Has anyone else besides me been frustrated with pk4 payouts lately at all tracks, and to a lesser extent, trifectas? I feel as if the 50 cent base is destroying the value of the wager. I do not have statistical studies to back it up, but I do play everyday and have noticed it getting worse and worse. Routinely now I am seeing pk4 payouts paying the same or less than the parlay at alot of the major tracks.....an occurrence that should be far less common given that the whole appeal to a pk4 is only getting hit with the takeout once, as opposed to a win parlay where you get hit 4 times. If these bets are barely paying the parlay at best, what's the point anymore?

The 50 cent base has it made it way too easy to cover and spread, not to mention in this age of small fields (lookin at you California), it becomes way too cheap and easy to just buy races. This results in more and more tickets having all four winners. The pie is getting sliced too many ways anymore. A losing ticket with a dollar base can easily turn into a winner for 50 cents, if you allow yourself to double the amount of combinations you can play within your budget. Yes, I realize big tickets for 50 cent bases arent very economical, or even value based, but most players dont care about that. They treat it like a pk6, just try to get all the winners on one ticket. Not to mention it is tougher to even measure the value of the ticket before hand (different than win and exacta wagering) so most dont even bother to worry about pk4 value. Want to play a trifecta? Forget it. That 40/1 shot you got to run third is irrelevant anymore. It is way too cheap and easy to just hit all. If a bomb runs third, the payoffs, in my opinion, seem to be very compressed lately.

Im curious other's thoughts. Has anyone else been noticing this the past year or two, or am I just in a bad spell of getting crummy payouts and need to suck it up?