Butch

Bet she's kicking herself for not having more change in her pocket when making that bet!

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hor...ory?id=2517910

SWARTZ CREEK, Mich. -- A woman who placed a 10-cent Superfecta bet in Michigan on a horse race being simulcast from Hollywood Park in Englewood, Calif. has won $21,584.

The woman, whose name wasn't released, placed two 10-cent Superfecta bets Friday at a raceway in Swartz Creek, near Detroit. The Superfecta requires gamblers to pick the four top-finishing horses in correct order.

The woman collected her winnings at the track Monday.

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ryan_self

Something's missing in this story. Say their are 8 horses racing, then the number of possibilities is 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1, or 40,320 possibilities. You could conceivably put a dime on every possible combination and clear $17,000 every time.

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zippyjuan

They can make a ten cent bet?

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Cubsfan

http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/...630.xml&coll=5


I'm guessing that particular race had 9 or more horses.

Maarchk

Thats not always true. She cleared 21k because my guess is the odds of the top 4 horses finishing were very high. like the winner was 50-1 2nd place was 30-1, third place was 40-1 and 4th place was 50-1.

I bet the favorites all finished 5-9. If even one favorite finishes in the top 4, then the payoff drops to probably about a couple hundred dollars. This is just one of those times when the long shots all hit.

A simpler example is just buying a winning ticket for a dollar. On a 100-1 shot its 99 dollars of profit. So in a 5 horse race, you clear 95 bucks every time. But if the other 4 horses are 2-1 which they would probably need to be to make that horse be 100-1, then 4 times out of 5, you are gonna lose 98 bucks.

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Jeffbx

Some guy tried to do this with one of the huge lotto jackpots in Michigan a long time ago - I don't remember the specifics, but I believe the jackpot was around $60-80M, and the odds were about 40M to one. He had an investor to back him & everything, and went to the state lottery officials to try to buy one of every possible combination. The lottery guys told him no, since there was no way to print 40M tickets before the drawing. Heh.

Cubsfan

Sounds like a good idea, except if 10 other people also pick the winning numbers!

DarkFury

Nah, I don't think she's kicking herself... getting lucky isn't something that anyone can count on and hindsight is 20/20.

She put down a 10 cent bet on what most folks would have said is a sure loss. 10 cents... no sweat. and got a 210,000% return on a sucker bet. No one in their right mind would risk big dollars on a bet like this...

I know I'd be all smiles over something like that.

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Jeffbx

Exactly - even if only ONE other person had picked the numbers I think they would have been screwed.