A Rs 10 bet can do wonders at races! - By Shailendra Awasthi I TNN
Posted on - 29 Jan 2011
A Rs 10 bet can do wonders at races!
By Shailendra Awasthi
TIMES OF INDIA
29-01-2011
You don’t need to have deep pockets to bet at the races. A mere Rs 10 is enough to get you rolling.
What can you get with a tenner? If your answer is a handful of peanuts, think again. Contrary to the general perception, a ten-rupee wager at the race course can fetch you a handsome amount. And that’s not all; horse racing offers more innovative ways to bet!
It is strange but true. Those not familiar with horse racing don’t know that one can not only win by just predicting a winner at the races, but also by forecasting a horse that finishes second! All one has to do is to go to a tote betting window, and single out a horse which you think will certainly finish second. This is called a ‘Second Horse Pool bet’.
There are three ways one can bet at the races—either on the tote (short for totalizator, the automated system that runs betting) with fluctuating odds and payouts, at fixed odds, or with the bookmakers. Today, we will just discuss tote betting. At a tote window, a win amount is arrived at only after the race is over. The total amount—collected after accepting bets on each horse of a given race—is distributed among successful bets after deducting a commission shared by the government and the host club.
Suppose there are 10 horses in a given race and total betting collected after the races is over Rs one lakh. The club will deduct its own share and the government’s taxes. At RWITC, the deduction on win is 28 per cent, of which the club’s share is just eight per cent and the government takes away 20 per cent. Therefore, an amount of 28,000 will be deducted from the collected Rs 1 lakh. The remaining Rs 72,000 will be distributed as dividend to the people who have successfully nominated the winner. Suppose there were only four people who had predicted the winner, then each winner stands to get Rs 18,000.
THE OTHER INNOVATIVE WAYS OF GETTING RETURNS ON A RS 10 BET:
PLACE: In this type of betting, one needs to predict a horse who finishes among the first three if there are more than seven runners in a race!
FORECAST: One needs to predict two horses who should finish first and second in the correct order to claim the winning amount.
QUINELLA: This pool is similar to forecast but with a twist. One needs to predict first and second finishers in either order for the bet to materialize.
TANALA: Here one needs to predict first three finishers in correct order to get the returns. But hold on, you can still win a consolation amount if you get the winner correct but the next two finished in either order. Say you had predicted horses nos. 7, 9, 2 to finish in that order. You get consolation even If the results turns out to be 7,2,9!
50 Is the amount in percentage that the host club and government charge as taxes on all pools on tote except on win, place and second horse pool betting. This is the rate which is charged by RWITC. It differs at other racing clubs in the country.
