How to Win
the
PICK 6
Horse Racing’s
Big $$$ Payout
Steven Kolb
Copyright 2009 by Rhoven Publishing
Smashwords Edition
Rhoven Publishing
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
This publication is designed to provide accurate, authoritative and entertaining information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering gaming, accounting, or other professional services. Readers should familiarize themselves with all local and state rules and regulations regarding wagering on thoroughbred horse races.
Cover photo from bigstockphoto.com
Cover Design by Kimberly Martin
ISBN 978-0-9744023-1-4
Published
by Rhoven Publishing
www.rhovenpublishing.com
This book is dedicated
to Rhonda;
my wife and
editor in life.
Horseplayer’s
are like fishermen;
partly truth,
partly fiction.
Steven Kolb
Attacking the horse racing industry, or some of the racetracks mentioned, is not a goal of this book. I accept the industry as it is. I appreciate that there is constant effort to improve the sport and the exciting experience it can provide for every racing fan.
My goal is to make my readers wealthy. They can attain wealth by making winning wagers on the Pick 6: the ultimate wager available at the racetrack.
Steven Kolb
Notes on quotes.
The Lou Duva quote was initially for boxing.
He was a boxing trainer.
See page 281
Jack Yelton has a similar quote for casinos.
See page 293
A quote inspired
by Nick Dandalos
See page 303
Contents
Chapter 1 Let’s Get Started
Chapter 2 Thanks, Dad
Chapter 3 Basics of the Pick 6
Chapter 4 End of Your Rainbow
Chapter 5 Getting SMART with Your $$$
Chapter 6 Dumb and Dumbest
Chapter 7 Simple Handicapping
Chapter 8 The I.R.S. Window
Chapter 9 Favorites
Chapter 10 Cost Per Horse Played
Chapter 11 The 3% Solution
Chapter 12 Syndicates and Wagering Pools
Chapter 13 Small Pick 6 Pools
Chapter 14 Carryovers and ONLY Carryovers!
Chapter 15 The $100,000 Club
Chapter 16 Wagers Under $50
Chapter 17 Wagers to $100
Chapter 18 $100 to $300 Wagers
Chapter 19 Hey! You with the $864
Chapter 20 Frittering
Chapter 21 Two Weeks of PURE HELL
Chapter 22 The Internet: Wagering Online
Chapter 23 Horse Racing as a Home Based Business?
Chapter 24 The Result Charts
Dear Lord, help me to break even.
I need the money.
Anonymous
Chapter 1
Let’s Get Started
THE LADY BEHIND the $2 window does not want you to read this book. Nor does the racetrack’s general manager. Jockeys, trainers, handicappers, casinos owners, and operators of Internet wagering sites don’t want you to read this book either. All these insiders—in fact, about 95% of the people in the industry—know that it’s not in their best interest for horse racing fans to concentrate their time and money on the Pick 6. They want you to spend your money on a wide variety of wagers. Daily Doubles, Superfectas, and even the lowly Show wagers are what the losers and the “good” customers play. They want you to be a good customer.
A smart, quality handicapper who makes one wager on the Pick 6 and then walks away—or stays and spends only a few bucks on other kinds of wagers for entertainment—isn’t their bread and butter. They want players to wager and wager, and then wager some more. They want you playing at “their place” and wagering on “their track,” because when you do they get a bigger slice of the pari-mutuel pie (the money).
So just who is it who’s going to approve of the content, the ideas, and the message that this book delivers? It’s you, the loser who wants to win big paychecks. You want financial freedom. You want to enjoy the Sport of Kings. Most of all, you want to be a winner. Your family and friends also want you to win and to live a happier and healthier life.
I want all of that for you too. I want you to get rich. I want you to be able to pay cash for just about anything you desire: a house, a new car, a vacation. I want you to be one of the few winners in the horse racing business. I want your life to be first-class!
If you’re one of the handful horseplayers who make a tremendous amount of money, stop reading right now. Don’t tinker with a good thing. However, if you start backsliding and find yourself losing, grab this book and start reading...fast!
For all those other players who lose or struggle just to stay in the game. How to Win the Pick 6 is your guide to a gold mine. It contains facts, new winning ideas, and terminology about the Pick 6 you’ve never heard before. It provides you with new rules and wagering strategies to put you in the winner’s circle.
I’ll give it to you straight: If you’re not a winner at the racetrack, then you’re a loser at the racetrack. Winners are hard to find, but losers are everywhere. Losers pay the industry’s bills. Don’t be a loser when you can be a winner—a consistent winner who accumulates wealth every year.
Just learning how to handicap won’t make you wealthy. Simply learning to play a wide variety of wagers isn’t going to make you wealthy. But if you learn the intelligent way (the winning way) to play the Pick 6, you can become very wealthy.
