Quote:
Originally Posted by elocutionist
Ted, it seems you place significance in the PW%. I understand it is the ratio of place to win bets. Why is this important? Good seminar today. Looking forward to future ones.
Phil
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Phil, after years of anecdotal evidence, 1000+ race modelling of this info at about 1 MTP shows a high correlation to in-the-money performance, > 80% and as high as any other factor for the Win, Place and Show performance, and higher than straight Win Odds.
Yes, ratio of Place to Win pool money. Typically (not always), money is distributed across the straight pools something like 50-30-20% (or some similar declining ratio, 60-25-15, etc). For real contenders (and for simplicity, Top half of the betting odds in reasonable sized fields) when there is MORE money bet to Win than to Place on a horse than a normal ratio (and particularly in a greater ratio than the overall Win to Place pool
totals), the relative numbers of the PW% ratio indicate that someone (or collection of someones) has a better opinion of the horse's chances than is evident by either public handicapping data or simply the Win pool odds alone.
Of course, it doesn't always work. Sometimes the perceived superior PW ratio disappears after all pools are settled, or another horse rises to prominence. Often the PW% ratio agrees more or less perfectly with Win Odds, so - no extra information.
Good uses of this ratio are: to confirm that a strong Win pool favourite is also favoured by this ratio. Conversely, if a favourite is 2-1 yet is say, worse than 3rd in the PW% - this indicates an assessment of potential weakness by 'those in the know' (or 'wisdom of crowds' which is what a pari-mutuel pool is).
Or - if a longer priced horse (per Win pool money and Odds) takes consistent strong action to Win compared to what a normal distribution of money in the Place pool ought to be (= stronger PW%), then this horse is interesting, if not to Win, then to finish in-the-money. A good example on this day was Race 4, the
#2 horse (
http://paceandcap.com/forums/showpos...80&postcount=8 and
http://paceandcap.com/forums/showpos...2&postcount=10). At Odds of 13-1 at bet-time, it had a strong PW% advantage over the 4/5 favourite. Why was that? It paid $6.60 to Place (vs $3.00 on the favourite #6 to Win) and provided a $19.40 Exacta.
This is precisely the scenario the PW% ratio was designed for, including Maiden races like this or other races where public info is equivocal or absent, such as First Time Starters. If someone or a group has privileged info about a horse, if they ACT on that opinion, it will show up in the pools somehow, sometimes with enough clarity to act yourself.
Of course, this pool imbalance scenario shows up in many other ways, in Exacta/Quinella pools, Daily Double look-ahead and look-back analysis, will-pays for horizontals, etc. With the right analysis tools, you can see lots of hidden info (sort of like an Xray, but for Tote
).
When betting, I always try to bet close to off-time and always am aware of the Top 3 PW% horses. It does not always prove useful, except when it does.
Ted