How To Bet The Kentucky Derby
What follows is an adaptation of an article I wrote last year for a now-defunct betting website. But the advice is evergreen so let’s bust it out again.
Before we jump in, we dropped a couple of bangers on the ITM YouTube Channel. Randy Moss and Jerry Bailey are back again this year. JK joined me as we discussed how to Make $100,000 on The Kentucky Derby.
Who do you like? It’s a question you hear every day at the racetrack. And in many ways, it’s completely the wrong question. Because winning at the track isn’t about who you like, it’s about how you bet and at what price. I can hear the critics now: how can you say that? How can you cash a ticket if you can’t pick a winner? Here’s the thing. In the endless debate between what’s more important, picking winners or betting, I believe there’s a clear answer. I know people who are so good at betting they can make money with a decent set of picks and a good look at the prices. And I know a lot of people who have magnificent opinions but are broke.
With that in mind, let’s have a look at nine potential wagering approaches to this year’s Kentucky Derby.
#1 Short-to-Mid-Priced Win Bet – professional horseplayer Maury Wolff
The Derby is a day unlike any other in horse racing because there is SO MUCH money being bet. Remember, in racing, the betting is parimutuel. Players bet amongst themselves, with the house taking a cut. When the pools are awash with liquidity, opportunities (that is, good bets) can be found.
“The straight (win, place, and show) pools in the Triple Crown races are perhaps racing’s last inefficiency,” says Wolff, whose background is as an economist. “Longshots are wildly overbet, short-priced to mid-priced horses are underbet, with the possible exception of the favorite for reasons we won’t get into here. Any horse you like in the short to mid-priced range except perhaps the actual favorite will be a better bet in straight pools than anywhere else.”
I wonder if this could actually be the case for Fierceness in the win pool this year, though I would not want to bet him in the other straight pools.