Starting capital to become a Pick 6 winner is between $16 and $25,000 or more. Yes, just $16 can put you on the track to financial freedom. Your wagering strategy will depend on the size of your bankroll. You don’t need a huge bankroll, but you do need to stop frittering away your wagering capital. Playing the Pick 6 the proper way can make you a millionaire. Frittering away your money on Trifectas can make you poor.
You must understand, fully understand, that you are never going to get rich at the racetrack unless you are a Pick 6 winner. This book will teach you how to do that. You’ll learn about the 30/30/40 Rule, a tool that can guide you to winning at least a handful of times each year. It doesn’t take many Pick 6 wins to earn a net income of six figures.
A handicapping seminar can improve your handicapping skills, but that alone won’t turn you into a Pick 6 winner. Hold 100 seminars, each attended by 100 players, and in the end you’ll have 10,000 improved handicappers—but (sad to say) each of them will most likely continue to be a loser. The lecturers are probably losers too. Sorry, guys.
Good or great handicapping skills are not going to make you rich. They probably won’t even make you a winner—unless you have all the other pieces of the puzzle you need to be successful playing the Pick 6. You can find those other pieces in this book. Add them to your good handicapping skills and then you will have what it takes to become a big winner.
Read this book, set it aside, let what you learn fade away, and you will be a loser. Always a loser. Always. Don’t let that happen. It takes enormous willpower and self-control to get on—and stay on—the track to financial freedom you’re about to discover in this book. But if I can do it, and others can do it, then you can do it too!
Look to your left. Look to your right. Now look at all the players around you. They are losers. They don’t know how to win money at this game. They may think they do, but they don’t. Most horseplayers tend to lose it all because they think they know it all. It can damage their pride to admit that they aren’t as good as they believe (or claim) they are.
Almost every player has what it takes to be a winner. But almost every player won’t put in the effort to be a winner. It isn’t enough to want to win—you have to be willing to work at winning. You must have the gut desire, the focus, and the work ethic to be a winner. If you don’t, then the few who do will share your money. You’ll be just another of the many losing Pick 6 players. We need your money and theirs to create attractive Pick 6 pools.
You don’t have to be just another loser. You don’t have to be a contributor to Pick 6 pools. If you can take hold of your brainpower and summon up the will, desire, self-control, and tenacity—along with that pinch of luck—required to be a winner, then you can be a winner. This book’s approach is not something that you try a few times and then toss aside because it’s “not right” for you. If you want to be a winner, it is right for you.
Most players want to change, but some are stuck in a mental rut and find it hard to change. I want you to implement the rules and strategies you’re about to learn so you don’t have to go through the agony of losing control of all your racing capital and hitting bottom. Soon you will be aware of all those pieces of the puzzle necessary for you become a winner almost immediately. It’s up to you to put the puzzle together and to keep it together.
It’s time to make the decision, the decision that you really want to make big money at the racetrack. It’s time to acknowledge that the best way to make big money is by becoming a consistent Pick 6 winner. It’s time to make The 3% Solution a part of your life. Learn from that special chapter how you can consistently earn over $100,000 every year.
This book is full of stories, straightforward advice, nuggets of Pick 6 wisdom, coaching, and mentoring—and, above all, smart strategies. My goal is to show you how to become a steady winner of five- and six-figure Pick 6 jackpots. If you read this book today, and you understand and implement what you’re about to learn, you can be a big Pick 6 winner tomorrow!
Chapter 2
Thanks, Dad
OVER A LONG Thanksgiving weekend I went to visit my father in Grass Valley, California. This was going to be a kick-back and catch-up visit with the old man. I knew that I’d end up sitting on his couch watching too many football games on the tube. Nothing special was planned. Yet this kick-back visit was going to ignite a chain reaction that would lead to my winning hundreds of thousands of dollars at the racetrack.
Three years earlier dad had suffered a stroke, after which the doctors gave him just two years to live. We both knew he was on borrowed time.
I stayed at his small one-bedroom apartment in an assisted living home and got close to him again. We relived some memories from years long past, watched some college and pro football games as expected, and ate at his favorite coffee shop, where everybody knew his name.
It was a nice but short visit. After a big Saturday morning breakfast I was ready to pack my bags and start the long, boring drive back to my home near Los Angeles.
It was while I was finishing packing that, out of the blue, I asked my dad, “If you could go back and do it all over again, what do you wish you could have done differently?”
He thought about the question for only a few seconds and then replied, “I have a daydream that I think about a lot. It’s about horse racing. I believe I could have made a good living at the racetrack. But raising you five kids, I just never had a stake big enough to seriously play the horses the way I wanted to. I know I could have made a lot of money handicapping the races full time. I know it deep down. It just wasn’t the way my life was meant to go.”
