Monday, May 09, 2005

Why I am not a professional gambler

Welcome to Monday, cakesniffers. Imagine my chagrin that I took work home this weekend and I still have a ton of work to do today and tomorrow. Crappy crap crap.

A Deadwood review will be forthcoming as well as my current rage regarding the Prez, but first a comment on the Kentucky Derby.

Here's a little lesson in gambling, in case you've never bet on the ponies. There are three types of bets that one can make beyond just betting for a horse to win, place or show. These bets are called the exacta, trifecta and superfecta. (I won't go into daily doubles) In an exacta, you choose the horse that will win and the horse that will place. For the trifecta, you select win, place and show. And for the superfecta (can you guess?) you pick the first four finishers.

The odds were so long on Giacamo (50-1) and Closing Argument, that a $2 exacta bet paid off over $9,000. And the trifecta? A $2 trifecta paid off over $133,000. Yeah, the thought makes me want to puke. You don't want to know what the superfecta pay-off was.

My friend Lauren asked yesterday why a person wouldn't go through and just pick every combination, if the pay-off is that great. Well, the last time that a horse won with odds as long as Giacamo was in 1913. Simply put, it almost never happens that you will have a pay-off like that. And if it had been Bellamy Road and Afleet Alex as one and two, then all the money you spent on the other combinations would put you in the hole because the exacta pay-off would have been minimal.

Suffice it to say, there aren't too many people who made money on the Derby this weekend, but those who did are probably rolling around in a huge pile of money right now.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous6:41 AM

    You said cakesniffers... hee hee... I guess you've met Carmelita Spats.

    ReplyDelete