Culture | Horse racing
Turf accounting
May 26th 2005 |
FANCY a flutter? You are not alone. Nearly $16 billion is bet on thoroughbred racing in North America each year. Yet fewer than 5% of bettors turn in a consistent profit. In this thrilling gallop through the world of horseracing and gambling, Ted McClelland describes a year spent betting his publisher's advance to find out whether it was possible to make a living from the sport of kings.
The author spends most of his time at two racetracks in Illinois: pastoral Arlington, which models itself on the great English tracks of Ascot, Epsom and Newmarket, and Hawthorne, "a cesspool" of cigarette smoke, horse manure and shredded tickets.
Pitching himself headfirst into the gambling world, he befriends various track regulars, all of whom have a "foolproof" handicapping system. He discovers that horses are no more than betting units, "like living roulette wheels", and that odds are not set by the house, as in a casino, but by the amount bet on each animal. Such "pari-mutuel" wagering means the more money bet, the lower the odds become.
From his first, and lucky, win on a trifecta (where a gambler must pick the top three finishers in a race), Mr McClelland is hooked. He learns the language of the track. "Chalks" are the favourite and "suckers" those horses that repeatedly finish second, leading bettors to believe they are due for a win. He dreams of a "signer" (a win so big it must be reported to the IRS), experiences several "schneids" (losing streaks), and is amused by "stoopers" (people who look for winning tickets that have been thrown out by mistake). This is not as crazy as it sounds; in one recent year, Hawthorne kept $578,206 in uncashed tickets.
Ultimately, the author realises that the bettor's best skill is a sense of what the odds should be. "Now, at last, I'd discovered the dark heart and soul of the game: it wasn't about predicting the behaviour of horses. It was about predicting the behaviour of other gamblers and exploiting their mistakes", he writes. Furthermore, he discovers that a gambler can beat the races, but only just. Over a seven-week period Mr McClelland was up by $150. He had spent four hours a day gambling, three handicapping, two commuting and one keeping records. He had made a 7% profit on his money, outperforming several Wall Street fund managers. But to make an annual income of, say, $50,000, he would have to gamble $700,000. And betting that much, thanks to the pari-mutuel system, would reduce the odds. As the old adage goes: "You can make a life at the track, but you can't make a living."
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "Turf accounting"
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