Betting For Beginners

Here is a very simple explanation of the betting system.

CyberPony v1.2 has six types of bets:
					Win
					Place
					Show
					Across
					Exacta
					Triacta

It is important to note that each of these categories has its own 'pool' of money to be won that is independent of all the other categories.

WIN/PLACE/SHOW Bets:
The first three categories are pretty simple. If you think your horse will win the race you can place a WIN bet and it will pay out only if your horse wins. If you are not so sure and you want to increase your chances you can make a PLACE bet and your horse must finish either first or second. The down side is that the amount the horse pays will be lower than a WIN bet. This is because the PLACE pool is shared between two horses - both first and second place pay out to PLACE bets. The WIN pool will only pay out to bets on the horse which wins.

Similarly, betting SHOW increases your chances even more but once again depending on which place the horse comes in you will share the SHOW pool with the other two horses that finish 'in the money'.

A typical winner board might look like this:

				WIN		PLACE		SHOW
Big Red			5.70		 3.40		2.20
Blue Lagoon					10.30		5.60
White Knights							4.70

Please note again that the amounts shown on the winner board by tradition show how much you would get back from a $2 bet.

The winner, Big Red, pays out to anyone who bets it to WIN, PLACE, or SHOW using each pool of money respectively. In the case of the PLACE and SHOW pools it is sharing the money to be paid out with the other horses so generally the pay out is less.

In CyberPony v1.2 you can select the ACROSS(w/p/s) button which saves having to make separate bets for each finish position. If you bet $6 ACROSS on Big Red, this is equivalent to betting $2 to WIN, $2 to PLACE, and $2 to SHOW. With the above results you would win the amounts for Big Red from each pool ($11.30 in total).

EXACTA/TRIACTA Bets:
When you make an EXACTA bet you pick the two horses that you think will finish first and second. A TRIACTA bet is even more difficult to pick - you have to select all three finishers in order. The pay outs can be very high especially if some of the finishers were 'long shots'(horses with high odds i.e. 30:1). In the above winner board if you had bet a TRIACTA with Big Red, White Knights and Blue Lagoon in that order you would have lost. The order must be exact.

Fortunately there are a couple of ways to increase your chances (but as always reducing your earnings). The first is using the BOX button. Boxing your bet means that the order is no longer important - every combination of finishes is covered. The above mentioned TRIACTA bet would have been a winner if it had been Boxed. The earnings would be only 1/6 of the regular TRIACTA pay out - the number of combinations.

To increase your chances even more you can choose to use the ALL or 10:1 + buttons. When you use the ALL button as one of your picks you are taking your regular picks in combination with all the OTHER horses in the field. The 10:1 + button takes your regular picks in combination with all the remaining horses that have odds greater than 10 to 1. If you had bet Big Red, Blue Lagoon and ALL you would have been a winner. Keep in mind that a bet of Big Red, ALL and Blue Lagoon would not win because the order was wrong.

Using both methods (using BOX and the multi-horse buttons - ALL or 10:1+) can really give you a shot at a EXACTA or TRIACTA winning bet. Betting the order of ALL, White Knights, and Big Red and BOX would win a share of the TRIACTA pool.

Good Luck! Practice makes perfect.  
 
