Customer Reviews

Exotic Betting: How to Make the Multihorse, Multirace Bets that Win Racing's Biggest Payoffs

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I recently read this book. Even though nobody is going to read it and say, "Eureka! I can finally quit my job!" it still qualifies as a must-read.

His explanation of exotics will help a lot of people understand how exotics really work. (You probably think you already know that. <G>) I think more than a few people will see where they are going wrong and, perhaps, how to correct their approach.

I buy just about every horse racing book that comes along. The $20-30 is not important. It is what I may learn from a book versus the time it takes me to read and digest it. Most books I read are a total loss but admittedly I often check out by the third chapter. This is one I was glad I read.

Simply put, there aren't enough high quality books out there from a source such as Crist. Just order it.


Dave Schwartz

If you've ever picked nearly 37% winners over three months, or picked nine in a row, including a 15-1 shot, and still have gone home stooping for tickets in your Hanes, this book is for you.

Wise, relentlessly tested,"Exotic Betting" has an almost Buddhistic approach to thoroughbred wagering: Lose the ego, the King-of-the-Handicappers mentality, allow yourself to be wrong in the right spots and then bam, you're on your way.

Not since Andrew Beyer's "Picking Winners" 30 years ago has a book given horseplayers more hope. An obvious must.

This book elaborates on ticket-tailoring techniques, not on how to identify the contenders in a horse-racing program. Steve Crist does a great job explaining (with clear arithmetical arguments) when to opt for an intrarace exotic bet instead of playing to win/place, and when not to. "The master of the pick-6" also shares his ABC-X technique to build interrace bets.

In the last chapter of the book, Crist shares his experience betting the 2005 Breeder's Cup. How he allocates his bankroll first, tabulates the horses in his A B C and X categories, the ticket execution, the on-the-fly adjustments and hedge bets, the after-the-fact analysis with lessons learned.

It was a very enjoyable read too. Crist style is great.

Written on a narrow topic and advertised as dealing solely with bet structuring (as opposed to selection), I expected the book to emphasize and detail strategies for maximizing potential return at appropriate levels of risk through the use of exotic wagering - the key principles of a disciplined and winning approach to the races. Simply put, I wanted to know when to add that extra horse to a trifecta ticket or when it made financial sense to leave off a vulnerable favorite in a leg of the Pick 4. In contrast, however, Exotic Betting is styled more as an introduction to exotic bet structuring for the beginner, and could be described as simply an extended and more in-depth version of a pamphlet handed out a track explaining simple horizontal and vertical strategies. This is, by no means, intended as an insult to the book or to Crist, and is more a warning to the veteran/professional player looking for advanced treatment of the subject. Indeed, the book is geared more toward the reader of Handicapping 101(which, incidentally, is a great introductory book) who routinely boxes trifectas and three-horse exactas than the reader looking to apply the principles of Fooled by Randomness or a hearty statistics tome to their wagering.

At its core, Exotic Betting contains a discussion of the basic strategies for both vertical (exacta, trifecta, and superfecta) and horizontal (daily double, pick three, pick four, and pick six) wagers. For the most part, the strategies are sound and provide a good, launching pad for deeper thinking about the exotics. In particular, Crist mentions the single, most important piece of advice for the exotics bettor: Exotics can not be used as a means to profit from an overall lack of clarity. This was a lesson that I learned in the early days of wagering, believing that I could use these bets as a replacement for difficult decision making. While you may occasionally reap the reward from this method, the bettor is typically not getting a return in accordance with the risk undertaken. And, at the core, that is what exotic betting is about -- finding ways to increase the return while managing risk -- all based upon your opinion and analysis of the race.

Unfortunately, Exotic Betting does not delve deeply into this fundamental dilemma - one in which the handicapping literature desperately needs more work. Indeed, one problem I have had in the past with other handicapping books was the failure of the authors to explore the rationales underlying certain decisions and attempt to discern general principles from specific examples - a key ingredient in the rigorous pursuit of knowledge. While Exotic Betting serves an introduction to the subject, more guidance and detailed exploration of the relation between risk and reward is sorely needed in any future text dedicated to exotic bet structuring. In looking at Crist's work, we can see the questions that need to be answered in an advanced treatment of the subject. For example, in devising his tickets for the Pick Four and Pick Six, he normally divides his horses into four groups - A's (likely winners), B's (horses that can win if the A's fail), C's (horses that could conceivably win, but are unlikely) and X's (eliminations). Based on these classifications, he then creates tickets with various combinations of the non-eliminated horses to cover a vast range of possibilities. While Crist gives some examples of his "Chinese Menu" selection process (e.g. three from Group A with one from Group C), there is no discussion of the reasons why certain combinations are used. As a result, the reader is left wondering why he determined that financial rewards are best served by these combinations, and how to make these adjustments to their wagers. The same problem occurs in discussing the amounts to bet on certain combinations. In fashioning his tickets, Crist mentions that when he plays a Pick Four ticket with four A's (the likeliest winners), he buys it four times to compensate for the lower payoff. Yet, much like the earlier discussion regarding the selection of combinations, no explanation is given on why or how these amounts were calculated. To the participant in the handicapping life, there is nothing worse than putting out capital at an undue amount of risk for the range and likelihoods of various returns, and, consequently, the horseplayer needs theoretical tools to help him assess when he has either overplayed or underplayed their capital.