Then his eyes lit up and he proceeded to tell me that in his spare time he had written down his handicapping system for wagering on thoroughbred horse races. He told me that if I was interested he would teach me how I could make an extra couple of hundred dollars a week by handicapping horses and placing wagers at the racetrack.
Interested? Me? I couldn’t wait to learn! There was too much of my father in me not to be interested. The prospect of making some easy money was like a dream come true. My dad may have said hundreds, but my thoughts almost instantly raced well past thinking of just hundreds; I was already thinking of thousands of dollars! Okay, to be honest, I was thinking of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Dad went to his desk drawer and pulled out a stack of loose papers. He set a few pages aside and then laid the rest on the kitchen table in front of me. These papers were handwritten and not very easy to read. They described, in precise detail, his system for handicapping races.
I was an average man in my forties who enjoyed following all the major sports. However, even though there were three racetracks within short driving distance of my home, I had only been to the horse races twice in my life. Both of those times were when I was an adolescent accompanying dad. Horse racing was a sport that I knew very little about.
Occasionally, though, I would look at the racing results at the back of the sports pages in the daily newspaper and wish I’d had some money on a race that paid $114 for a $2 wager. Then again I would also have wishful thoughts about winning millions of dollars in the state lottery, even though I rarely played it.
At that time my high financial risk taking was limited to card games with my buddies and infrequent trips to Nevada casinos. I’d had occasional tastes of what it felt like to be a winner. Like everybody else, I liked that feeling. However, in every aspect of my gambling “career” (with the exception of blackjack, my gambling game of choice) I was a loser. Ouch! That word “loser” does hurt!
I always enjoyed those trips to the casinos. I would daydream of piling up stacks and stacks of chips at the roulette wheel or winning thousands of dollars at the blackjack table.
Somehow, someday, I knew it would be my turn. I would make a lot of fast, easy money and life would be good, really good. Those were my only get-rich-quick dreams. Nice dreams, but only dreams. In the end, it was always back to work as usual.
* * * * * *
My dad tried to thoroughly explain how his handicapping system worked. At first it was like learning a foreign language. After a few too many repetitive questions and a little frustration on both our parts (he taught too fast and I learned too slowly), we both must have realized that this wasn’t going to be quick and easy. However, I eventually came to understand the fundamentals of why one horse could be expected to outperform another horse.
His system was based on points and was (dad admitted) a little bit complex. To give you a very quick idea: The less weight a horse carried counted for points. The experience of the jockey and trainer counted for points, as did speed ratings, pace, class, time figures from past races, workouts, and many other factors that I needed to take into consideration. Some points were negative, most positive.
I continued to ask a lot of questions and made a great deal of notes. I promised I would practice handicapping for a few weeks before I went to the racetrack and wagered any money. I’m sure dad wished he could have spent more time sharing his experiences and going over his system with me, but it was past time for me to leave.
On the drive back to Los Angeles I was already thinking of ways to spend my new fortune. Life was already pretty good. I had a feeling it was only going to get better, a lot better! I knew it deep down.
* * * * * *
After getting the Daily Racing Form (DRF) from a nearby convenience store, I started handicapping the races according to my father’s system. I practiced and practiced for two weeks. I put my life in a holding pattern while I educated myself in my new career.
Working dad’s system was not at the top of my enjoyment list. I found handicapping was somewhat difficult and time consuming and required intense concentration. It took me a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes per race, and hours to handicap an entire day of eight to ten races. Whew! When was I going to have fun and make some money?
All wagers that I would make were going to be Win wagers on horses that I had obviously handicapped to win their races. My dad’s system was designed to bring the cream to the top.
As I worked the system, I generally ended up selecting one of the three horses with the lowest odds based on the Morning Line. The Morning Line is what a horse’s odds to win are perceived to be. These odds can be found in a racetrack’s program or your daily newspaper’s sports page. Although it did happen, I very rarely picked a horse with Morning Line Odds of 8-1 or higher.
Two weeks before Christmas I felt that I was ready. Nervous and excited, I drove to Hollywood Park. I explored the facility from one end to the other. Eventually I found a table, laid out my “stuff,” and then went to a cashier’s window to place my first $20 wager. I lost. In fact, I ended up losing all but one race that day and went home feeling a little deflated and almost $200 lighter. However, the experience made me feel that I’d grown quite a bit as a horseplayer. I had learned a lot.
I experienced satellite simulcast racing. I lost money on other tracks across the country with names that I’d never heard of. I learned to follow the tote board and I finally figured out what a Quinella is (selecting the first two finishers in a race in either order). I also learned that a racetrack could be a very loud and exciting place, and a messy one as well. Overall I had a good time!
