; Step 3) Upgrade or
downgrade horses based on the pace scenario in the race; Step 4) Upgrade or
downgrade the horses based on a number of specific situational factors.
Part 3 (“How are you doing … really doing?”) presented ways to determine what did
work for you, what did not work for you and what handicapping signals you may have
missed. It also described a Problem Solving Matrix aimed at isolating problems into
handicapping, wagering or money management categories and determining if the
problems were caused by a lack of knowledge, a faulty handicapping/wagering process
or a discipline issue.
Part 4: “Where to Go From Here”
Where you go next is, of course, dependent on where you are. If you are working on
our temporary $1 profit plan, you are in one of three places: 1) You are making at least
a $1 profit on a reasonably consistent basis; 2) Or, you are doing pretty well, but not
quite achieving consistent profits; 3) Or, you are not doing well and need more work
and time to refine your handicapping and wagering skills.
If you are doing very well: There are three alternatives for moving forward: 1) You can
just keep doing what you are doing and enjoy playing the horses in a nice, non-
stressful way; 2) Or, you can keep doing what you are doing, but increase your bet size
a little at a time. This will help turn your modest $1 profits into higher profits without
making any fundamental changes to your game; 3) Or, you can take advantage of your
success with the three critical handicapping skills and move up the logical progression
of wager types, which we discuss later in this newsletter.
If you are doing just pretty well: Chances are you just need to improve a bit with
respect to the three critical handicapping skills. You may also need to refine your
decisions on when and how to make your 2-Horse Win and Show Partial Parlay wagers.
You may also want to add the new Win/Insurance wager discussed below. You should
not increase your wager size and you should not move up the wager progression until
you are able to make a $1 profit on a reasonably consistent basis. Very often, a losing
day can be reduced to one or two bad decisions. See if you can identify and fix these
occurrences.
If you are not doing well at all: For sure you do not want to increase your wager size
and you do not want to move up the progression of wager types. Chances are you are
having problems in one or more of the following areas: 1) You have not embraced the
goal of making a $1 profit. If your mindset is not in tune with this simple $1 profit
objective, you are probably making too many wagers and you are pursuing wager types
that you are not ready to handle. 2) And/or you have not yet embraced or “mastered”
the three critical handicapping skills. The most frequent problems we see in this area
are either not accepting the need to avoid wagering on legitimate favorites or not
developing the skill to classify the favorites as legitimate, vulnerable or false.
Remember, favorites lose 2 out of 3 races. It is your handicapping job to identify, in
advance, the races where the favorite is most likely not going to win. 3) And/or your
discipline when playing the races needs to improve. The kinds of discipline problems
you should avoid include: ● Betting too many favorites ● Making too many wagers
because you are not passing races that should be passed ● Wagering on Exactas,
Trifectas, Superfectas, Daily Doubles, Pick 3s and 4s before you have mastered the
three critical handicapping skills ● Making bad end-of-day wagering decisions in an
attempt to recover from losses or trying to make big profits.
If you fall into this “not doing well” category, we suggest going back to parts 1 and 2 of
this wagering series. We suggest you work at embracing the change in objective to
making a $1 profit, limiting your bets to the 2-horse win and Show Partial Parlay
wagers (and, perhaps the Win/Insurance wager discussed below) and developing your
proficiency with respect to the three critical handicapping skills spelled out in Part 2 of
this series.
The Win/Insurance Wager
We were actually “turned on” to this type of wager by an ALL-Ways software
handicapper who had been using it successfully for a number of years. We tested the
wager, with considerable success, over a six month period in conjunction with refining
our recommendation for this Wagering Series of newsletter articles. We believe it
deserves consideration for the temporary approach towards making the $1 profit
objective and also on an on-going basis. We like the wager. There is nothing
particularly exciting about it, except that it helps move players towards profitable play.
What it is:
Simply stated, the Win/Insurance wager is a “win-place-show” wager on one horse in
the race. The characteristic of the wager that is different than how most people place
an “across the board” win-place-show wager is that the amounts wagered are different
for the three positions. What the ALL-Ways software handicapper recommended, and
we used with considerable success, is to wager in a ratio of $2 to win, $4 to place and
$12 to show. This level of wager is quite acceptable for our scaled-back, temporary
approach to making our $1 profit. It fits nicely with the 2-horse win wager and the
Show Partial Parlay wager in that exactly the same three critical handicapping skills
support this kind of wager. So, no new handicapping skills are required, just another
wager type decision.
How it works:
First, the place and show parts of this WPS wager provides some insurance in case our
selection does not win, but comes in 2nd or 3rd. If our selection does win, the place
and show wagers increase the profitability. Here is a pretty typical situation when a 3-1
horse selection wins the race. The horse paid $8.40 to win, $5.40 to place and $3.20
to show. We are paid $8.40 for our $2 win wager. We are paid $10.80 for our $4 place
wager. We are paid $19.20 for our $12 show wager. In total, we are paid $38.40 for
our total $18 wager.
