The Season Opener

The Assembled gathered at Aqueduct this past Saturday, making their on-track debut for the season. Lately, the Assembled has been a steady quartet, with the fifth member missing for a few years now, owing to Joe C's obligation as the bass singer in a  Doo-Wop group, The Excellents. Appearances at East Coast venues and the occasional cruise have taken Joe away from the races. We're going to have to catch him on You Tube or buy a ticket, if we want to see him.

Once the shock of $7 parking was discussed and worn out, the chatter was strictly about who do you like, and why? Actually, no one really has to be forced to tell anyone who they like and why, it just comes out.

Bobby G. missed the first race, but arrived with a pressing issue: "Tell me the One won the first race." Yes he did. Bobby G. explained he put $14 on him from his phone through his account. The One went off as the second choice at $1.65, and paid $5.30 to win. Bobby G. was ahead and he hadn't even sat down yet. Sitting down, he explained later, was where he went wrong.

Johnny D's numbers were hitting, but the returns were paltry. Jose was up to his usual carpet bombing betting approach, having so many 50 cent, $1 and $2 win and boxed exacta and trifecta bets, that it was usually only with a reshuffle through his tickets after the race did he realize if he won anything. Sometimes he did. But a $9 return on a $20 series of bets will drain you of funds faster than the water goes over Niagara Falls.

Johnny M. was holding his own, but usually following Johnny D's bets, and neither was getting into the plus column with any rate of speed. It wasn't until the sixth race that the ground opened up. Or, more accurately, the volcano erupted.

A very popular bet at the track, aside from the multi-led wagers that can engulf two, three, four, five and even six! races, is the superfecta. Hitting it requires having the ticket that has the first four horses, in their exact order of finish. Its payouts can be startling, driven in value when a longshot either wins, or places within the first four, and the favorite doesn't win, or doesn't even make the first four finishers.

Most superfecta bets are "boxed" bets. This is a ticket that covers all the permutations of the order of finish for the four or more horses you select. The more horses you select, the more permutations, and the more the final bets costs.

String together four horses (the minimum) and then decide your wager. The popular bet for the superfecta is the minimum 10 cents. That bet wagers 10 cents per permutation. Since 10 cents is 5% of $2, when the payoff for the $2 price (the traditional minimum bet) is posted, you get 5% of that announced payout. "Boxing" four horses creates a ticket that covers the 24 permutations of those four horses in a finish. Bet 10 cents on a "boxed" four horse superfecta, the ticket costs you a measly $2.40.  You get 5% of the $2 payout if your four horses finish as the top four finishers, no matter what order they're in. And since the $2 payout can be large, 5% of a large number can be a large number as well, all for a micro-bet of $2.40.

Jose loves to play superfectas for 10 cents per bet. But he also shuns the self-service betting machines, relying on the old way of telling the teller his bets. Because betting superfectas can be convoluted with "boxing" and "keying" (not discussed here), NYRA insists that the self-service machines be used for making the bet.

Since I use the machines, Jose will give me what his four-horse selection is, and choose to bet 10 cents per outcome,  So, I write down his numbers and collect $2.40 from Jose and make his superfecta bet at the self-service machine, giving him his ticket before the race. His $2.40 ticket for a four-horse superfecta is actually twenty-four 10 cent wagers. The notation on the ticket acknowledges this by displaying the four horses selected, the "box" type of bet, and the fact that 24 bets are actually on the ticket. Have your four horses finish first through fourth place, in any order, and your ticket is good for 5% of the $2 payout. You collect. A feeling you never tire of.

Jose brings an aspect to the game of betting that I have called carpet bombing. Aside from giving me his superfecta bets, and I giving him his ticket, he will have made several other bets at the manned teller window.  He boxes exactas and trifectas in the race he just bet a superfecta on. He'll make $1 bets and 50 cent bets. He might wind up with 16 pieces of paper before he's done and back at his seat.

There were eight horses in Saturday's sixth race, numbers 1-8. Jose gave me 1/2/6/8 to box for his 10 cent superfecta. He made an array of other bets, none of which we ever know the specifics of, and generally are outside even his ability to recall without looking at his tickets. Thus, when a race is over, and the order of finish is Official, Jose may be aware of one of his bets that came in, but not all of them. He doesn't really know if he lost all his bets, or, if he hit some portion of them until he dives back into his stack of tickets and reads his bets back. It becomes a paper shuffle.

The sixth race order of finish was 2/1/8/6, with a $35 horse winning, and a near 39-1 shot coming in third. The favorite finished 2nd and the second favorite finished fourth, Jose was in for a decent return for his 10 cent wager.

But it didn't stop there. A scan of his tickets revealed he had the trifecta as well, a ticket with the exact order of finish of the top three horses. Prices went up, and it didn't take long to compute that Jose's 10 cents superfecta bet returned 5% of the $2 payout of $2,967. No calculator needed. Ten percent is $296.70; and half of that is $148.35.

His trifecta bet was a three horse 50 cent "box" and he had the first three finishers on that ticket as well. Thus, he stood to collect 25% of the $2 trifecta payout of $1,007.  Half of half of that is $251.75.

He's now up to a cumulative return of $400.10. He's gone through his rickets and created a discard pile. At the urging of The Assembled we insisted he go back through his tickets. Maybe he's got the exacta as well.

Yep, a second pass through the pile reveals a winning exacta ticket, for a $1 bet. Thus, Jose is in line for half the $2 payout of $124.50. This makes that ticket worth $62.25. Pile it on.

Finally satisfied that all the winning tickets have been culled from the sixth race pile, Jose goes to collect. Something no one ever gets tired of doing.

Money won is twice as nice as money earned, but even if you're only watching Jose win, you're having a good time.

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