Mall,

As a general rule (e.g., Thursdays at Aqueduct) you are right about where the majority of the handle comes from. Two comments on that:

1) On the biggest racing days of the year (KY Derby, Preakness, Belmont, BC), the ones I really concentrate on (out of necessity more than anything else), the % of handle that comes from the 'unwashed' is more than substantial. I don't know the percentages but it has got to be over 50% of the mutuel pools.

2) Just because big bettors rule the parimutuel roost does not mean that they are all smart, sharp, or adopt the same handicapping theories about the 'bounce'. A lot of these guys believe in theories that are shaky at best and a lot of them are probably terrible money managers. You can probably count on one hand the percentage of guys who are good enough to beat the takeout and as a % of total handle I'll bet it's well below 50%.

BTW, my standard deviation analysis project is stalled for now. I have had no time to work on it for the past few weeks. I'll get it done but it will be awhile. Maybe by the X-mas holidays.