I figured some of the posters on this site will appreciate this - it happened literally minutes ago at Daytona Beach greyhound track. Daytona Beach just finished its afternoon session - I need to give some background info - so you can appreciate this - The total Win pools for the 15 races today were: Race 1: $351 Race 2: $319 Race 3: $216 Race 4: $349 Race 5: $246 Race 6: $239 Race 7: $279 Race 8: $234 Race 9: $171 Race 10: $804 Race 11: $266 Race 12: $488 Race 13: $3,378 Race 14: $3,152 Race 15: $1,532 Notice something odd here? The pool totals for races 13, 14, and 15 are unusually large. Daytona is obviously a very small track, with small pools. The 10th race is a very large pool for Daytona, but within the normal range. Now, look at the betting on the dogs in the 13th race: The amounts bet on the individual dogs for the 13th race were: Dog 1: $509 Dog 2: $525 Dog 3: $532 Dog 4: $126 Dog 5: $524 Dog 6: $536 Dog 7: $524 Dog 8: $102 Quite obviously, some one put down, at the very last minute, $500 bets on all the dogs but the two favorites. A total of $3,000. How did he do? The 6 dog won, paying $9.00 for a $2 ticket, giving the bettor a total return on his 250 tickets of $2,250, for a net loss of $750. The 14th race is even better. I was betting the 1 dog, which should have gone off as the favorite or co-favorite, I was hoping for 2-1 odds. I was quite unhappy when I saw he was going off at 1-9 odds - My dogs win a very high percentage of the time, but 1-9 odds don't make money. The 1 dog dropped to 1-5 odds as they were going into the starting box, and they showed the last tote totals at the track. Still yuk - 1-5 odds don't make money either. Imagine how surprised I was to see the 1 dog pay off $25.00 on a $2 ticket when he won. How could a dog go from 1-5 odds to 11-1 odds in 30 seconds? Here are the betting totals for that race on the individual dogs. Dog 1: $181 Dog 2: $433 Dog 3: $408 Dog 4: $425 Dog 5: $429 Dog 6: $425 Dog 7: $418 Dog 8: $433 Some one put down, at the very last second, $400 bets on every dog in the race except the 1 dog, which was a prohibitive favorite. Net loss to the system bettor: $2,800. Total losses over the 13th and 14th races: $3,550. What is this person doing? Maybe he learned that favorites win only 27% of the time in greyhound races, and are over-valued on the average? Maybe he didn't think about the size of the betting pools, and how his bets would distort the odds in such small pools? Maybe he was just a complete idiot? But he wasn't wiped out yet. He still had a little money left. The bets on the individual dogs for the 15th race were as follows: Dog 1: $96 Dog 2: $81 Dog 3: $318 Dog 4: $331 Dog 5: $317 Dog 6: $28 Dog 7: $316 Dog 8: $45 He obviously had enough money left to make $300 wagers on 4 dogs, total of $1,200 bet - so he made his bets on the 4 dogs with the longest odds. The winner of the 15th race was the 1 dog, so the system bettor's net loss on this race was $1,200 - giving him a net loss over the three races of $4,750. It's good to have a system.
A quick note on the parimutual numbers. Just thought I should mention something about the numbers above. These are the raw parimutuel numbers, before rake and breakage are removed from the pool. Hence, in race 13, the total win pool was $3,378, while the $536 bet on the winning dog represents 268 $2 tickets (equivalent) paying off $9.00 each, for a total of $2,412. That leaves $966.00 unaccounted for - that's the rake and breakage. Greyhound tracks take from 19% to 27% rake out of the pool, depending on the track and pool. They also truncate payouts to the $0.10 or $0.20 increment. So if the payout, after rake, comes to $9.09 per ticket, they pay out $9.00 and the $0.09 per ticket is the breakage, and goes to the winner of the race, being added into the purse.
I'm amazed at just how small these pools are. Even if you had a great ability to handicap, you couldn't make any noticeable money. Wow.
