Horse Racing Fantasy Community

There are some handicapping secrets you don't share with anyone. They come from playing the game thousands of times and finding out little tricks. Some of those may pertain to the way you ride certain horses, some pertain to the types of races you participate in as a jockey or bettor. It's like every time you play, you learn something new. My point is, with games like ours, you can play at a simplistic level or get into as much detail as you want.

Today's tip (consider it my Christmas gift) is a unique feature we have that can be found under the Edit tab under Players from the Main Menu screen. Here, you can set up additional accounts besides your main member account and then under Options & Settings, control some of the features that allow really cool racing situations to develop. Let me give you an example. Set up a new private account and then under those Options a& Settings, change the initial betting pool to a much smaller number than the default $1 million showing. By dropping that betting pool, it makes the game much more difficult when playing as a bettor to cash big winning tickets. Remember that our game mirror or mimics real horse racing and works off of the same theory that the pari-mutuel system does. So, every bet you make redistributes the pari-mutuel pool, lowering the odds of your horse significantly, limiting the chances of cashing in bigger tickets. This is a great way to practice when preparing for betting tournaments. Think about it - the betting tournament pools during those tournament races will all default to the million-dollar setting, so if you bet $5,000, you probably won't affect the odds of the horse you're betting on. But, when the pari-mutuel pool is smaller and the amount of money distributed on each horse is less, your bet can significantly affect the horse's odds. At some point, you'll find yourself actually wagering against yourself. From a math standpoint, you're taking away all of the value. The easy way to look at it is if you 're on a baseball team and the guys you're playing with can pitch the ball at 80 miles an hour. If you can practice with a pitcher that throws the ball at 90 miles an hour, then when you face that 80-mile-an-hour pitcher, you're probably going to do okay.

The other modification you can make from this Options & Setting page inside our game is to adjust the default or typical number of horses. When you play in community mode, the default is set at 10, so the computer will randomly build races with between 8 to 12 horses. In your new private account, set that default to 15 and you'll end up with horse fields with as many as 20 horses. If you can jockey competitively or obtain a positive ROI when betting with racing fields that large, then when you enter the tournaments, those 8 to 12 horse fields will look like a piece of cake. The smart players in our game and some of the best jockeys I know, practice in races with 15 horses or more. This teaches them how to really master the art of giving the horse a perfect trip, avoid traffic and find racing room when necessary.

I hope these two free tips add value to your playing experience to help make you a winner in our tournaments. Now, I have to go wrap my last few Christmas gifts!

Happy Holiday!
- FantasyHandicapper