Race Betting

Most sports books also allow betting on horses (and sometimes dogs) in an area called the race book. If you enjoy betting the horses, fine; but it’s not one of the gambling games that rates high on my list for two reasons:

• If you are an unknowledgeable player, you face a high casino edge.
• If you are a knowledgeable player (good handicapper, have access to good information), the casinos won’t take your action.

One group of bookmakers tried to buck policy #2. They opened the Sport of Kings race book (located at the corner of Convention Center Dr. and Paradise Rd.) in 1992, and announced that they would accept wagers of almost any size without discriminating against certain ‘known’ horse bettors. Experts predicted that the race book was ‘going to get their brains beat out.’ They were right. The losses were early and heavy, and Sport of Kings went pari-mutuel (a system that reduced the handle but eliminated risk) in less than one month.