Ok, ONE last time

Originally Posted by philcski

Has nothing to do with parlays... its simply a calculation of pool $$$ / live tickets. Assuming a 25% takeout, $53,025 was available to pay the winners in the first pool, which means there were 1,196 $1 winners (breakage (rounding) means this number is off a little.) In the second pool, $89,565 was available to pay the winners, so there were 51 $1 winners. 51*$1,756.40 = $89,565.

Parlaying the win price is only an ESTIMATE. If anything, the first payoff was dead on; a straight parlay would have paid $90.40 for $2. In this case... that's generous. Starting a pick-3 with a 1/5 shot usually will be less than the parlay price.

The 2nd paid significantly under the parlay- $4,773.60 for $2 was the actual parlay price.

Can you give me a rundown of these races by class & size?

Yes, yes, yes. My whole reason for being highly cautious of Pik bets, which I went to war with Oracle and Scuds on and no one understood. In fact most people backed them because after all, its Oracle and Scuds, not a minor league poster like myself.

Kurt. If the track gave you Pik combination odds, like the Win odds on the tote board do, then you would know that a lot of people had/have a ticket just like yours. Ex. If a horse is even odds to win, you know a lot of people have bet on your horse. But you do not know how many people hold tickets on pik bets that are the same as yours, therefore you do not know what the payout will be. Reguardless of what the pool size says. It does not matter because you dont know how many people hold winning tickets. You do know that a lot of money is on a horse that is even odds with a straight up win bet because the tote board tells you. There is no pik combination tote board until a number of races composing that pik bet are in.

Now after dissing pik bets, I will say they are highly entertaining. They are much more fun to try and figure out where you go deep etc... based on what the rest of the public might do. Getting the best bang for your buck by building a good ticket, while at the same time avoiding the massive number of public tickets that might be a winner, but are not worth the risk. This is why I find pik bets interesting.