Now, had the horse come in 2nd and assuming the same place and show payoffs, we
would have received $30.00 ($10.80 + $19.20) for our total $18 wager. Had the horse
come in 3rd, we would have received $19.20 for our total wager. So, if the horse wins,
we make a nice percentage profit. If the horse comes in 2nd, we still make a profit. If
the horse comes in 3rd, we at least get our wager investment back, hence the use of
the word “Insurance” in the wager name.
When and how to play it:
You can approach this wager from two different perspectives, the “Win Perspective” and
the “Show Perspective”.
The Win Perspective: When you are handicapping to classify the favorite and when you
are handicapping to identify the two non-favorite horses most likely to win the race, if
you see a horse you really like to win and it is going off at 3-1 or higher, then bet the
horse to win, place and show as described above. Some people will advise scaling back
to just a place and show wager if you are not confident the horse will win. We do not
like that approach. It is, in our opinion, always a good idea to include the $2 win part
of the wager. From this perspective, if we make the Win/Insurance wager, we will do
so in lieu of a 2-horse win wager.
The Show Perspective: When you are handicapping to identify your non-favorite Key
Horse and/or your non-favorite Show Partial Parlay horse, if you see a horse that you
really like, then make the win-place-show wager as described above. From this
perspective, if we make the Win/Insurance wager, we will do so in lieu of a Show Partial
Parlay wager.
If we decide to make this wager from the “Win Perspective”, we are willing to wager on
the favorite if the favorite is going off at 3-1 or higher. Keep in mind, however, this will
results in the lowest payoffs. A successful wager against the favorite will produce
higher payoffs. The best payoffs will come from the “Show Perspective”, which is not
surprising because the Key Horse and/or Show Partial Parlay horse will not, by
definition, be the favorite. Like all other wagers, the best payoffs are realized when the
favorite finishes off-the-board.
Moving Up the Logical Progression of Wager Types
We are going to start off this subject with three firm statements:
1. If you have not mastered the 3 critical handicapping skills, you should not move up
the progression of wagers.
2. If you do not embrace the concept of “Never bet against legitimate favorites” and
“Almost never bet on legitimate favorites”, you should not move up the progression of
wagers. (See Newsletter #30, “The Curse of the Legitimate Favorite”)
3. If you cannot make a $1 profit on a reasonably consistent basis playing the 2-Horse
win wager and/or the Show Partial Parlay wager and/or the Win/Insurance wager, you
should not move up the progression of wagers.
Conversely, if all three of these statements are positive for you, you are ready to take a
step up in your wagering. We recommend you go slowly, taking one-step-at-a-time
and keeping your wagers small until you have mastered each step.
The 3 Primary Wager Groups
The first group of wagers we call “WPS Wagers”. These include the 2-horse Win wager,
the Show Partial Parlay wager and the Win/Insurance wager as well as all other wagers
that pay off based on finishing in a specific win, place or show position. This is the
starting point for moving up the wager progression in the second and/or third group
of wagers.
The second group of wagers we call “Multi-Position Wagers” which include Exactas,
Trifectas and Superfectas. These wagers are all about win, place, show and 4th place
handicapping.
The third group of wagers we call “Multi-Race Wagers” which include Daily Doubles,
Pick 3s, Pick 4s, etc. These wagers are all about, and only about, handicapping for win
horses.
If you are going to move up the progression of wagers, you have already mastered the
WPS wagers. So, we are going to focus on the Multi-Position Wagers and the Multi-
Race Wagers. We will be showing you are favorite ways to play these wagers and we will
point to the specific ALL-Ways Newsletters to look at that will explain why we like the
wagers. You may want to play the wagers in a different manner. But, the 3 critical
handicapping skills will still apply. As a reminder, the 3 critical handicapping skills are:
1) Classifying the favorite as legitimate, vulnerable or false; 2) Selecting the 2 nonfavorite horses most likely to win the race; 3) Selecting a non-favorite Key Horse.
Multi-Position Wagers
Exacta Wagers (See ALL-Ways Newsletters #3 and #50): Our favorite Exacta wagers are:
AB/ABC
AB/ABCD
$8 for a $2 Exacta
$12 for a $2 Exacta
Horses A and B must not be the crowd favorite (Skill #1). Horses A and B are our 2
non-favorite horses most likely to win the race (Skill #2). Horses C and D come
primarily out of our handicapping process with respect to skill #2 and with respect to
finding a good Key Horse (Skill #3). This is simple enough. Let’s move up the
progression to Trifecta wagers.
Trifecta Wagers (See ALL-Ways Newsletters #5, #6 and #7 and/or the Favorite ALLWays Article Series): The following chart illustrates what we believe to be a good
method for determining if the Trifecta is playable or not. It shows the importance of
being able to classify the crowd favorite.
Play
Favorite
Long Odds
in-the-money
in-the-money
yes
no
pass
yes
yes
play
no
no
play
no
yes
crush
or
Pass
Our favorite Trifecta wagers fall into two groups. The first group we call the “Exacta
Plus Show” Trifecta wager. For example:
AB/ABC/ABCD $16 for a $2 Tri
The other group we call the “Exacta Plus Key” Trifecta wager. For example, if we
designate the “D” horse as our Key Horse, the wager would look like this:
AB/ABC/D
AB/D/ABC
D/AB/ABC
These three wagers add up to a $24 wager for a $2 Trifecta.
