Creating Extra Value With Pool Bets

Author: Neha Agrawal

There are many good reasons to be making your wagers with pool bets rather than taking a fixed price. The best reason for doing so is getting extra value for your money. This is quite possible when you are making multiple bets, especially in horse racing or other events where there are several participants in each race, game or match.

When you make your multiple wagers as pool bets, or pari-mutuel bets -the system originally came from Paris-thus the name-you will find yourself getting a good deal of value if you are not betting the favourites in the race or event.

Almost always, you will find that the payoff is beyond what a simple parlay will pay. The reason for this is that in, say, a Treble, which is a bet where you have to pick the winner of three straight events, the money bet on the favourites will be greater than in a simple win bet.

When there is a multiple bet, most punters who are playing large tickets always include the favourites among their selections. And those who are making smaller wagers on this type of bet will often include only the favourites in the sequence. So the betting pools will be tilted more than regular win bets towards the favourites. If they lose one of the races, and especially if they lose two or all three of the races, you will find a great deal of value in your winning treble bet if you did have the three winners.

It’s not unusual for a three-race sequence which pays 100-1 on a straight parlay to pay 150-1 or even 200-1 on a treble pool bet.

Not only does the extra money on losing favourites increase the value of a treble payoff, but because this was all just one bet, there is only one cut taken out by the operators of the pool bets. That cut, or takeout, is higher on a multiple bet than on a win bet, but on a straight parlay, the lower cut would have been taken for each of the three win bets. That will add up to a much larger deduction from the betting pools than the one larger cut of the treble bet.

It doesn’t matter what type of multiple bet you are making in the sports betting pool. If the favourites lose but your bet wins, your pari-mutuel bets will return what will seem like an extra bonus. The extra value can be even greater or bets involving even more than three events.