Bankroll Management
This week on the In The Money Network’s Redboard Rewind with Dan Tordjman and Spencer Luginbuhl, there was mention that the horse racing scene does not get the same bankroll management support that is available to poker players. It gave me the wild idea to throw something together for bankroll management and how as horseplayers we can sustain long term and profitably.
Horse racing is not as cut as dry as in other sports with their money management techniques, no one is out at the OTB, attempting to Martingale their way through a card in hopes of hitting something and doing it successfully. This would be an example of something not to do, as it can consume an entire bankroll in one day, or in one card. The fact that I am leading with a negative should be telling, as the negative things that a bettor can do, are far worse than subtle positives I will write about.
All too often the racetrack marketing personnel can grab the attention of a huge payday with key marketing in regards to a carryover pool in a pick 5 or pick 6, but realistically, should the bettor with a small bankroll be participating in these fields? I say no and here is why. I am going to use the simple number of $1,000. Even in what appears to be a cheap ticket of a .20 pick 6 ticket, most players are going to what to “spread” or bet several horses in a few legs to ensure survivability over what could be a few hard races. In this simple scenario we have 6 races and let us choose 3 horses in each race. This ticket is going to cost $145.80 for a sequence, over 14% of our bankroll as a small-time player. You can trim this down and single 1 race, which is selecting just 1 horse, and that brings the ticket price down to $48.60, must more manageable at less than 5% of the bankroll, but at what cost? This is essentially an $48.60 win bet on the single horse you selected, which for your bankroll, would be detrimental long term. Do not get me wrong the allure of a huge jackpot draws everyone in, but sometimes a bettor can be playing above their means and will not be able to survive long term.
I use the Pick 6 example because it is a key marketing tool and pool for a lot of racetracks, and it is simple to see how a player would be able to only survive for 6 days of betting. The same thing applies to the other horizontal wagers, as a Pick 5 ticket can be costly, depending on a bettor’s opinion and race card. Now I know someone is going to say, “Hey Bryan, I hit a Pick 6 on a $4.80 ticket, you’re full of it!” Sure, there are those stories, and they are glamourized, but show me a winning ticket like that, and I can show you 100000 that lost on the same dream.
Another thing that horse racing does very well, is offer a new opportunity to make your dreams come true every 20 minutes. Does this mean that we must play every race, I sure hope not? Often overplaying a card is a bettor’s worst friend. Give me 20 minutes from the end of a previous race, to the start of the next, I can find a betting angle I like that might win, but probably loses. I want to leverage the opinions I have formed from thorough handicapping, not jumping at the chance for the next adrenaline rush action opportunity. I see many people daily, telling me who they like in every single race of every card possible. They start the morning off with NYRA action, move down to Florida in between races, and then make their way west as the day rolls on. Personally, I cannot take that approach nor recommend it, as I enjoy winning on my best opinions opposed to losing on a hunch.
Knowing a pool, and if it is appropriate for your bankroll size is important to understanding if you are setting yourself up for a long trip, or a ride around the block. Am I saying everyone needs to be playing Win pools only? No! As we continue, it will become evident of one approach to use to stay in this game long term, and that is churning the same money.
So, let us go back to the $1,000 bankroll mentioned earlier, how can we preserve this to sustain ups and downs of winning? I like to take 5%-10% of my bankroll for a card and set out with a target. You must be able to say, I am profitable today and pay yourself. If I continue with this example, we have $100 in play for a card, I am looking to make $100. Depending what you read or where you read it, the average horseplayer will win 30% of the time, which means in 12 races, you can logically expect to win 4 races, once you understand the game. I will handicap an entire card and write down my selections- whether I refer to them as A’s, B’s, C’s or just rank them, I find my strongest play of the day. For recent reference, I am going to use this past weekend at Oaklawn Park. Charlatan in race 11 was the easiest single of the day for me, but at an expected 2/5 odds, I could not win bet the horse. So, I look at races before and after to find daily double or Pick 3 opportunities, using Charlatan as the key to the day. I liked Rushie in race 10, and race 12 I was between By My Standards and Mr. Freeze, with Night Ops as my longshot.
