Parimutuel betting is a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together in a pool; taxes and the "house-take" or "vigorish" are deducted, and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all winning bets. In some countries it is known as the Tote after the totalisator, which calculates and displays bets already made.
Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys over a set distance, for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic premise – to identify which of two or more horses is the fastest over a set course or distance – has been unchanged since at least classical antiquity.
In a thinking-exercise, a notion mistranslated from German into a thought experiment, proposed by the Italian probabilist Bruno de Finetti in order to justify Bayesian probability, an array of wagers is coherent precisely if it does not expose the wagerer to certain loss regardless of the outcomes of events on which they are wagering, even if their opponent makes the most judicious choices.
The Travers Stakes is an American Grade I Thoroughbred horse race held at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York. It is nicknamed the "Mid-Summer Derby" and is the third-ranked race for American three-year-olds according to international classifications, behind only the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. First held in 1864, it was named for William R. Travers, the president of the old Saratoga Racing Association. His horse, Kentucky, won the first running of the Travers. The race was not run in 1896, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1911, and 1912.
The Breeders' Cup World Championships is an annual series of Grade I Thoroughbred horse races, operated by Breeders' Cup Limited, a company formed in 1982. From its inception in 1984 through 2006, it was a single-day event; starting in 2007, it expanded to two days. All sites have been in the United States, except in 1996, when the races were at the Woodbine Racetrack in Canada.
The superfecta is a type of wager in USA and Canada parimutuel betting in which the bettor, in order to win, must pick the first four finishers of a race in the correct sequence. This is even more unlikely than a successful wager in the trifecta, which requires correctly picking the first three finishers in order, and as such will have a correspondingly higher payoff.
The Australian and New Zealand punting glossary explains some of the terms, jargon and slang which are commonly used and heard on Australian and New Zealand racecourses, in TABs, on radio, and in the horse racing media. Some terms are peculiar to Australia, such as references to bookmakers, but most are used in both countries.
The Del Mar Fairgrounds is a 370-acre (1.5 km2) event venue in Del Mar, California. The annual San Diego County Fair is held here, which was called the Del Mar Fair from 1984 to 2001. In 1936, the Del Mar Racetrack was built by the Thoroughbred Club with founding member Bing Crosby providing leadership.
A daily double is a parimutuel wager offered by horse and dog racing tracks in North America. Bettors wager on the winners of two races, pre-designated by the track for a particular race day. The Daily Racing Form's glossary defines a daily double as two consecutive races.. Because of the increased difficulty of picking two straight winners, winning daily double bets pay off at higher odds than betting both horses to win, or even parlaying them, due to the lack of a second win takeout. The daily double is usually the first two races on the card, but most racetracks have now included a "late daily double"
The Singapore Turf Club was founded in 1842 as the Singapore Sporting Club to operate the Serangoon Road Race Course at Farrer Park Field. It is today the only horse-racing club in Singapore and is part of the Malayan Racing Association (MRA), which also regulates the three Turf Clubs in Malaysia, the Selangor Turf Club, Penang Turf Club and Perak Turf Club. The Singapore Turf Club is the only authorised operator of horse racing, and totalisator services in Singapore. It is the agent and proprietary club of the Tote Board, Singapore, who manages and directs its donation of surplus funds for charitable purposes. The first race was held on 23 February 1843 when prize money on offer was only $150. In 1924, the Club changed its name to the Singapore Turf Club.
The Tote is a bookmaker in Britain which offers parimutuel betting on British horse racing in Britain. The firm was owned by the UK Government from 1928 and was the only bookmaker in Britain allowed to offer parimutuel betting on horse racing. The Tote was then sold to Betfred in July 2011 for £265 million, allowing them to offer parimutuel betting services. As of July 13, 2018, however, the existing monopoly protection surrounding the Tote has ceased and a number of other tote or parimutuel suppliers have entered the British market. Several bookmakers offer a Tote service through syndication, while other bookmakers will accept a Tote bet and pay out on exactly the same terms as the Tote.
Tote Ireland Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Horse Racing Ireland, with responsibility for the operation of a Totalisator on the 25 racecourses including Down Royal and Downpatrick. Tote Ireland is at the heart of Irish horse racing, providing a wide variety of betting options for all race goers. All profits made by Tote Ireland are used by Horse Racing Ireland for the funding of Irish Horseracing. 'Tote' is short for Totalisator and Tote Ireland Betting is pool betting based on the Paris Mutual or "betting among ourselves" betting model common throughout the world. It works like this: all the stakes on a race are pooled; a deduction is made to cover costs, and contribute a profit to, Tote Ireland Betting. The remainder of the pool is divided by the number of winning units to give a decimal dividend.
The 2002 Breeders' Cup betting scandal was an incident that arose when computer programmer Chris Harn conspired with two friends, Derrick Davis and Glen DaSilva, to manipulate bets in the 2002 Breeders' Cup, held at Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Illinois. This enabled him to arrange a $3 million USD payout to the trio. The scam was exposed when a 43-to-1 longshot won the Breeders' Cup Classic. This unanticipated victory made Davis the sole winner of the Pick 6 jackpot. Eventually, Harn, Davis and DaSilva entered pleas of guilty.
'Due-column Betting' is a type of fixed-profit betting strategy whereby a bettor increases the amount he wagers on a single proposition after each successive loss. According to this system, the bettor determines a target profit before he begins betting. Then he increases his bet on propositions following a loss in such a way that a win will recover the sum of all amounts he lost from his preceding bets plus gain him his predetermined profit.
Glossary of North American horse racing:
Horse racing in the United States dates back to 1665, which saw the establishment of the Newmarket course in Salisbury, New York, a section of what is now known as the Hempstead Plains of Long Island, New York. This first racing meet in North America was supervised by New York's colonial governor, Richard Nicolls. The area is now occupied by the present Nassau County, New York, region of Greater Westbury and East Garden City.
The 2015 Breeders' Cup World Championships was the 32nd edition of the thoroughbred horse racing season-ending premier event held on October 30 and 31 at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky. The race series, held for the first time at Keeneland, required a significant amount of preparation to transform the small, historic track into a venue capable of handling large crowds, comprising 13 championship races held over a two-day period.
A handicap race in horse racing is a race in which horses carry different weights, allocated by the handicapper. A better horse will carry a heavier weight, to give it a disadvantage when racing against slower horses.
Betting on horse racing or horse betting commonly occurs at many horse races. It started in the UK in the early 1600s during the reign of King James I. Gamblers can stake money on the final placement of the horses taking part in a race. Gambling on horses is, however, prohibited at some racetracks. For example, because of a law passed in 1951, betting is illegal in Springdale Race Course, home of the nationally renowned Toronto-Dominion Bank Carolina Cup and Colonial Cup Steeplechase in Camden, South Carolina.
The 2018 Breeders' Cup World Championships was the 35th edition of the premier event of the North American thoroughbred horse racing year. The 14 races, all but one of which were Grade I, took place on November 2 and 3 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. The races were telecast by NBCSN on Friday and early Saturday, and by NBC later on Saturday. The Breeders' Cup is generally regarded as the end of the North American racing season, although a few Grade I events take place in later November and December. The event typically determines champions in many of the Eclipse Award divisions, although it was missing the eventual Horse of the Year, Triple Crown champion Justify, who was retired in July.
