Beyer on Rainbow 6

[Kasept]

As we've been discussing on ATR...

http://www.drf.com/news/andrew-beyer...nsive-pot-gold

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Big jackpots in the pick six stir more excitement than almost anything else in American racing. The atmosphere at tracks is electric and fans are obsessed when they have a chance to shoot for a six- or seven-digit payoff. But there has rarely been sustained drama quite like the current mania at Gulfstream Park, where the Rainbow 6 – a devilish mutant of the conventional pick six – has thwarted bettors for more than a month. When racing resumes on Wednesday, the jackpot will start at $1,399,086.

Passion for this wager is not shared by the whole racing community – certainly not by the high-rolling, sophisticated bettors who are usually the dominant forces in exotic pools. Most of them shun the Rainbow 6 and view it as an abomination. But even racing fans who abstain will surely get a vicarious thrill watching the drama play out at Gulfstream Park daily, as it did Thursday, when a bettor was alive for a $1.1 million payoff with a horse who took the early lead before fading to finish third.

Modeled after a bet that originated at little Beulah Park in Ohio, the Rainbow 6 differs from the pick pix in two crucial ways. In a pick six, if many bettors select all six winners, they share the pot. If nobody picks six, part of the wagering pool is paid out as a consolation and the rest goes into the carryover jackpot for the next day's card.

But in the Rainbow 6, the whole pool is paid out only if a single ticket has all six winners. Otherwise, a consolation is paid out to the perfect tickets while 40 percent of the day's pool goes into the jackpot. (The single-ticket rule doesn't apply on the final day of the racing season, when there is a mandatory payout of everything in the pool.)

The takeout on the Rainbow 6 – i.e., Gulfstream's cut – is 20 percent. After 40 percent of the remainder goes into the jackpot pool, the effective takeout is a staggering 52 percent unless someone holds the sole perfect ticket. It's tough enough for the best of handicappers to overcome a 20 percent takeout rate; a 52 percent takeout makes the Rainbow 6 a worse investment than the lottery.

The other crucial difference between the Rainbow 6 and the pick six is their cost. The betting unit of the Rainbow 6 is 10 cents, compared with $2 for the pick six. Bettors can cover many more combinations at a dime a ticket. The more they bet, the more they reduce the chance that any of them can hold the sole perfect ticket. On Friday, Gulfstream offering a difficult sequence of races, most with fields of 11 or 12, and there were 1.21 million possible outcomes of the Rainbow 6. But with the public wagering $357,717, they were playing 3.57 million combinations. There could not have been many remotely logical combinations that were not part of these 3.57 million.

When Gulfstream introduced the Rainbow 6 two years ago, I wrote a column labeling it a "sucker bet" and expected that it would die once bettors saw how futile it was to chase the big jackpot. (That's what happened at Beulah Park.) Instead, Gulfstream bettors are wagering more than ever – a phenomenon for which economist and gambler Maury Wolff offered a good explanation: "People love the 10-cent unit." He observed that a bettor playing a conventional $2 pick six with a $100 bankroll is hopelessly outgunned – he can't even afford to buy a ticket using two horses in each race. (That's a $128 investment.) But with $100 worth of 10-cent tickets, Wolff said, "He's got enough coverage that he's in the game."

Gulfstream's president, Tim Ritvo, confirmed that the boom in the Rainbow 6 is being driven by players betting $300 or so – not by the wiseguys betting thousands. And these players, he said, seem indifferent to the 52-percent bite.

I asked the Daily Racing Form's Steve Crist, a serious pick-six player and author of "Exotic Betting," for his ideas on tackling the Rainbow 6, and he replied: "I would counsel people not to play it unless there is a mandatory payout [on closing day] or a seven-digit carryover."

Now that a seven-digit carryover exists, how might a bettor approach the Rainbow 6? In my opinion, a bettor should play only if he sees a glimmer of hope of winning the whole pool. Otherwise, it's pointless to fight the 52 percent takeout. There can be no glimmer if the six races include some small fields or even one short-priced favorite who looks almost unbeatable. Too many other people will pick six winners.

Wednesday's card offers no such easy spots; the six races include four 12-horse fields and no favorite at odds of less than 5-2 in the morning line. Even with such a difficult card, a bettor who hopes to win a seven-figure payoff will need to come up with a longshot winner – one who defies most handicapping logic – somewhere in the six-race sequence.

It is impractical to play a single Rainbow 6 ticket scattered with wacky longshots in every race. It is a better strategy to start with a ticket using relatively logical selections. Then fashion another ticket substituting wacky longshots for the logicals in the first leg of the Rainbow 6; do the same for the second leg, the third leg, etc., and hope to hit one 30-1 shot who will bust out most of the other players. This is a too-short explanation of a complex process; bettors who want to employ a smart strategy should read Crist's definitive book or watch his DVD "Exotic Tickets."

For a handicapper armed with optimal strategy and a formidable bankroll, the Rainbow 6 still presents an almost impossible challenge. But even those who recognize that the wager is a sucker bet may find it hard to resist the lure of a seven-figure payoff.

[cmorioles]

It's like playing the lottery, except in the lottery you actually still win a bunch even if others hit. NO thanks!

