Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by pxx 653 days ago
> Imagine essentially that just before a well-informed high roller puts down a large bet on a particular horse, which has the effect of making the odds for betting on that horse less favorable, someone who works for the high roller slips in and makes their own bet on the same horse.

what? horse betting is parimutuel. the timing of your bet does not change your realized odds.

1 comments

A quick Google search says otherwise. (Although I’ve been to horse tracks, Saratoga, and have bet on horses, and don’t recall the payouts changing, so maybe this is a bad source…)

> Horse racing uses a pari-mutuel system. There's a pool of money wagered, the track takes a cut and the rest is distributed to the winning bettors. But that system means you don't know what the final odds will be when you make your bet —because they are constantly changing until the race begins.

Your quote backs up what OP said. In pari-mutuel betting the odds are decided all at once after betting has closed, hence your timing doesn't change the odds you get.

This is in contrast with fixed odds betting against the bookie where they'd adjust the odds as bets came in to hedge their position. That is no longer common.