Re: Rebate Shops (415 Views)
Date: September 21, 2004 07:08PM
I think the key is identifying and exploiting inefficiencies in the various pools in combination with the rebates.
Assume the take is "x".
Not all odds categories have a loss expectation of "x" even though the take is "x". There are public betting tendencies that create inefficiencies in the pools relative to the take. (ex. huge longshots tend to be overbet and lose more than "x")
If you do some research and combine those inefficiencies with the inefficiencies that exist between pools (win, exacta, double, triple etc..) you can really chop into the take without doing any handicapping at all.
If you combine the above with a rebate, you have got to be really close to break even or better. Even a little handicapping skill relative to the take and you are beating the game.
Of course, all this assumes that you have the technology to process all the information and place the bets in a timely enough fashion to exploit these efficiencies.
Anyone can do this on a very limited basis manually.
Ex. Suppose a horse is paying $8.00 in the win pool. Sometimes, if you wheel him in the exacta in a way that guarantees an equal payout no matter which horse comes in second ($2 on a $20 ex, $4 on a $10 ex, $1 on a $40 ex etc..) you might find that the exacta produces a payoff of $8.60. That extra 60 cents is an inefficiency that should be exploited.
It is clear to me that many people are monitoring and exploiting this kind of stuff (and have been for many many years) because the inefficiencies are usually corrected by a flurry of late betting (and probably were long before I examined this manually 15 years ago).
The price changes are so rapid, it becomes almost usless to try to deal with it manually. However, a computer program can examine multiple horses in multiple pools and do sophisticated calculations quickly. So there must be a way of doing this in combination with the rebate and other information to get to profitability with only limited handicapping skills.