As Race 10 gets closer to post time, I look for my opportunities to wager watching the daily double probable with 11/1 for that sequence and probable’s showing about $10 on the double. Given the big pools, I was hopeful I would be able to get a little more, but as they loaded the gate, the single bet on Rushie seemed to be a more valuable bet to me given the unknowns of race 11. Rushie was still 3-1 and was a good opportunity for a win wager. In this scenario I would take $20 of my available money and play a win bet. I also played a $3 pick 3 that went 11/1/4,12,13 for $9.00. We won with Rushie paying $8.00 and returned $80. Our bankroll for the day is now at $151 with $9 still in play, but I want to put profit in my pocket- so the winnings of $60 go into the pocket- we are still at $91 of money available to wager with our best bet in Charlatan coming up. (If I played the double 11/1- which ended up winning, the same $20 would have returned $98.00, so I accepted lower odds on a single race wager but did not lose out much)
With Charlatan being a very short price, personally I could not bring myself to place a win bet, but in race 12 my picks were 9/2, 3-1 and 15-1. I approached this with a $20 double 1/12, $5 double 1/13, 4. Total risk of $30 on this race, but considering we won our first play of the day, we have a little more tolerance for risk. Charlatan went on to win easily to pay $2.80 (A $20 win bet on Charlatan would have returned $28- not enough return for me). But we were alive on 3 doubles in Race 12, alive to the 4,12,13 and our pick 3. As we know By My Standards won Race 12 and the double paid $13.00 returning us $130. The $3.00 pick 3 returned $112.80- which was perfect considering we keyed around our favorite horse. Our total bankroll now is $303.80 and $60 in the pocket from the previous race. (Had I expected By My Standards to go off at 9/2, I would have had a large win bet instead of the double, but on my scale I had the horse at 2-1, so thought the $13.00 double was a gift) Total for the Oaklawn Derby Day- $59 risked- $322.80 returned. We profited $263.80 and have our initial $100 to keep for tomorrow!
I do not risk win bets for a heavy favorite but tried to play around that horse that I thought was much the best and take advantage of pools. By not settling for a $0.50 pick 3, I went with a $3.00 pick 3, to “hammer” what should be decent prices around my favorite horse. It is not always the case that you will like horses in consecutive races, but with this past Saturday being the final day of Oaklawn, with many grade 1 shippers the backend of the card was logical, and with inflated pool sizes. Another thing that takes awhile is understanding pricing and odds, to have a correct interpretation of what pools to attack. I was wrong today, By My Standards was worth a win bet as he went off at higher odds than I expected. I will go back and figure out where I miscalculated what odds I expected, even though I won, because it could have been a fatal error. If Charlatan had ran poorly and lost, I would have tracked back to By My Standards with a win bet but being alive in the Daily Double and Pick 3, for this bankroll size, I was appropriately leveraged.
If we were to be less fortunate and lose our first bet, we would have been -$20 +$9 on our Pick 3 for a total of $29. That would have left us with $71 to play the doubles in Race 11 and 12 with room to spare, so we would not be feeling a crunch. Some of you might be thinking, why did I not take $50 on Rushie or Charlatan if I liked them so much, and if you recall earlier, most win 4 out of 12 races on average- I do not want to risk 50% of my daily bankroll on 1 race, because if I lose 2 times, I will be busted for the day and looking at either going on “tilt” or diving deeper into my pocket- both of which are recipes for disasters.
There are many avenues to approach in horse racing, many theories on how to make money, or how to hit homeruns, but by playing within your bankroll means, and finding the races you like the best, or horses you like the best, you will enjoy this game much more. No one ever says “Wow, that 2/5 horse made my day!!”, usually it is “I cannot believe that chalk lost, I need to find the ATM”. To last in this game, we want to say, we found our favorite horse, stayed within our budget, and came away winners. If we lose, we only lost today, for tomorrow will bring us new horses, new tracks, and new opportunities. We will have home runs and we will hit home runs, but for now we learn to survive the strikeout.
Bryan Doranski is a freelance columnist, and active horseplayer, frequently seen in National Horseplayer Championship tournaments, and cash contests. Visit him on Twitter (@BDHorseplayer) and accepting of opportunities for columns regarding horse playing, contests and wagering.