Is Late Money A Factor In Greyhound Handicapping?

Late money is why the payoff you get isn’t always the payoff you think you’re going to get when you cash a ticket at the greyhound track. You put down a bet on a dog that’s at 3-1. It wins. You look up at the board before you go to cash your ticket and are surprised to see that it’s now at 9-5. What happened?

Well, the late money jumped on the dog and bet it down to where you’re not going to get as much as you thought you’d get. Of course, a winning ticket is still a nice thing, but what if you bet more than you get back? If you boxed the dog with another dog in a quiniela and its low odds brought down the odds on the quiniela, you could actually win and still lose money on the race.

So, should you wait until the absolute last minute before you make your bets so that the late money won’t lower the price after you make your bet? No. You should bet dogs that you think are contenders at odds that make sense. There’s not a lot you can do about the effect late money has on the payoffs.

However, if you notice that the odds on a dog are lower than they should be, you might want to wait until you see if the odds are going to get really low as all the “me-too” bettors jump on it. This is especially likely to happen in a race where there are no real standouts, but gradually one dog’s odds get lower and lower than all of the other dogs’ odds.

People in crowds tend to follow the leaders. If the leaders like a dog in a race where most people don’t know who to like, watch for it to become a bigger favorite than it deserves to be. Bet accordingly and expect that the late money will very likely bet it down to nothing.