Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with horseracing

How do I bet on Rachael Alexandra in the Woodward?

warble — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:14:55 -0800

How do I place a bet on Rachael Alexandra in the upcoming Woodward Stakes without actually attending the race? I'm a lifelong though fairly casual fan of horse racing, but this year I've become a big fan of the filly Rachael Alexandra. It was announced this morning that she will be running in the upcoming Sept 5th Woodward Stakes against older males, trying to be the first female horse of any age to win this race.

I'd love to make a small bet on her in this race, but I have no idea how to do this. I've been looking online but can't seem to find anything.

Does anybody know how I could place a bet on this race remotely?

What happened to Wired's professional bettors?

geoff. — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:45:48 -0800

Remember this Wired article about "computer teams" analyzing horse races in Asia? What became of that? Were the theories sound? What exactly were they doing? Are there any other articles, academic or otherwise, about modeling horse races? The article sparked my interest, and I'm interested in the mathematics and theory behind this, yet I'm unable to find any references to statistical betting beyond the Wired article. In fact the names in the article don't even Google well.

I have a hard time believing that there are betting quants earning 24% returns in Hong Kong somewhere. Did these "funds" eventually go bust? Did they exist at all?

What was the payout on this wager?

zembla3 — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 17:24:09 -0800

Belmont Stakes question: What was the payout on a 2 dollar exacta box (24 dollar total wager because the box had four horses) that included Da'Tara and Denis of Cork?

Grand National this Saturday - online streams ?

Webbster — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:36:30 -0800

Any chance of me watching the National online outside the UK ? My extensive searching turned up naught. Phoned me mum to put on a bet and it would be nice to see my pick fall at the first. Help a punter out.

Where can I find horse racing data sets?

david1230 — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 12:18:15 -0800

Is there a good source of horse racing results in a machine readable format? I'd prefer them to be inexpensive or free, and to be up to date.

Fix my betting system.

Dreamghost — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:23:41 -0800

What's the flaw in this horse racing betting system? [MI] 1. Get some reliable tips, like 25%-30% accuracy over the last 2 years. You might want to compare tipsters for each race.

2. Initialise your "bling" score, indicating the number of currency units you want to make per bet, e.g. 10.

3. Never bet odds-on (i.e. where the first digit of the odds fraction is smaller than the second).

4. Divide bling by the odds fraction. Round up to something, e.g. half your initial bling. Stake this amount.

a) If you win, begin the cycle again at stage 2.

b) If you lose, add together your current bling, your initial bling, and your stake. This becomes your new bling. Bet on the next race from stage 4.

5. If you get a long losing streak and are getting scared by the bet amounts, start the process again and come back to the current cycle when you have some more money.

I don't know what I'm talking about, of course, but I can't see the risk with this system, as long as you have enough money to buffer with so you can get over a streak of losing tips. However, the amount is unlikely to be very much, since you are extremely unlikely to get more than 10 losers in a row, say.

Of course I don't believe in get-rich-quick schemes, so where's the flaw in the system I'm missing here?

Show me some edges in horseracing.

RavinDave — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 02:27:54 -0800

Any horse handicappers here? What are your favorite techniques? Which race
factors do you tend to zero in on? What sort of betting strategy or angles do you employ? Do you parlay? hedge? do straight tickets? dabble in the exotics? play it ultra-conservative? do birthdates? Understand, I haven't been to the track or placed an actual bet for well over a decade. You'll have to take it on faith that although I attended regularly for 2-3 seasons – I was not hardcore in any sense of the world. I never placed more than 2 dollar bets, was quite content to sit back with my drink and skip races – biding my time for better odds, and I never took more than $20 bucks extra to the track with me. Never. The track was right next to campus and my interest was kind of academic; I was learning how to use databases, spreadsheets and general programming at the time and it was easier to learn with something concrete to code. (One can only write so many check-balancing or loan amortization apps).

Back then, I calculated my own Beyer's Speed Figures and track biases -- and did quite nicely with them. That won't work so well now that the "Daily Racing Form" supplies them for you. My former edge is diluted since 80% of the track population is now aware of'em (they might not understand their significance, but they know they are useful and so bet the hell out of'em). This can be a good thing in some regard. I can spot an inflated or flukey Beyer pretty quick and shift my attention to a better horse while the crowd is still piling money on an inferior choice. Somewhat of a consolation, I guess.

Anyway, I've starting handicapping the field again lately. Been doing it for the last month. I have not gone to the actual track – just betting an imaginary $50 stake on paper. This is not always conducive to good mental health, since I "won" and imaginary several hundred dollars on a couple of exotics. Still, the object remains the same as earlier – an ironic replay of a decade ago – I'm using it to learn some current applications and coding strategies.

To that end ... I'm curious to test other strategies(*) people might have when they go to the track. I have about three weeks of data already in MySQL and would be interested in re-examining old races using different criteria coupled with varying betting strategies.

==========
(*)Not just strategies to discern which horse will win. Though fascinating, I'm equally interested in betting strategies.

Recommend a site for gambling on the Kentucky Derby.

rorycberger — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 15:55:11 -0800

Can anyone recommend a good gambling website in order to bet on the Kentucky Derby? [more inside] I'd prefer a site that just allows me to bet with a credit card, and not have to sign up for an account or anything. Not a big issue, I just want it to be as simple as possible since I don't plan on betting on anything again until next year's derby. I'm not sure if this is an issue, but if there are any sort of commissions or fees, i'd obviously like those to be as low as possible. Finally, i'm only going to be making small bets, probably totalling about $20-30, so anything exclusively for big gamblers would definitely be out. Thanks!

How does one buy a race horse?

biffa — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 07:45:43 -0800

My boss has asked me to find out how one goes about buying a race horse. I've suggested she perhaps considers a share through a syndicate and have found a few books through amazon, but does anyone have any practical advice as to reliable sources of information, reliable potential trainers or anything else she might need to consider? We're in the UK and she'd be looking to purchase here - I suspect this will make a difference to advice.