[For The Lead]

Good post by Ted. I understand his points right down the line, but I'm going to try and further my position anyway. It gets lengthy and may seem off topic, but hang in there, I think you'll get my meaning.

The first thing I would like to discuss is “insurance”.

In the average person’s life the purchase of their home is the biggest investment they will make, naturally, insuring that investment makes a lot of sense.
The next biggest investment the average person makes is the purchase of a car. Again, it makes sense to insure that investment.
In both of the above cases, not only are you insuring the investments themselves, but you are also insuring (protecting) yourself from liability claims due to your negligence that could ruin your life financially and cost you everything you own.

Now let’s talk about something else that is called “insurance”. Any of you that have ever played blackjack in a casino know that right there on the blackjack table layout it says “INSURANCE”. Is this the same type of insurance I just talked about? NO! But the casino would like you to think about it that way.

Let’s say you bet $10 on your hand and the dealer’s up card is an ACE. The dealer will ask you if you would like to take insurance. If you say “yes”, then you must make an additional $5 bet. When the dealer checks their hole card, if they have blackjack they will show you their hand and take your initial $10 bet. However, they will then pay you $10 for your “insurance bet” of $5, because the insurance bet pays 2/1. Of course, if they do not have blackjack, you lose the insurance bet and can still lose the original bet on your hand or, you can win your original $10 bet on your hand and lose the insurance bet and instead of winning $10 from your original bet, you end up only winning $5 because you lost that additional insurance bet of $5.

Now lets’ say you are dealt blackjack and the dealer shows an ACE. The dealer will ask you if you want “even money”. Why? When you win by being dealt a blackjack, the normal payoff you receive is 1.5/1. So if you had bet $10 on your hand, you would receive a payoff of $15, which is your bet times 1.5. Now, if you do not take insurance with your blackjack hand and the dealer has a blackjack, you will “tie” and break even. So most people will “insure” their blackjack and take even money. This is less painful than going through the procedure of taking your original bet and then paying you on the “insurance” bet, they just pay you even money. But if the dealer doesn't have blackjack, you just lose another separate bet! So is this insurance bet a good bet? Why wouldn’t it be? You are guarantying yourself a winning hand, right? On the face of it, yes, but let’s take a closer look.

The first thing you have to understand is this, by making the so called insurance bet, you ARE NOT INSURING ANYTHING!! You are simply making another separate bet, which is, the dealer either does or does not have blackjack. It is that simple.
Now unlike horse racing and handicapping, blackjack is a precisely mathematical game. So, since the so called “insurance bet” pays 2/1, do you think you should make that bet if the true odds of the dealer having a blackjack is 3/1 or 4/1 or higher? NO! Why would you make a bet and receive 2/1 on your bet if the true odds are greater than that?
But suppose I told you the true odds of the dealer having a blackjack is 1/1. Would that be a better bet? YES! Because the chances of the dealer having a blackjack is 1/1 and the casino is going to pay you 2/1.
The main point here is this. The bet on your hand cannot be insured. What the casino wants you to think of as "insurance" is nothing more than a separate bet on whether or not the dealer has blackjack. They are two separate and individual bets. One has nothing to do with the other.

I’m getting there, but first a little background.

I started betting horses in the mid 1960’s. At that time the ONLY BETS available were a Daily Double, Win, Place and Show. THAT WAS IT! Naturally, the only way to make any substantial money was by betting to “win” and so that is what you learned to do, pick the horse you thought would win the race and bet it “to win”.
Now don’t think there weren’t other betting schemes around, there were. Take as an example the idea of betting $2 to win, $4 to place and $12 to show, a total bet of $18. The idea here was that if you horse only ran 3rd and paid $3.00 you would break even. I guess this may have been the “insurance bet” of the day. I prefer to call it a betting scheme designed to “not lose”, rather than “to win”. Naturally, those that applied this betting scheme went broke! Try recapturing $36 after two of these bets ran out of the money. Good luck with that when you are only betting $2 to win! And take into consideration, the longer the odds on a horse, the less chance there is of the horse running in the money. Favorites only run in the money approximately 67% of the time.

When you bet a horse to win and then make a place bet as “insurance” or if you make an exacta bet as “insurance" or any number of other bets as “insurance”, YOU ARE NOT INSURING ANYTHING!!!
All you are doing is making several separate and individual bets. The bets must stand on their own in order for you to win, meaning, you must be able to make a profit on each of these individual bets, otherwise you will lose money. Ask yourself this. Would a retailer continue to carry a particular line in his store if he was losing money on it? I doubt it. So why would you continue to make a certain bet if you cannot make money on it?
Betting “to win only” is betting to win...IF you are good enough.
Betting “to place only” is betting to win…IF you are good enough.
Betting “exactas only” is betting to win…IF you are good enough.
This is true for any of the other bets that are available.
But mixing these bets is NOT INSURANCE! You are either good enough to win at each type of bet or you are not!
If you make all of these various bets in the same race and cannot show a profit on each of them, you are taking a shot at betting in an effort NOT TO LOSE…RATHER THAN TO WIN!

Lastly, and giving credit where credit is due, ‘Doc” offered people an opportunity to avoid long losing streaks by betting TWO HORSES TO WIN in each race. Good contender selection and good line selection are the basics of achieving the goal of 60% to 70% winners and a good ROI in a 20 race cycle.

Personally, I think the contest being offered is a great way to hone your skills…FOR FREE!
If you are not already winning 60% to 70% of your “WIN BETS” in a 20 race cycle, betting two horses per race, then here is your chance to improve and it costs you NOTHING!

I see contest bets like $80 to win on horse A and $10 to place on horse A and B. What kind of bets are those?
Just about everyone in the contest bets to win and place. WHY? Is this to say there is a “value place bet” in every race and that you are good enough to win enough of these place bets to show a profit?
Just bet TO WIN!
Improve your game to the point where you are winning 12 to 14 races out of 20!
Does it matter if you only win 8 or 10? NO. It’s FREE!
Take the contest seriously and bet the way you should bet in order to LEARN and IMPROVE YOUR GAME!
Even if you are only winning 8 to 10 bets out of 20, I don’t think losing 10 to 12 bets out of 20 is mind altering.
And if you are playing the methodology correctly, that is, playing the right horses with good odds, even winning just 8 races out of 20 isn’t going to take your whole bankroll.