The other day one of the “Boom” guys got excited when his $28 Pick-3 play paid $165, which sounds pretty good until I pointed out the parlay was $215. Ok, it was a little snippy to say something, but I was always from the Paul Brown school that said, act like you’ve been there, and save the sonic booms for a really major score.
I took a look at the rolling P3 payoffs from Aqueduct last Saturday and Sunday and here’s what I found
RACE WIN PAY PARLAY PAY ACTUAL PAY
- 1 9.90
- 2 20.60
- 3 20.60 1,050 551
- 4 4.40 466 413
- 5 3.60 81 80
- 6 8.50 33 44
- 7 6.50 49 57
- 8 14.40 198 252
- 9 6.80 159 389
- 1 8.50
- 2 37.00
- 3 4.20 330 596
- 4 18.80 730 998
- 5 3.50 69 99
- 6 6.60 108 174
- 7 9.10 52 47
- 8 11.20 168 127
- 9 3.30 84 77
This is a pretty small and unscientific sample, but there are a few interesting things.
First, only 57% of the P3’s paid better than the parlay and that was a surprisingly low number. Now the superiority of the Pick 3/4/5/6 bets is supposed to be that in a multiple race sequence the “take” is only grabbed once. In the parlay, the take would be applied to three different bets. So, we would expect a premium (say at least 25%) for our P3 wager. Of the eight P3’s that paid more than the parlay, seven paid over a 25% premium. and only 5 paid a 33% premium. And, only one on Saturday and one on Sunday paid more than a 50% premium. Shouldn’t we expect most of the P3’s to pay more than the parlay? All in all, ithe P3 was a marginal bet on those two days from an investment standpoint.
Interestingly, the P3’s that paid more than the parlay on Saturday were in the last four races. On Sunday it was the first four races, so nothing consistent there. On Saturday a sequence with two 9-1 shots and a 7-2 shot paid half of the parlay. On Sunday a sequence with a 3-1, 6-5 and 17-1 paid practically double the parlay. On Saturday a sequence with two 2-1 shots and a 6-1 shot paid more than double the parlay. The one thing both of those sequences had in common was that the biggest price was in the middle of the sequence. On Saturday the lowest pay sequence paid more than the 25% premium we would be seeking. On Sunday, the low pay sequence was actually less than the parlay.
I think this may be something worth studying with a much larger sample because the evidence from two days was ambiguous. But it tended to lean toward what it felt like to me all season – the P3 is not consistently a good bet, at least at AQU.
Let me say one last thing about horizontal wagers. If you have a single in your sequence, you are essentially making a win bet on that horse. Even though the ML isn’t always representative (assuming you don’t make your own line) you can use it to make a rough calculation of your horizontal bets. If you have a single in your sequence, decide how much you want to invest and do your best to determine the return if you placed it all to win on the single versus the P3. It’s a lot easier to sweat one race instead of three, and if your single wins, you are a winner no matter what happens in the other two legs.
If you follow me on twitter, you know I am a big fan of win bets and even two horses to win in the same race. It can be a grind, and you won’t have too many BOOM’s, but at the end of the day the idea is to find the best way to maximize return on investment.