The Exacta part of these Trifecta wagers requires all three of the critical handicapping
skills as show above. This is why we say it is not wise to move up to Trifectas unless
and until you have “mastered” the Exacta.
Superfecta Wagers (See ALL-Ways Newsletter #20 and/or the Favorite ALL-Ways Article
Series): In order to play the Superfecta, we require that two criteria be met. First, the
underlying Trifecta must be playable. Second, the crowd favorite must be false. We
must be convinced the horse will not win the race.
There are two approaches to the Superfecta that we like. The first we call the Trifecta
Plus approach. Here is an example of a $1 Superfecta that costs $24.
AB/ABC/ABCD/ABCDEF
The second approach we characterize as the “Key Horse With Required Finish”. For
example, if we use the “D” horse above as our Key Horse and we require the Key Horse
to win, place or show, the resultant wager looks something like this:
AB/ABC/D/ABCEF
AB/D/ABC/ABCEF
D/AB/ABC/ABCEF
These three wager tickets cost a total of $36 for a $1 Superfecta.
The Ten Cent Superfecta: Wow!
After this article was first published, we have seen the introduction of the ten cent
Superfecta wager. It is a fantastic, low cost, low risk way to develop your techniques to
successfully play the Superfecta. Consider that the $1 Superfecta wagers discussed
above that cost $24 and $36 only cost $2.40 and $3.60 respectively when playing the
ten cent Superfecta. And, when you are ready to wager more on Superfectas, you can
move up to 20 cent or 30 cent or 50 cent or ...... Superfectas!
The logical progression of these multi-position wagers is evident. When you achieve
success playing the Exacta, the next logical step is to add or move up to the Trifecta,
perhaps using the Exacta Plus approach to the Trifecta. When you achieve success
playing the Trifecta, the next logical step is to add or move up to the Superfecta,
perhaps using the Trifecta Plus approach to the Superfecta
Multi-Race Wagers
Whereas the Multi-Position wagers require that we select horses for win, place, show and 4th place
positions, the Multi-Race wagers only require that we look for winners. In our newsletter covering
the Pick 3, we pointed out how dramatically the payoffs change when non-favorites win each
leg. The Santa Anita example we used showed that Pick 3s with all three legs won by
favorites had payoffs averaging $31. If only two legs are won by favorites, the average
payoffs increased to $119. If only 1 leg is won by a favorite, the average payoff
increased again to $641. If no leg was won by a favorite, the average payoff was
$1,768. This speaks volumes to the need to be able to classify favorites as legitimate,
vulnerable or false, our critical handicapping skill #1. This applies to all Multi-Race
wagers.
Daily Double (See ALL-Ways Newsletter #10 and/or the Favorite ALL-Ways Article
Series): Here is how we like to play the Daily Double.
Ticket #1
A/ABC
Ticket #2
ABC/A
These two tickets cost a total of $12 for a $2 Double. Note that both tickets win if the
“A” horse wins the first leg and the other “A” horse wins the second leg.
Pick 3 (See ALL-Ways Newsletter #15 and/or the Favorite ALL-Ways Article Series): Here
is how we play the Pick 3. It is simply an extension of the Daily Double wagering
method. We play three tickets as follows:
Ticket #1
A/ABC/ABC
Ticket #3
ABC/ABC/A
Ticket #2
ABC/A/ABC
Each of these three tickets costs $9 for a $1 Pick 3 for a total cost of $27. This is the
same cost as if we had simply played three horses in each leg. However, in our
approach, you can actually win the wager three times if our “A” horse in each leg wins
its race.
The important point to make here is that our A and B horses, and perhaps our C horses
as well, will come out of our process for Skill #1 to find the two most likely non
favorite horses to win the leg. Our C horse, plus other horses we may include in each
leg, can also come from our search for a good non-favorite Key Horse.
When you are doing well with the Daily Double, move up to the Pick 3 and then
perhaps to the Pick 4. Going beyond the Pick 4, such as to the Pick 6, requires a whole
different wagering approach. But, the same three critical handicapping skills are
required.
Summary
Here is why the three critical skills are so important. Skill #1, which is to classify the
crowd favorite as legitimate or vulnerable or false, will help you determine whether to
play or pass the race. Skill #2, which is identifying the two non-favorite horses most
likely to win the race, will identify the two horses that will be your anchor horses in all
wagers moving up the logical the progression. Skill #3, which is to identify a good
non-favorite Key Horse, will help you keep the cost of your wagers down by reducing
the number of combinations. The process of performing skills #2 and #3 will help you
identify the horses that you should include in your wagers along with the two primary
candidates to win the race and a Key Horse.
What’s Next
Coming up: Wagering Series Part 5 of 5: “Wrapping It Up”
Part 5 highlights the key elements of a plan for profitable play. It discusses some
obstacles you may face along the way and how best to overcome them. And, it includes
a very powerful Summary Reference Sheet you can use at the track, including the Top
10 list of the most important handicapping and wagering issues you should consider
as you strive for reasonably consistent profitability.
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