Greyhound pools Daytona Beach is a small track, but even the larger greyhound tracks don't see any handle. Some tracks can't even do $100,000 per night handle - even running 15 -20 races - doing $150,000 a night is about average. Orange Park does maybe $250,000 some nights, and I think Palm Beach can hit $500,000. At greyhound tracks, the larger pools are superfecta, trifecta, and then Quinella and Exacta. Win, Place, and Show bets are afterthoughts. But even the quinella pools at some tracks don't break $1,000 in most races. When I was much younger, I played the dogs at the Multnomah Kennel CLub in Portland, Oregon. Crowds of 10,000+ and handles of $1,000,000 a night were common, with only 10 races per night. MKC closed down a few years ago, just before they closed, they were seeing attendence of maybe 200 per night, and handles of $50,000 or so. That's been the story at all tracks since they started doing state lotteries, video poker, and indian casinos, etc. All the casual bettors have disappeared. Greyhound racing is pretty much a dead sport in the USA. But you can make money at it still. You need to carefully size your bets. I actually have a spreadsheet, where I looked at typical pool sizes, at the different tracks, and calculated the impact of my betting different amounts of money, profitability, given my win/place/show percentages, and typical payoff odds on my dogs, etc. So have calculated out the optimal max bet size for each pool at each track, for my handicapping performance. Some tracks and pools, a $3 bet is about the most the pool can handle. Some, you can go up to $20+. Key to betting greyhounds is to be very selective on the races you bet - Today, I handicapped more than 250 races today and bet ... one. You also need to be able to identify good dogs that aren't necessarily going to be favorites and will pay off well. That doesn't mean 10-1 necessarily, but you can't make money betting all favorites. Obviously, you also need to be able to handicap a lot of races quickly. I use screens, which select a small number of races to look at, while discarding almost all with only a few seconds review. The ones I look at closely, I spend only a few minutes on each, mostly data entry. Takes maybe an hour to handicap 250 races. Also, without saying I would guess, you need to hit a very high percentage of your bets, which is why you need to be so selective. Greyhound races are very competitive, and it is rare that one dog will be really dominant and a very high percentage to win - so you are looking for rare events. Online betting makes greyhound betting and winning some money possible. I follow 9 to 12 tracks, depending on time of year and which are running. I am sure there are a few professional handicappers with the greyhounds. But the sport can't support very many. I make some money at it, enough that it is worth my time to put in doing it, but am just getting back into betting greyhounds, and building up a bankroll, and expanding my betting options as I sharpen up my handicapping. You certainly aren't going to get rich doing it.
Likely Explanation Whoever did the betting on track was probably manipulating the prices. Why? Probably because they are able to bet somewhere online where their bets aren't going into the parimutuel pools, but are being paid off at track odds.
Betting purpose? The legal online betting sites in the USA all put the bets into the track pools. So do the big off shore online betting sites (thoroughbred and greyhound). The bettor may have been betting online, not at the track. That would have made it easier to get the bets in at the very last second. The casino sports books in Nevada keep their own greyhound and some horse track books, so it might make sense to bet in Nevada and use online wagering to skew the odds - but would take a fairly sizable bet at the sports book - to make it worthwhile - and that would probably stand out. I don't think the sports books usually get big action on greyhounds. Also - the pattern over the races makes it unlikely, I think. The bets in the last race - look a lot like someone was putting in the remainder of their bankroll, trying for a desperation hit - covering only 4 dogs instead of 6 or 7, and with smaller bets. I suppose there are online sites off shore where they would keep their own books, so what you're suggesting is possible - but don't think that would explain the 15th race bets.
Comment I thought that the Nevada casinos limited betting on greyhounds pretty severely, so did some googling - found a Gambling Times article - they say bets to Win/Place/Show on greyhounds require supervisor permission if over $20, and the casinos will not take $50 or $100 bets - too much risk since they keep their own book - That's in keeping with my experience with Nevada casinos. So couldn't put down a $1,000 bet to win. I can't think of any reputable off shore site - that would keep its own book on greyhounds - that would accept such action - so can't see this as odds skewing - no place to put down the action -
