Ellis Pick 4 Takeout. Let's Participate
 

We've all heard from players, writers, econimists, etc, that lowering the takeout will increase handle. Well, now that Ellis Park has stepped up to the plate and lowered the takeout of its late Pick 4 pool to a paultry 4%, let's show the industry that what the experts have been saying is true. If you play Ellis Park, or just like to play Pick 4's, you should be getting involved in this pool. As players, our biggest gripe is with the exuberent takeout in the pools. We should be extatic about this. Let's all help make this a huge success that will hopefully start a positive trend in the industry. Congratulations to Ellis Park on getting this started. I will certainly be involved everyday.

I agree

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19620851/

the only rub is it is difficult to hit 3 in a row let alone 4.
but if I remember Ellis.. they usally only let the favorite win every race
:o

I totally agree. If we poured money into this the way we pour money into "guaranteed pools" and carryovers, maybe we could actually get tracks to drop takeout once in a while. I'll be handicapping and playing ELP a lot more these days.

I usually avoid anything to do with Ellis, but I'm going to support the effort.
This is an idea that we need to see take root and send a message to the rest of them.

I first found out about this via e-mail from Equiform. They are providing free "Xtras" in a effort to get their customers to play the Pick-4 at Ellis. be glad to forward the e-mail with the product to anyone who's intersted.

I have never been a fan of Ellis, either, but you have to admire their attempt.
The sport needs more attractions like this. I think more and more facilities are finding the slots are not the golden parachute it was once thought to be (thought they help). And, attractions that cater to the base of the game's audience are the best way to attract and turn around business.

something that not everyone may already know yet is, shippers from Fairmont Park do well at Ellis.

I think it's very important to support this 4% takeout bet.

Look, even if you create a $100 ticket by throwing darts at the entries, you are giving up just $4 in average expected loss. Surely you can rationalize a $4 "expense" as a tradeoff for the excitement of the bet AND doing something for the future of the game (from the bettors' standpoint).

If even a savvy board like this doesn't en masse recognize the advantage of betting into a 4% takeout vs betting into a 15-20% takeout, then racing's decision-makers can safely conclude that race-bettors do not care about takeout.

--Dunbar

From what I've seen, the pools have been pretty strong. $35,000+ on weekdays is good for Ellis, no?

The pools have been $37,000 on avg the past two days. Much better than this past weekend when they were competing against Churchill.

Would be nice to see the pools reack $60,000+ on the weekends.

Oh and you can play for $.50 and the avg payouts have been strong so far.

Good for Ellis, yes indeed.

Yesterday they handled $1.7 Mil. Arlington handled $3.5 Mil.

The Ellis p-4 had higher handle than either of the Arlington p-4's.

great post

It's large for Ellis, ateam, but it's not a get-noticed number. There's not much point in dropping the take from 22% to 4% if all you're going to accomplish is double the pool size.

Why shouldn't that Pick-4 pool be over $100K? That would be attention-getting. What if it got big enough to actually siphon off simulcast money from other tracks? That would get a lot of people's attention.

We should all be talking this up to bettors we know. I hope it gets mentioned a lot at ATRAB. Beyer should devote a column to it.

--Dunbar

It would help if every race on the card wasn't a low level claiming race.

Tomorrow's pick four is very decent. It's got one low-level claimer, but also an MSW, an ALW and a stakes.

There's a starter allowance and a $50k claiming race in the p-4 today. I don't think the two other races are any more difficult than many of the NYRA p-4's that often include NY breds. To each his own...

Hmmm I just tend to do a lot better in regular allowance, stakes, and MSW. I might try tommorow's card though. :)

anyone who is a serious player must be supporting this wager for a number of reasons which are very obvious.

The word is getting out, I think you will see these pools grow in the next few weeks, remember 37k is DOUBLE of last year. Nope, takeout has no affect on handle, friggen morons.

I mean you can caveman 60 combo's for 30 bucks, you hit the bit about 1/7 times you are a winner for certain, and with a little bit of luck a big winner.