Two puzzling things about the Travers...

[Dunbar]

Two things about the Travers puzzle me.

1. The place payout on Bernardini.

I wrote down the place pool info from YouBet, and from my figs the place payout should have been $2.20 on Bernardini, not $2.10. Here is the pool info, along with my calcs on the place payout on Bernardini:

Horse, place pool, OddsTo1, $2 pay, after breakage
Hesanoldsalt 18587 0.3123 $2.62 $2.60
MinistersBid 41470 0.2629 $2.53 $2.50
Dr. Pleasure 13950 0.3223 $2.64 $2.60
High Cotton 38998 0.2682 $2.54 $2.50
Bernardini 231405
BluegrassCat 114350 0.1054 $2.21 $2.20

Total place pool: $458,761.

After each horse's name, the first number is the amount bet on that horse to place. The 2nd number is the "odds to 1" on Bernardini's place payoff if that horse would have finished 2nd.

For BlueGrass Cat finishing 2nd, the "Odds to 1" for the place payoff on Bernardini is:
Odds to 1 = (0.86 * 458,761 - 231,405 - 114,350)/(2 * 231,405) = 0.1054

If those figs are correct, the place payoff should have been $2.20, not $2.10.

Any chance anyone here can confirm my place pool figs? I thought I was copying them carefully, but I unfortunately don't have a screen save. Also, the takeout for WPS is 14% at Saratoga, right? If it were 15%, then the $2.10 would be correct.

Unless anyone here can see an error, I'm going to write to NYRA to ask about it.

2. The 2nd thing that surprised me about the Travers was that the bettors didn't like Bernardini enough to create a big minus pool in the show betting. Bernardini ended up with just 70% of the show pool on him. I expected to see over 90%.

Bernardini only needed to beat 3 horses in the Travers to "show". Usually there will be several bridgejumpers ready to unload big time on a prospect like that. When Sun King ran in Tampa, he had 96.7% of the show pool on him. I guess when there is a good 2nd best horse (BGC) in the race, it dampens the bridgejumpers' enthusiasm.

--Dunbar

[Scav]

Dunbar, NYRA uses Net pool pricing method now. Their is a write up about on Arlington's website. When you have heavy favorites that hit the board, it other pools payouts (Place/Show) are higher then normal. BUT when a favorite runs off the board with heavy money in those pools, the payouts are a little less.


This willl help explain it

An Explanation of Net-Pool Pricing:
Historically, prices on pari-mutuel races have been calculated by dividing the GROSS amount of winning bets by the net pool. The net pool is the total amount of wagers reduced by the commission rate, or take-out. This process returns a fair price provided all wagers were made using the same take out.

To accommodate multiple take-out rates, the Net-Pool pricing model was established in approximately 1995. Under the Net-Pool pricing model, the payouts are calculated by dividing NET amount of winning bets, (rather than the GROSS amount as in Standard Pricing) by the net pool. Each locality then multiplies the payout by the compliment of the commission rate (1- commission rate) to arrive at the local payout.

This process weights each wager according to the local commission rate, as the higher the local commission rate (take-out), the lower the local price. For example, $100 bet at 17% commission is worth $83, and $100 bet at 18% commission is worth $82. The payout at the locality with a 17% commission rate will therefore be slightly higher than the payout at the locality with an 18% commission rate.

Place and Show Pools:
For most pools and payouts, if all localities were using the same take-out rate, the prices would be identical under both the Standard and Net-Pool pricing models. But in any multiple winning runner pool (Place and Show and any other pool in which a dead-heat creates two or more different payouts), the Net-Pool model distributes the same amount of winnings slightly differently. This is a function of allocating the profits to the different winners based on their NET winnings rather than their GROSS winnings. The total amount of monies paid out will not change, but the net effect, in these cases, is that the favorites will pay a little less, while long shots will pay a little more.

$2.10 Payouts and Minus Pools:
Fans will notice that show pools with a heavy favorite that you would expect to return $2.10 for all three runners, now may now pay significantly higher on the two non-favorite horses. This is because that even though the payout on the favorite is reduced to a number even farther below the minimum $2.10 payout, it still must return $2.10. But the other horses are not participating in the minus pool as they were under the Standard Pricing model.

