Win at the Dog Track With Eb

Many years ago, a woman knicknamed Longshot Lil used to go to a track in the Northeast. She and her brother were at the dog track several days a week and they were fun to watch. He was methodical and had a pretty good greyhound handicapping system. He made quite a few trips to the window to cash tickets at every program.

She had a system too, but methodical she wasn’t. A few times on every program, I’d see her trying to convince her brother that a dog was a good bet. He’d shake his head and point to the program where the dog’s racing lines showed that it hadn’t been able to win at this grade before, so it had dropped down.

Then she’d shake her head “no” and argue with him that the dog had won after only two races in the lower grade, so it was a good bet to win at the higher grade. Her brother would roll his eyes and tell her to bet it if she liked it. Sometimes, he’d even put up a dollar to get in on half of the win bet she made.

The funny thing is that more than half the time, Longshot Lil’s dogs came in and paid good money. How did she know which dog was ready to win, even though it hadn’t won at that grade before? Well, Lil said that she knew because she followed the dogs.

While her brother was handicapping, she was watching the dogs from the time they started in M grade all the way up the ladder. She made notes on her program when she thought a dog was ready to win and those were the dogs she bet on.

I don’t know how she knew which dogs would drop down and win and then come back to win when they moved up a grade. Something in the lines or in the way they raced tipped her off. All I know is that she was the kind of handicapper who wins through watching, not through calculating.

It might sound funny coming from someone who sells greyhound handicapping systems and uses them to win, but if you’re the kind of person who learns best by watching rather than reading, Lil’s system might be the best one for you. Maybe you should try watching the dogs for awhile to see if something they do tells you that they’re ready to win.

If it doesn’t work for you, then maybe you’re not a visual learner. Maybe you need to read to learn and then use a pen and a piece of paper to figure out how to pick winners at the dog track. If so, you can still pick longshots. You can watch the dogs, take notes and then use the notes along with a good handicapping system to pick those longshots that other people miss.

In the old days, people went to the dog track, bet to win and that was that. Way back in the 30’s when greyhound racing really got started in the US, there were no exotic bets. You picked a winner and if it didn’t win, you lost.

Nowadays, though, you can bet a dog to win, place, show, come in first or second with another dog in a quiniela, come in first, second or third with other dogs in a trifecta or even come in with 3 other dogs in a superfecta.

If you want to bet even bigger, you can pick the winners of 3 races and get the Pick-3 jackpot. But wait, there’s more! Why bet on 3 dogs when you can bet on 6 in six races and hit the Pick-6? I suppose sooner or later, someone will come up with a Coverall like they do in Bingo and have a giant jackpot for the person who picks every winner in every race on a program.

This is all well and good, but have you ever really thought about whether these exotic bets pay off? I have. I know they wouldn’t make me money, which is why I seldom bet them. I never bet the Pick-3 or Pick-6. I have enough trouble picking a winner in one race, never mind 3 or 6.

Not that I haven’t had days when I picked most of the winners on the program. I have. But I’d rather put my money into bets that I know I’m better at picking like quinielas and the occasional trifecta. They’re my “bread and butter” bets, because they’re bets that make money for me consistently.

If I were to spend as much money as you need to spend to hit those big exotic bets, I wouldn’t have money left for the bets that help me leave with more money than I came in with. And isn’t that the idea when we go to the dog track?

I think there are very few people who are good enough at greyhound handicapping to pick 6 dogs who’ll win in a row. If you are, then by all means, bet on the exotic bets and make some money at the dog track. But if you’re like most people, you’d probably be better off betting quiniela boxes and the occasional trifecta.

(I’ve only had requests for two refunds in my whole career selling handicapping systems. One was because of a delivery glitch before I signed up with e-junkie, the excellent digital delivery system I have now. The other refund request was from someone in Australia who realized that my systems aren’t based on Australian greyhound racing. If you’re from a non-US country other than Mexico which has US style dog racing, please be aware that my systems may not make sense to you or apply to your country’s style of greyhound racing.)

There are basic differences between US dog races and European, Australian, Asian and New Zealand dog racing. The biggest difference is that US races have 8 dogs and the others have 6. I suppose this makes it a bit easier to pick winners in non-US races, but I wonder if the odds are as good.

In the US when there are one or two scratches in a race, dogs who can’t run due to health issues, oftentimes the payoffs aren’t as big. This is probably because there are fewer combinations to bet on. So, I wonder, does this hold true for 6 dog races in general?

Racing programs, called race cards in some places, are a bit different when you compare US to Non-US tracks. In the US, tracks have turns. In other countries, they have bends. In the US, the calls are in number notation written under the call’s name. In other places, they’re expressed as just a series of numbers with no heading over them to tell you that they’re the calls from “break” or “off” to Finish, which is the same all over the world, apparently.

A very big difference is where the lure is positioned in different venues. In the US, it runs around the inside of the track, or to the left of the dogs as they race. In other countries, the “artificial hare” as they call it, runs around the outside of the track. This has the effect of leading the US racers to run closer to the inside rail. With the outside lure, dogs tend to run more midtrack. This makes a difference when handicapping.

Wherever greyhounds run, they race as fast and are just as exciting to watch. Whether you’re betting on BAGS races at Nottingham in England, a match race at Brisbane in Australia or at the oldest track in the US, Derby Lane in Florida, there’s nothing like the action and satisfaction of winning at the dog track.

Of course, when betting on races in another country, it’s wise to seek the counsel of handicappers who are familiar with the races there. While there is a good bit of information available about racing in other countries, there is a real lack of it when you try to handicap US races. Where once there were national magazines and newsletters, now there’s only one full-scale magazine put out by the greyhound owner’s association and almost no new handicapping books.

The best advice I can give to Non-US bettors is this: Get as much information as you can before you plunk down your money. Do your research and talk to other bettors in online forums and at your favorite track. Read free handicapping articles on my site and any others you can find. Then practice on paper first before you make any real bets. And, of course, bet with a reputable firm, preferably one of the big ones that’s well-known in your country. And, of course, good luck.