How Can Horseracing Be Profitable For Bookies?

By Author: Alvin Harrison
Total Articles: 8
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Just like anyone, bookmaking agents have to make a profit in order to make a living. Typically, bookies ensure their profits by framing their wagering markets based on the probability that they will win more often than they lose. A smart bookmaking agent will always try to ensure that they have a large enough advantage of every framed market to enable them to come out ahead over time.

Here is a quick look at how it is done. Start out with 5 horses. Ability, weight and all being equal, each horse has a 4/1 shot or a 20% chance to win…..5 times 20% is %100. However, in order to make a profit in the long run, the bookmaking agent requires a wagering market to be above 100%. So, he or she will tweak the odds and frame a market with horses under and over the true odds to move the percentages in his favor.

Traditionally, a bookmaking agent will add or subtract percentage figures from different horses until that 100% number he arrived at earlier is now set at 120%. The bookie has “framed his market” at 120%. This is also known as a 20% “overround” ...
... and ensures that the bookmaking agent can return a 20% profit on all wagers…no matter who wins…..assuming that everything else goes according to plan.

Primarily, the work of a bookie is to “balance the books” and to take the profit built into the arrangement…called the vigorish (or simply “the Vig”). This is easier with sports wagering because each contest is made up of only two entities. If there is too much action one way, bookies make the other way more attractive.

Horseracing is more complicated because the fields are much larger and the money wagered at the track determines the odds……so the bookie need only be concerned with not getting hit too hard on a single horse.

Typically, if a bookmaking agent has 100 players wagering on horses, somewhere around 15 of them will come out winners….and that’s a fact! Booking horse action, over the long haul, will increase your hold percentage and keep you in the black all year round.

Horseracing goes on all year long in different parts of the country and there is always a “stakes” of some sort taking place somewhere. Bettors who enjoy playing the ponies will be there year round when your football players are long gone. For steady action, a good racebook package is right up there with an online Luck entertainment center to offer your players when most other action is out of season.