In my free time I continued to go to the track as often as I could. I tried my best to handicap the races using my father’s system, but I continued to lose and lose. After a while I became so frustrated at losing that I didn’t even enjoy watching the races. Losing was no fun, and I had stopped having fun. I wanted to win!
By April it was time to throw in the towel. I called my dad and told him the handicapping system wasn’t working for me. I explained that I’d lost a few grand (actually it was over $7,000) and I’d decided not to play the horses anymore. He just said he was sorry that it hadn’t worked out for me. I know he wasn’t pleased with the thought that I’d lost money by trying to follow his advice.
Okay, so that was it. No more losing. That was the end of my short and rather uneventful horse racing career, or so I thought.
For the next seven months I forgot all about horse racing and handicapping. Then, during Christmas week, I went to visit my family in the San Francisco Bay Area. I stayed at my family’s house while most of the family went to Lake Tahoe for some skiing and snow fun.
On Saturday I was a little bored. For something to do I decided to go to Bay Meadows Racetrack and have a little fun and excitement. I remembered that there were days (before I quit handicapping) when I really enjoyed the wagering action and the adrenaline rush that a close race brought on.
I didn’t plan on doing any handicapping and only bought the $2 race program. My bets were small (in the $5 to $10 range), and I was enjoying making wagers on Exactas (selecting the exact order of horses that will finish the race in first and second places).
I lost my first two wagers. Then I started a winning streak. A hot winning streak! Yes, sir! I nailed some long-shot Exacta combinations. Back-to-back Exacta wins from Aqueduct ($218) and Santa Anita ($169) got my blood racing (pun intended). This was fun! I was making money! Even though they were just “dumb luck” wagers that normally only pay off occasionally, that day they were winning for me.
I love it, just love it, when I’m on a lucky winning streak, even if that streak is just a “dumb luck” streak. When it comes to gambling, like most players I’ve been a winner and I’ve been a loser. Everyone will agree that playing the horses is incredibly so much more fun when everything is going your way and you are a winner. After just a few races, horse racing was back in my blood and was more exciting and thrilling than it had ever been.
When the horses you bet on are coming out a nose ahead in all the photo finishes, you know you’re on a hot streak. Even better is when your horse is a close second but there is an “inquiry” and the horse that finished ahead of yours gets disqualified or placed lower, resulting in your horse becoming the winner.
When these photos and inquiries are all going your way, it is just luck, but who cares? Enjoy it while it’s happening! There will be many times in future racing days when the photos and inquiries go the other way.
Once again I’ll tell you that it’s unbelievably so much more fun when everything is going your way and you are a winner! It’s the reason why horseplayers keep going to the track. It’s an addictive feeling. You feel strong, arrogant, and invincible. It really is a rush!
With my winnings I became bolder and began playing Trifectas (selecting, in the proper order, the first three finishers of a race), Superfectas (selecting the correct order of the first four finishers of a race), and the Pick 6 (correctly picking the winners of six consecutive races).
On New Year’s Day I managed to select four winners in the Pick 6, losing just two close races. One loss was by a close head and the other by a half-length.
I was discouraged that I missed out on a nice five-figure payday, yet encouraged that I had come close. No matter, because I still left the racetrack a solid winner. For the four days of wagering since my return as a horseplayer, I was almost $2,800 ahead and obviously feeling a little cocky. It was the first time that I thought I might possibly be able to beat this game.
The next day was a Friday. I had made other plans and could only manage to swing by the racetrack for a few minutes to make some quick wagers.
Before going to the track I went on the Internet to the Equibase website. (Equibase is a popular provider of racing information, statistics, and handicapping products.) I wrote down the numbers and odds of the horses I calculated could win. From that list I made up some Trifectas and Superfectas and then filled out a Pick 6 card for $160.
A year earlier I had learned to use the Internet as a tool for getting information on horse racing. Now that I had become somewhat successful (making some lucky money seemed like success to me), I was reinvigorated and started going online again to find information that would help me learn even more about the sport.
When I had time I would surf the web and figure out the pros and cons of each Internet racing site. I was looking for the “keepers.” Eventually I found my way to some core sites that had interesting articles on handicapping and other industry-related topics. I saved many sites that I was familiar with from my experiences earlier in the year. My computer “favorites” folder soon contained dozens of saved sites.
Some handicapper’s sites were informative and entertaining, but it was usually those core sites that I returned to every day. They had information that I needed. Important information like past performances, Morning Line Odds, and scratch reports. It was very easy to become a horse racing sponge again, absorbing all the information I could find on the Sport of Kings.
I definitely believed that horse racing was much more exciting than most other forms of gambling. It’s certainly better than buying a $10 or $20 lottery ticket.