Calculating Projected Payouts using Tote Board Information:
One of the results of the Net Pool pricing model is that one can no longer accurately calculate the payouts using only the information available on the tote board. This is true for all pools, including the Win pool. The reason for this is one needs to know the commission rate of the wagers on each runner in each pool to determine the true NET pool and NET winning wagers. (The tote odds continue to be accurate, as the tote has all of the necessary information to properly calculate and display the current odds / payouts.

[Dunbar]

Wow, Scav, thanks. I totally missed that. And, I REALLY don't like it. It means when you bet in NY, you are NOT getting the full benefit of its 14% track take. The bettors elsewhere automatically raise the effective track take in NY. The amount they raise it depends on how much they bet. In the case of Bernardini, the track takeout in the place pool was AT LEAST 14.54%. It had to be that big to force the payoff down below $2.20.

I'll have to think about the other aspects of the "net-Pool" pricing. Maybe there is a good side to it, too. But I hate not being able to calculate accurate payoffs from the tote board info.

Thanks again for the info.

--Dunbar

[Scav]

ALOT of tracks are going to it. I know Arlington was one of the first NA tracks to do it, and I think Woodbine does it, along with California and Florida now

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by Scav

ALOT of tracks are going to it. I know Arlington was one of the first NA tracks to do it, and I think Woodbine does it, along with California and Florida now

Here's a link that shows NY went to it in October, 2005.

http://www.nyra.com/belmont/news.asp?id=1758&track=B

It may not be as awful as I initially thought. Apparently it primarily affects pricing in place and show pools. (pools with multiple "winners") I think we can still assume the track takeout on win bets in NY is 14%.

--Dunbar

[Dunbar]

fyi, I just calculated that under the old system (pre-October 2005), Bluegrass Cat would have paid $2.40 to place.

Odds to 1 = (0.86 * 458,761 - 231,405 - 114,350)/(2 * 114,350) = 0.2133.

$2 Payoff = 2 * 0.2133 + 2 = $2.42, which is $2.40 after breakage.

He actually paid $2.50. So, as the links suggested, when a big fav is involved in a place or show payoff, the payoff on big fav may go down, while payoffs on the others go up.

btw, there was a third "puzzle" that I think I understand now. The number I had for the total place pool at YouBet was actually $1 more than the sum of the individual pool amounts. I think that was a result of currency conversions when Canadian and other money is put into the NY pool. With roundoff, you can easily get that kind of $1 difference.

--Dunbar

[Cajungator26]

Holy shiat, Dunbar...

Thanks for making me think this morning. LMAO You can tell I'm not an accounting major.

[randallscott35]

The NYRA is now at 15%. Has been since Belmont Summer meet. The payout was correct. Breakage sucks and screws the bettor.

Originally Posted by randallscott35

The NYRA is now at 15%. Has been since Belmont Summer meet. The payout was correct. Breakage sucks and screws the bettor.

That's why it's called "breakage" ...

... they're doing everything they can to break you.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by randallscott35

The NYRA is now at 15%. Has been since Belmont Summer meet.

Thanks, Randall. I should have known that! Seems to me that the rise to 15% didn't get as much play as when they dropped it to 14%. Heck, this time last year they had proposed dropping the take to 13%.

Here's a link to track takes at most tracks. I should have checked this (again) before posting:

http://brisnet.com/cgi-bin/static.cg...out&header=off

Originally Posted by randallscott35

The payout was correct. Breakage sucks and screws the bettor.

Well, we can only ASSUME that the payout was correct. In fact, if you calculate the place payoff on Bluegrass Cat using a 15% track take, you come up with $2.39, which would be rounded down to $2.30. So the bettors got a real bargain when they collected $2.50 because of the new "Net-Pool" policy.

--Dunbar

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by randallscott35

Breakage sucks and screws the bettor.

That's true, but at least NY only takes half the breakage as other tracks. Are there any other tracks that round the payoff odds to 0.05?

--Dunbar