[Calzone Lord]

By some miracle, I'd love to see this thing continue to carryover until closing day.

That would be mania.

[outofthebox]

Originally Posted by arizonadave

What did the dime P6 pay on Sunday?

15k

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by cmorioles

It's like playing the lottery, except in the lottery you actually still win a bunch even if others hit. NO thanks!

I'm with you.

When the mandatory payout kicks in on closing day...it is an incredibly good bet, obviously.

[OTM Al]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

I'm with you.

When the mandatory payout kicks in on closing day...it is an incredibly good bet, obviously.

There's no equilibrium strategy to play this thing that I can come up with as it is easy to give a counter example for most anything. If everyone waits and loads up for closing day and ignores the day before closing day, then that is the day to jump the bet for a chance to take the whole thing down. But then if everyone took that strategy, it would roll back to the day before that and so on...Seven fig pool just play to pure greed, not smart handicapping. Mr. Crist's approach sounds like a good alternative, but then you will be dumping hundreds on a dime based bet and will still get busted if you get 2 chaos results out of 6. He probably can afford it. I can't. No thanks.

It is an absolute sucker bet. A real P6 is hard enough and should be played by very few people out there, but it seems like everyone now has big ..errrr... "johnson" syndrome and wants to pretend to be a playah. This thing sucks the money right out of that crowd, creating zero churn and, as Mr Beyer says, a 52% effective take. Worst bet in existance.

[ateamstupid]

The success of the Rainbow 6 in the face of blatantly terrible value underscores what a counterproductive anachronism it is to have $2 Pick 6 minimums at our major tracks. I'm not saying we should go to $.10, but just from a marketing standpoint, telling people "you could win 5 figures with this bet! First, put up 4 figures" is embarrassing.

[Vegaskid]

I would imagine the betting of the pick 6 on days of wed & thurs will produce the single ticket winner due to the fact the amount of players putting in tickets those days are somewhat lower than the weekends. But the fact that some syndicates are going at it now that its in the 7 figure range could cause every combination to be covered up. I will pass and continue to root for carryover until mandatory payout on closing day, then look to load up on that day of what i would have been donating daily. My friend insists now that everyone is playing into it it has caused even multiple payouts to be very juicy because the amount of money being dumped into long shot plays. So he plays modest 20 tickets keying some strong favs thinking the payouts are nice due to that reason. I'm yet to be convinced.

[golfer]

Originally Posted by ateamstupid

The success of the Rainbow 6 in the face of blatantly terrible value underscores what a counterproductive anachronism it is to have $2 Pick 6 minimums at our major tracks. I'm not saying we should go to $.10, but just from a marketing standpoint, telling people "you could win 5 figures with this bet! First, put up 4 figures" is embarrassing.

I agree completely. I hit the thing Saturday with a "Syndicate" $150 wager. Was it a great thing to do with $150? Would that $ have been better spent somewhere else? Maybe/probably, but I know one thing, I'm not putting in a $3K ticket, syndicate or not. So maybe a point between .10 cents and $2 is what's needed.


But it's definitely the .10 cent incriment that attracts people, horrible takeout or not, IMO

The consolation payoffs have been decent at least. So you may not have the sole winning ticket but I would imagine some of these players may have hit these consolations multiple times and/or on multiple days.

I really don't agree with a one ticket approach that wins the jackpot. What if the same player plays multi tickets and hits it twice and he having the only 2tickets won. He would get the consolation times 2 instead of the full jackpot.

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by OTM Al

a 52% effective take. Worst bet in existance.

Yep... until closing day when they give it all away and the takeout goes from 52% to positive expectations with a lot of dreamers still playing fluky combinations.

[OTM Al]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Yep... until closing day when they give it all away and the takeout goes from 52% to positive expectations with a lot of dreamers still playing fluky combinations.

It's amazing to read the comments at DRF about this (well, it is always at minimum stupifying, regardless of what the article is...). It's lotto except even if you win you generally don't really win.

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by OTM Al

It's amazing to read the comments at DRF about this (well, it is always at minimum stupifying, regardless of what the article is...). It's lotto except even if you win you generally don't really win.

It's pretty amazing to read some of the comments in this thread as well.

[asudevil]

Any guesses on what the pot could be come early April?

[hi_im_god]

Originally Posted by helicopter11

I really don't agree with a one ticket approach that wins the jackpot. What if the same player plays multi tickets and hits it twice and he having the only 2tickets won. He would get the consolation times 2 instead of the full jackpot.

and deserve it. bad enough you're just about guaranteed of having all logical and most completely random combinations counterfeited. why would anyone play multiple combinations of the same numbers and counterfeit themselves?

[art vanderlay]

Today it paid $111500 for a dime.

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by art vanderlay

Today it paid $111500 for a dime.

Did you take a look at the parlay?

It was over $400K for a dime.

Horrible takeout or not, it attracts a lot of bettors and those carryovers help fuel the dead money.

Most bettors at the track don't know what a takeout is let alone what the takeout is so when they see a 1.3 million dollar carryover, they are going to play it.

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

Did you take a look at the parlay?

It was over $400K for a dime.

I doubt anyone of the people who hit the pick 6 today did it based off of 1 ten cent ticket. Then you can compare your parlay fact to that person who did.