When playing the lottery you know that the odds are many millions to one against your winning a big jackpot. With horse racing the payouts may be a little smaller, but cashing in a winner is a much more realistic possibility. Plus you can do it more than just once or twice a week.
I spent the rest of that Friday afternoon taking care of errands. It was early evening before I headed home. I was eager to get back to the computer and view the day’s racing results. Whether I was a winner or loser mattered a lot, but it was the anticipation of finding out the results that kept me eager and a little on edge.
I have to admit that I was now hooked on thoroughbred racing. Not just the races, but the entire industry. It was in my blood now, and it was going to be a part of my daily experience and way of thinking. Dad’s system taught me about the horse racing business and handicapping, but it took a fluky winning streak to make me fall in love with the sport.
After I returned home I immediately went online to Equibase to view the race results for Santa Anita. I scrolled slowly trying to get my money’s worth of enjoyment and excitement. In the first race I wasn’t even close on two $12 Trifectas. The second race was close, but my Trifecta had the second- and third-place finishers in the wrong order: down another $26.
The third race was the initial race for the Pick 6. I had not picked the #3 horse Flaming West, which was the Morning Line Favorite at odds of 8-5; instead I had selected the #6 horse Kern Ridge at 5-2 odds. A horse named Venus Genus at 4-1 odds ended up winning the race, paying $10.80 on a $2 Win wager.
Disappointed, I realized that I wasn’t going to be a winner of the Pick 6 or another Trifecta. I proceeded to go through the results of the remaining races. For the Pick 6, in the fourth race I had two picks: the favorite and an 8-1 choice. The 8-1 selection won. For the fifth race I had selected five horses, one of them also at Morning Line Odds of 8-1. That horse turned out to be the winner. In the sixth race I had the top two horses covered: Artax at 4-5 and Futuristic at 2-1. Futuristic hit the wire first.
Each race I checked my Trifecta and Superfecta tickets. None of them were winners. However, I was feeling some excitement begin to build as now the possibility of having a winning five of six Pick 6 ticket looked good. It would be nice to end the day by making a small profit from the Pick 6 consolation pool.
For the seventh race I had singled the best horse of the day, Ladies Din. He won easily. Finally, for the eighth race, I had four picks and my 5-1 choice came in first. I checked the payouts. Five out of six was good. Very good! It would pay me $1,294. It had ended up being a good day after all! Only one person had selected all six of six winners, earning a payday of well over $100,000.
To double-check, I took the Pick 6 ticket out of my wallet and reviewed the winning numbers showing on the screen. In order they were: 6, 1, 6, 3, 4, and 8.
I looked again at the monitor, then back at my ticket. Was there a mistake? My notes showed that the #6 horse in the third race was Kern Ridge and yet the results chart showed that Kern Ridge came in third place. Then I felt my blood begin to rush. Kern Ridge was listed as #5 on the monitor and Venus Genus was listed as #6. Confused, excited, and with my heart pounding rapidly, I clicked around and found the program page for Santa Anita. Sure enough, it listed Venus Genus as #6! How could this have happened?
With a few more clicks I investigated a little further. I found the Santa Anita Entries for the day on the Equibase web page. This was the page from which I had made my selections. It showed Kern Ridge at post position #6 and Venus Genus at post position #7. Evidently two other horses in the race were a coupled entry: #1 and #1A.
By using the Entries page on the Equibase website as the source for my selections instead of finding the page with the true program numbers, I had just become the Pick 6 winner of $118,401. At least I thought I had. I double-checked the results on the Equibase website and quickly confirmed that #6 Venus Genus had indeed won the race! I was the only player to select all six winners that day. This horse racing “mastermind” had won the Pick 6 and was going to collect a cool $118,401!
The next morning I was buzzing around the house with excitement. When I tried to call dad and share my good news, I was stunned to learn he had passed away the day before. No! Please tell me it’s not true! How unfair for him not to know!
I’d lost my father. He had lived a lot longer than expected, but I was still very sad. However, I will always believe that somehow, during that wonderful winning day of wagering on the races, his spirit paid me a visit. He was the reason behind my shocking and surprising stroke of good fortune. All I can say now is, “Thanks, dad. Miss you.”
Chapter 3
Basics of the Pick 6
I’M EXCITED that you are reading this book because obviously it means that you have more than just a casual interest in the sport of horse racing. It also means you wouldn’t mind winning the Pick 6 and collecting a big paycheck.
You have probably been to a racetrack at least a handful of times. If by chance you are the kind of curious fan I was, you’ll often find yourself skimming your newspaper’s sports section, then stopping to check out the results from the racetracks that your newspaper covers.
