Horse Racing Fantasy Community

I see it happen every day and no matter how hard I try to explain to both our game players and real racing enthusiasts, my number one rule when handicapping is - don't bet on the favorites. You cannot win. Yes, you can win for a race. Yes, you can win for the day and may even have a winning week or month, but over time, you will lose and lose bad. It's simple mathematics. Favorites win, on average, about 30% of the time, which basically means they lose 70% of the time. With the average favorite paying in the $5 range - you do the math - it's a slow punishing way to lose your money. It reminds me of the slot machines in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. They talk about 95% payback, but the truth of the matter is, after 100 pulls of those one-armed bandits, you're wiped out.

Remember that racing is a pari-mutuel sport, which in simplistic terms means that unlike Las Vegas, you're not trying to beat the house, you're going against the other players. Don't take me wrong when I say this, but most racing fans just don't know how to bet. They follow the advice of the guy in the newspaper and he doesn't know how to bet. Or, they buy the tip sheets as they walk into the track. They don't know how to bet. Why would they put out a tip sheet? They'd be making money at the windows! To be successful in racing, like any other career, you have to have a strategy when wagering that makes sense and great money-management skills.

When I go through the racing form or the past performance lines in the game, I look for the horse with hidden talent. What I mean by hidden talent is something that is not so obvious, that doesn't stand out to every Joe Blow attending the races or playing in the game. In real racing, a lot of it is about the trip. What I mean is, was the horse in trouble the last time he raced? Was he blocked, boxed in or did he have to go around 6 horses and lose a lot of ground? If I'm playing with serious money, I'm always going back to racing video archives and sometimes I'll look at a replay of a particular race 3 or 4 times. I look for the slightest indication that the jockey was in trouble, did the horse look uncomfortable in the position he was in? There's gold in those videos and they open up tremendous betting opportunities. In our game, eventually we will add race replays, but for now, you have to go by the information in the past performance lines that we provide. Some really simple techniques to help identify value plays (horses that have higher odds than they should) - well, let's go over just a few of them.

Distance - If the horse likes a shorter distance and that shows in some of his earlier starts and his last couple of races have been at a longer distance, then you may find some value, especially if he tired or didn't run well. Changing distances can also bring out value. I was playing the game the other day and noticed that a horse on two occasions went from sprint to route and in both circumstances, he showed some good speed figures. Sure enough, he went off at 10:1 under the same situation and I jockeyed him to a very easy victory.

Certain horses only perform well on certain surfaces. One horse showed two good races on the turf, but then had mediocre races on a dirt track. Sure enough, I was playing in community mode and back to the turf surface he went. The odds showed 15:1. There were no stand-outs in the race. The speed figures for all the horses seemed pretty equal. I bet the horse to win and jockeyed him to a wire-to-wire victory and held off the second place finisher by a full length.

There are a lot of other techniques and tricks each player can employ to help get the odds in their favor and help them find true value plays. When we programmed these community horses, we added features such as their running style. One of the tricks I use is to run a horse in private mode whose running style is to come from behind, and I'll take him to the front and tire him out. I do that on a couple of occasions so when I'm playing in community mode, all of a sudden, the horse has gone up in odds because of the two poor performances he just had. I know that all I have to do now is to jockey him in his preferred racing style.

There's no doubt about it. Racing is a game of skill - whether it's in our virtual world or at your local track, whether you're jockeying or just betting with hard, cold cash. And, just like anything else, practice and you will get better. The more you play, the more education you have and that experience will show in your results.

Now go win big in the tournaments!

- Fantasyhandicapper