My idea for a new wager that all of you will undoubtedly ridicule

[justindew]

Here is my thinking. If you offer a low takeout and require a $20 straight bet, you could get some decent pools. If there are nine races on the card with an average field size of, say, eight horses, it would probably only take one decent-price horse per day to insure people who picked zero winners got at least a modest profit. And if you have a few bombs on one card, I can see there being only one winning ticket.

For example, if only 500 people played the bet, you would have $10,000 in the pool. With a 12% takeout, you'd have $8,800 in the pot. If you have an average field size of 8 horses, you are probably going to see at least one of the bottom three betting choices win at least one of the races. That alone would knock out a chunk of the tickets and guarantee that players didn't lose money by hitting the bet but getting back less than $20 due to the takeout.

I know it's fun to act witty and post quick responses bashing new ideas, but give this some thought and tell me why it can't work.