It’s become almost a daily routine for you to glance at some of the Win, Place, and Show payouts for a typical $2 wager. You always take note of some nice Exacta, Trifecta, and Superfecta payouts. Then you stop and stare when you see yesterday’s Pick 6 payout. It paid $42,768.40 to some lucky winners. After taking a moment to review the six races, you can tell that there was only one obvious favorite that won, paying $3.60 for the win on a $2 wager. Most of the other winning horses paid in the $8 to $14 range, except for one long shot that paid $23.40 for a $2 wager.
Oh, man! Wouldn’t you like to win $40,000, or $100,000, or even more? With that kind of cash you could acquire a few of the nicer things in life. How about a new sports car? Perhaps a down payment on a nice summer home, or maybe that long Caribbean cruise vacation you’ve dreamed about taking with your wife?
Okay, so you’re the practical type. If you hit the Pick 6 for a lot of money you would pay off your credit cards, spend a few bucks to fix the fence that the neighbor’s dog chewed up, put a big chunk into your retirement account, and then set aside some money for making future Pick 6 wagers.
Back to reality, because where you are is right here reading this book. You’ve decided to read it because you want to learn how to play and win the Pick 6. You know you’d like to have a nice payday or two like the $42,768.40, but you’re hesitant about learning how to handicap the races. There is also the possibility of losing your money (ouch!), and how can you possibly find time to get to the racetrack?
Something inside you has recently changed. Perhaps you’re feeling that your financial wheels are spinning and, for whatever reason, you’re at a point in your life where you’re ready to take some action and reasonable risks. No more silly dreams about winning an impossible $80 million lottery.
Winning the Pick 6 is an achievable venture. If I can win it and others can win it, then you can win it. You’re probably pretty sharp when it comes to figuring out puzzles. The Pick 6 is just a different kind of puzzle. It is a difficult puzzle requiring a unique set of skills to solve. That set of skills draws very heavily on handicapping and selection strategy. If you are determined to pursue your goal of winning the Pick 6 you will need to become a good handicapper.
To get what we’ve never had, we must do
what we’ve never
done.
Anonymous
You can learn the basics of how to handicap in a few hours. If you have the desire and commitment, you can quickly learn to become a good handicapper. After that, it’s a matter of experience and determination to be one of the better players in the game.
Once you have learned some of the ins and outs of this sport, hopefully you will be on your way to cashing in on some nice Pick 6 paydays. Oh, I can’t forget, even the best of handicappers need a pinch of luck. With your new understanding of thoroughbred racing and a good amount of luck, you could be just days away from being a big Pick 6 winner. Perhaps even a six-figure Pick 6 winner!
Learning how to play the Pick 6 isn’t very difficult at all. If you have never played before or are uncomfortable with the ins and outs of this fascinating wager, that will all change by the time you complete this book. At that point you will be filled with information on the Pick 6: how to play it, when to play it, where to play it, and how much to wager. You will learn, based on the size of the Pick 6 pool and the type of wager you place, just how much your winnings might be. Also, along the way you will learn some strategies on dealing with Morning Line Favorites, money management tips, tax tips, use of the Internet as a tool, and much, much more.
* * * * * *
You already know that the Pick 6 covers six consecutive races from an initial preset race. Your goal is to select the winning horse in each of those six races.
Some major racetracks, like Gulfstream Park, Hollywood Park, and Santa Anita Park, start their Pick 6 with the last six races on the day’s program. Some racetracks routinely have the Pick 6 start with the third race of the program, finishing with the eighth race. This information will always be found in the racetrack’s daily program.
If you are at a racetrack or wagering facility and have questions about making any type of wager, just ask the staff. I have always found the employees more than helpful. In fact, they appreciate a new customer and will go out of their way to assist you. Don’t be shy, as everybody has a first day. The staff can show you the proper way to fill out a Pick 6 card, or even how to use one of the wagering machines called SAMs (Screen Activated Machines).
Each of the six races of the Pick 6 is called a leg. The first leg of the Pick 6 is appropriately called Leg A. Leg B is the second, and so on all the way to Leg F, the sixth and final leg of the Pick 6. It’s not uncommon to hear a player say that in Leg D, the fourth of the Pick 6 races, he was covering the top two choices and an 8-1 long shot. Simply put, this player had three horses picked in the race, the top two favorites and a modest long shot at 8-1 odds.
All the money wagered on the Pick 6 races at a particular track go into the home track’s Pick 6 pool. This includes money wagered at Off-Track Betting (OTB) centers, other racetracks with satellite service, and authorized online wagering firms.
The racetrack gets a commission that’s referred to as the takeout. It’s a percentage of the pool (generally from around 15 to 26%) to help pay for the track’s operations and also to share a fixed percentage with other authorized racetracks and wagering outlets that generated a portion of the Pick 6 wagers.