Unlike the poker or chess player, whose shelves are filled with intellectual discussions of the finer points of the game, the advanced horse player looking for rigorous approaches to betting the game is still without much hope. Hopefully, in the coming years, an author - perhaps even Crist himself - will begin to develop the potential of the ideas in Exotic Betting, and bring much needed new insight to the advanced participant of the horse playing game. But, until that day, any player who finds himself boxing trifectas, baseballing exactas, or filling out a Pick 4 ticket with 2 horses in each leg, would be wise to pick up Exotic Betting to begin the process of deeper critical thinking.

I thought this was a pretty solid book on the proper ways to construct exotic betting tickets. I found Crist's discussions of exacta and trifecta plays to be particularly interesting. Specifically, Crist tells the player to get away from the boxes (and other "chance plays") and go for big payouts by trusting your handicapping skills. Anyone can throw five longshots into a $1 exacta box and get lucky once and a while. Crist's philososphy, and that of many professional players, is to play less combinations at a greater price. Key your top horse over your second choice for $10. Then the top horse over a longshot play for $5. Crist encourages the player to structure bets in a manner that will reward them the most when their handicapping is spot on.....not just when they get lucky by throwing every longshot on the borad underneath and exoctic play. Why play four horses equally in a leg of the Pick 4 when you like two of them much more than the other two?

This book, along with Steve Davidowitz's classic, is an excellent read for the intermediate player who wants to learn to take his bet structuring to the next level. My only complaint is that the book wasn't longer....I would love to be able to sit down with Steve Crist and talk betting strategies all day. The only caution that I would give is that this book is not at all about how to pick winners. In fact, this book is not going to be valuable at all to a player who does not possess solid handicapping skills. If you have trouble picking winners to begin with then its probably not a good idea to try and get creative with exotic betting.

This is a great book for WPS bettors who are evolving into an exotic bettor. The book not only explains the different types of wagers, it also tells you the smart way on making these bets.

The book is a very easy read. I especially enjoyed the chapter on the pick-6. This is a bet that I only seriously tried to tackle once (I got 4 out of 6 on a $128 ticket). This is a bet that the average horseplayer should avoid, however if you must, read this book. Steve Crist normally spends between $400 and $1000 dollars (out of my league)on the pick 6, and has spent substantially more on the Ultra Pick 6.

The new exotic bettor (and smaller bank rolled) however should stick with the other exotics covered in the book. Crist does a great job on these wagers too. Although nothing ground breaking, the inexperienced horse player will find it very useful. The experienced horseplayer will enjoy it too, because it is put together very well.

Steven Crist has been a horse-racing columnist, CEO of the Daily Racing Form and is the author of three other books on horse racing. His latest book, EXOTIC BETTING, attempts to fulfill a need, he explains, to glean more profits from racing through "exotic betting" at a time when shorter horse fields and more information available to savier handicappers has made it harder to make money with "straight bets": win, place and show. In EXOTIC BETTING, Mr. Crist patiently and lucidly lays out the mathematics behind daily doubles, exactas, trifectas, pick threes, etc., the so-called exotic plays. At one time, these bets were exotic when win, place and show predominated. But now, exotic betting is a feature at every racetrack. EXOTIC BETTING focuses on intrarace exotic bets like the exacta and trifecta and interrace exotic bets like the daily double and the pick three. Mr. Christ offers betting strategies for each of the exotic bet types. While I have seen most of these ideas in different places elsewhere, Mr. Christ brings them all together in one reference and explains them in very readable prose. Using the principals presented in the first part of EXOTIC BETTING, he finishes by taking the reader through his actual betting at the 2005 Breeder's Cup. A few more examples of the strategies discussed could have been interesting if not necessary but, all-in-all, this is an excellent book and I highly recommended EXOTIC BETTING for the casual or more serious horse player who wants to be a better exotics player.

The book is not for beginning players, but the explanations of the bets are. If you have been around the track for even a short time you know what they are called and have a general idea of how to play them. For me it is not realistic to try the strategies because my pockets are not that deep. I can't bet hundreds of dollars per race. The theory is good but the amounts to be bet are not realistic for me, yet. For now I need to work on my handicapping skills and leave the more advanced "exotics" to the pros.

Very insightful on reasons and methods to break out of the Box/wheel mentality. Gives a different perspective on ways to bet both verticlly and horizally.

Steven Crist, Exotic Betting: How to Make the Multihorse, Multirace Bets that Win Racing's Biggest Payoffs (DRF Press, 2006)

There are a whole lot of books out there about how to select winning horses. There are very few about how to responsibly bet them. (Offhand, I can only think of two authors who have covered this subject in any detail-- Mark Cramer and Barry Meadow.) Steve Crist dives into that water with Exotic Betting. As the title suggests, he focuses on exotic bets.

While those who have been reading Crist in column form for years aren't likely to find much in here they haven't already seen, it's nice to have all of this stuff collected into one volume. Horse grading, syndicates, main and backup tickets, all the stuff he's been telling us about forever in one book. A handy reference manual, as it were. *** ½