Latest Cronley Article- "hitting 17 with dealer showing a 5-spot"

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by smuthg

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hor...ory?id=4204621

I'm always a big fan of Jay, and found this article pretty entertaining.

It also got me thinking, what are some of the horseplayer "equivalent of hitting on 17 with the dealer showing a 5-spot"?

thoughts?

Hmm, since you asked...

For one thing, it would be a BIG mistake to NOT hit 17 against a dealer 5, if the 17 includes an ace that is counted as "11". Hitting improves your result by about 13% of a bet.

If we're talking about "hard 17", then it's difficult for a horseplayer to do something as stupid as hitting "hard 17" against a dealer 5. Hitting hard 17 against a 5 costs about 50% of your bet on average. Even with 15-25% takeout, it's tough to make horse bets costing 50% of your wager.

The article said "Many horse bets are the equivalent of hitting 17 with the dealer showing a 5-spot, of letting it ride on green at the roulette wheel."

I take exception to the 2nd half of that claim! The vast majority of horse bets are way worse than "letting it ride on green at the roulette wheel". Even with a double zero wheel, those roulette bets only lose at 5.2% on average. How many horse players (with the exception of absolutely everyone at derbytrail!) have cut the house edge to less than 5%?

--Dunbar