The remainder of the pool is split among players holding tickets with the perfect six of six winning horses selected and tickets that have five of six winners (the consolation payout). Usually that remaining pool is split 75%/25% (or 70%/30%) with the six of six winners sharing 75% of the pool and the five of six winners sharing 25%. Note that a ticket with all six winners will automatically have some five of six combinations, increasing the players’ winnings! If there are no six of six winners, or five of six winners, then tickets with four of six correct selections share the consolation money.
The percentages vary from track to track. Santa Anita Park, for example, takes out 20.68% from the pool to pay for overhead costs. After that, perfect six of six tickets share 70% of the remaining money, and five of six consolation tickets share 30%. Belmont Park has a takeout of only 16%, unless there is a carryover (when there are no six of six winners and the unclaimed pool money carries over to the next race day). When a carryover occurs, Belmont kicks up its takeout rate to 26%. Ouch! Stay alert as these percentages are subject to change.
Although a carryover happens when nobody wagering on the Pick 6 correctly selects the six consecutive winning horses, consolation winners with five of six winners do get paid. Only the unclaimed 75% of the Pick 6 pool carries over to the next racing day’s Pick 6 pool. Make note that no part of that carryover money goes to the next day’s five of six consolation pool. The carryover is added only to the payout to players having perfect six of six tickets.
If you win the Pick 6, how many five of six consolation winners will you have? Let me explain. I’m not going to include races moved from turf to dirt in this answer, and I’ll leave dead heats out of it as well, because these circumstances complicate matters and right now I want to stay with the basics. Very simply, you figure out the number of five of six consolation winners by subtracting six from the number of horses on your winning Pick 6 ticket.
If the total number of horses on your Pick 6 ticket is twelve, then six from twelve equals six. Six is the number of five of six consolation winners on that ticket.
If you had a $324 ticket that covered seventeen selections and you won the Pick 6, here is the simple math:
17 – 6 = 11
You would have 11 five of six consolation winners.
Every year a few extremely large and very noticeable carryovers occur. The Pick 6 pool can grow to $2 million, $5 million, or even $10 million! These become highly publicized Pick 6 opportunities that generate an enormous amount of interest in horse racing fans around the world. Most players consider the Pick 6 carryover to be “free” money (unless a large chunk of it happens to be theirs). I’ll have more to say on that idea of free money later in the chapter Carryovers and ONLY Carryovers.
Optimism
Waiting for a ship to come in when
you haven’t sent one out.
(You can’t win the Pick 6 if you don’t play it.)
To keep this simple, let’s say that today there is a triple Pick 6 carryover pool of $525,000 at Aqueduct. From all around the world, horse racing fans with the ability to wager on Aqueduct’s races are making their Pick 6 wagers.
Assume today that these avid Pick 6 fans (combined) wager an additional $2 million in pursuit of the possibility of an enormous Pick 6 paycheck. Aqueduct will take out 26% from that $2 million for operating and shared revenue costs ($520,000). The remaining $1,480,000 will be split among the Pick 6 winners.
Players selecting five of six winners will share in the consolation pool of $370,000 (25% of $1,480,000). The rest of the money wagered on this Pick 6 ($1,110,000) will be added to the carryover amount of $525,000 from the previous racing day. That totals $1,635,000, to be paid to (shared with) tickets that have all six winners. Of course every six of six winning ticket will have some of those five of six winning consolation combinations as well, adding nicely to their total winnings.
This table should help if you’re still confused.
Today’s total wagers - $2,000,000
Less 26% for operations - $520,000
Net from today’s wagering - $1,480,000
25% to 5 of 6 winners - $370,000
75% to 6 of 6 winners - $1,110,000
Previous day carryover - $525,000
Total today’s 6 of 6 winners - $1,635,000
The chapter Carryovers and ONLY Carryovers digs into this further. The term “positive expectations” will come to light. For now, just understand that the more carryovers there are, the greater the percentage of return on their investment Pick 6 winners receive. That’s good.
You should be aware of an important Pick 6 event. On a racetrack’s final day of its racing meet, there can be no carryover. The entire Pick 6 pool must be paid out. Should no tickets have all six winners then the entire pool (including consolation money) will be paid to the tickets having the most winners. If four or five long shots win on that final day, tickets with as few as three winners could possibly share the entire Pick 6 payout. All the money in the Pick 6 pool is going to be paid out; there will be no carryover. Many knowledgeable and experienced handicappers can make some extra money by keeping this play in mind.
In this book I refer only to the $2 Pick 6 wagering opportunity. You may stumble across some racetracks that offer a $1 or less Pick 6 wagering play. Since your goal is to have five- and six-figure paydays, the $2 wager is easily the mostly likely Pick 6 wager that will get you there.
