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The Mystery of Horse Betting Odds Explained

Understanding how horse betting odds are createdand knowing which groups influence these odds will help you makebetter handicapping decisions and spot valuable overlays (horseswhich should be bet because they are better odds than they shouldbe).

As discussed in previous articles, the way tomake money at the races is not by picking winners – but by pickingwinners that pay more than they should. Anyone can pick 33 percentwinners simply by following the public betting favorite at posttime, but this has been proven to produce a flat bet loss overtime. And this is quite understandable considering that the oddsdisplayed on the tote board at post time are influenced by threegroups of people who are wrong 66 percent of the time.

Morning-Line Makers, Public Handicappers andthe General Public

The first group of people that influence theodds displayed on the tote board at post time includes those whocreate the morning line (the pre-race odds that appear in theracing programs and other racing publications); public handicappers;and the general public.

Morning-line odds are created by anyone fromrace office employees to public relations hacks to newspaper handicappers,many of whom have neither the time nor the desire to create aproper morning line. These morning-line odds makers are up againstit from the start, having to predict what the public will beton each horse in each race up to 48 hours prior to post time,meaning that late workouts, scratches and other changes cannotbe taken into account. Add to that the fact that many of theseodds makers have other more important job responsibilities thatactually hinder their ability to create a proper morning line.

If they work for the racetrack (which many do)the morning-line makers may be influenced by the fact that neitherthe front office at the track nor the horsemen want to see horseslisted at 99-1, (making the horse unattractive as a betting propositionand insulting the owner) or 2-5 (making both the horse and therace unattractive as a betting proposition), despite the factthat those odds may be correct. Instead, 99-1 shots are commonlylisted at 30-1 and 2-5 shots are listed at anywhere from 6/5 to9/5 to attract more betting.

Public handicappers working for newspapers andother off line and online publications are also influenced bythe morning line – in fact those that aren’t really handicappers(and there are many) base their selections on a combination ofinside tips (almost always wrong) and the aforementioned shakymorning lines. And public handicappers have a strong influenceon the general betting public.

The public looks at the morning line in the program,looks at the public handicapper’s selections, sees that they arebasically the same, and mistakenly assumes, “these guys must knowwhat they are talking about,” and compounds the inaccuracies evenfurther by betting more money on their selections.

Casual players who would not bet a horse listedat 99-1 on the morning line might not have a problem betting thesame horse listed at 20-1, especially if the horse is picked tofinish in the money by a public handicapper. The same is trueof a horse that is listed at 3-1 on the morning line but thatthat shows up as the 8/5 favorite on the tote board after someearly betting. The public believes this horse to be a “good thing”simply because his odds are lower than the morning line, and theyjump aboard to make the horse pay even less that it should. Conversely,if a horse is paying 4-1 when the morning line says it shouldbe paying 2-1, the general public may avoid the horse, thinkingthat the horse is cold on the board and the smart money is elsewhere.

Another scenario where both the morning-linemakers and public handicappers tend to err is when an entry oftwo horses is concerned. Even when the best horse in the entryshould be 4-1, the odds makers will sometimes mistakenly assumethat the entry should be lower odds because there are two horseswith a chance to win. Public handicappers often have a similaropinion, thinking their chances of picking a winner for theiradoring public are better if they get two horses for the priceof one. The public looks at the low morning line and the publichandicapper’s selections and compounds the error further by bettingmore money on what is sure to be an underlay at post time.

To read part II of this two part article click here