Horse Racing Trifecta payouts

TextLast Sunday at Ellis Park in the 7th race, a trifecta paid $34,000 on a $2 wager, and the superfecta
paid $298,000 on a $2 bet. Did they post this large payouts, cause nobody hit the trifecta, and superfecta?

If someone hit, then I am sure the payouts would be about 25% of what they listed. Is that correct?

The payout could have been so high on the Trifecta because only one person had the winning ticket but only had it for $1. The actual payout would have been half that amount if this were the case. The Super could have only had one winner but at some tracks, you can make bets as small as 10 cent wagers for this bet. If this were the case, the actual payout would have been 1/20th of the amount listed. All winning prices on the tote board are listed based on a $2 payout in this case. If there were no winning tickets on any of the wagers on the race, the payouts would have been listed as 5-12-ALL meaning everyone that had a ticket with the 5 horse as the winner and the 12 horse finishing second would have gotten paid a portion of the pool. Same way on the Super (5-12-ALL-ALL)

Another thing about the payouts. The tracks have taken out their "hold" before they list any of the payouts. The only money that would have been taken out of the winning tickets is the amount the IRS would take because of the huge win. They would do like the casinos and give you a 1040-G so you would have to declare the amount you won on your taxes.

Ray

Thanks Ray for the info. They didn't list any 10 cent payout, so I am assuming nobody hit the super.
I know dog tracks post whatever numbers came in ..example ( 5- 6- all ) when nobody hits, but I never have seen it at the horse tracks that I follow in Kentucky.

They don't list any payouts for the 10 cent bets except when they show the payouts right after the race on the screens at the track. The Daily Racing Forum shows payouts, for the most part, as a $2 bet. That's the way they have listed the payouts on any race for ever. These 10-cent bets are ways for the track to make extra money on the races. Not all tracks have these bets. That's why the DRF doesn't list these payouts.

Re-read what I said. If there were no winning tickets for the race the payout would be listed as 5-12-ALL. Say the third place horse was the #3 horse (I'm not going to bother to back and find the actual number). If you had a 5-12-1, 5-12-2, 5-12-4 and so on ticket, you would get paid a share of the pool money. The fact that they listed all three or four numbers on the payout means that at least one person had a winning ticket of some amount. The fact that the $2 Super paid out almost $300,000 means that, more than likely, one person had a 10-cent ticket and received around $15,000 for his winner. The total amount bet on the Super bet was around $18,000. After the tracks "hold" the payout pool would be around the $15,000. Had there been one ticket with a $2 bet that had all four numbers in the exact order of finish, the payout would have been the $15,000 amount.

Race tracks betting is different than casino betting. What they have is called pari mutuel betting. Your exact odds on a bet are not set until the race is about to go off and all the bets are in. You could bet a horse 15 minutes before the race with odds at 10-1. Right before the race, someone could make a $2,000 bet on the same horse you bet and drop the odds down to 2-1. Should your horse win, you will only get paid at 2-1 odds, just like the other betters. The track will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER pay out more money on a race than they take in. They only pay out a percentage of the money bet on every type of bet and race.

Ray

The trifecta pool was $33,456 and the superfecta pool was $19,149. Without knowing the Ellis mutual takeout rate or minimum bet sizes, it would appear that there were 3 50 cent winning tri tickets sold and one 10 cent winning super ticket, based on typical hold rates, which tend to be quite high on this type of exotic wager at smaller tracks.