Figuring out the cost of your wager for a $2 Pick 6 ticket is pretty straightforward and usually doesn’t require the use of a calculator. It’s basic multiplication that you can figure out in your head, or you can use a pencil and paper to scribble on if you like.
By taking the number of horses you select in each leg and multiplying them together, and then multiplying that amount by the $2 minimum wager, you have the total amount of your Pick 6 wager. That may sound a little tricky, but once you’ve done it a few times it becomes a very easy process. For example, covering only one horse in each leg of the Pick 6 races looks like this:
Leg A = 1, Leg B = 1, Leg C = 1
Leg D = 1, Leg E = 1, Leg F = 1
Or simply: 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x $2 = $2
Here are two popular examples of a $16 Pick 6 wager. This is a random layout of selections.
Leg A = 2, Leg B = 1, Leg C = 1
Leg D = 2, Leg E = 2, Leg F = 1
Here’s the math: 2 x 1 x 1 x 2 x 2 x 1 x $2 = $16
In this next example there are multiple selections in Leg C and Leg E.
Leg A = 1, Leg B = 1 , Leg C = 4
Leg D = 1, Leg E = 2, Leg F = 1
This time: 1 x 1 x 4 x 1 x 2 x 1 x $2 = $16
In the first example there are nine horses covered on our $16 wager. In the second example we have ten horses selected for the $16 wager. Both wagers have exactly eight possible winning combinations.
Usually you can wager $1 on an Exacta, Superfecta, Pick 3, or any other wager that uses multiple horses. For every possible winning combination you pay $1. So if your Superfecta ticket is for $24, you have exactly twenty-four possible winning combinations. No more and no less. When playing the Pick 6 wager, for every possible winning combination on your wager you pay $2.
In the next example let’s add a few more horses to our previous Pick 6 ticket: two more in Leg A and one more in Leg F. The math for this wager would look like the following:
Leg A = 3, Leg B = 1 , Leg C = 4
Leg D = 1, Leg E = 2, Leg F = 2
3 x 1 x 4 x 1 x 2 x 2 x $2 = $96
This wager covers thirteen horses and has forty-eight possible combinations of the horses we selected to make a wining six of six ticket. Remember to multiply the sum of the horses you selected by the $2 wager amount. It’s just simple multiplication. In the above example it’s $2 times the forty-eight possible winning combinations, creating a $96 wager.
Generally, the more horses you want to pick for your ticket, the more it will cost. To illustrate how adding more and more horses to your ticket can really add up, let’s add just four additional horses to the wager. In this next example let’s say you have a friend who has selected two more horses for Leg B and two more possible winners for Leg D. Now the wager looks like this:
Leg A = 3, Leg B = 3 , Leg C = 4
Leg D = 3, Leg E = 2, Leg F = 2
3 x 3 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 2 x $2 = $864 !!!
Oops! Too much? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Later in the book I’ll take a closer look at that particular wager—and have some more thoughts about your friend and players like him who make $864 (or similar) types of Pick 6 wagers.
A note here: Horse racing and the Pick 6 attract people from a wide range of financial “ability.” To some players a $16 Pick 6 ticket is expensive (I promise that I’ll try my best to counter that viewpoint), while other players place wagers worth thousands of dollars without a second thought. Most of this book is written for Pick 6 players who can comfortably place wagers from $32 to several hundred dollars on an occasional or regular basis. If you currently like playing the $16 wager, don’t worry, I discuss it plenty of times throughout the book.
The hypothetical $864 wager lets your friend cover seventeen horses. The wager has a total of 432 possible combinations to win the Pick 6. There are exactly nine times as many possible combinations to win at exactly nine times the price of the $96 wager. However, only four more horses were selected for the $864 wager than for the $96 wager. That’s worth taking a long, hard minute to think about. $864 lets your friend select seventeen horses for a Pick 6 wager, while the typical $96 wager allows you thirteen selections. Adding just four more horses to his ticket means wagering an additional $768. That’s $192 extra for each horse! Is your friend playing with a couple of loose horseshoes?
Perhaps. Though perhaps not, because if your $96 wager ends up getting just four of the Pick 6 races correct, you will generate a loss of $96. But if two of those extra four selections, at a cost of $192 per horse, each ends up being the “missing” winners (meaning you now have a perfect six of six ticket), and you win the Pick 6 for, say, $54,000 or $254,000, now your loss could be seen as tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars! Undoubtedly you would be saying a few choice words to yourself. After those choice words, some typical horseplayer thinking would begin to take over…if only I had…if only I had… This is just taking a different point of view, one of many possible points of view, of the fascinating Pick 6 wager.