All Button

[Paolo]

Are there specific situations where a successful player would use the ALL button in an exotic wager? Seems like an \'entertainment only\' or amateurish kind of play to me, but the tactic is used quite a bit by TVG/HRTV analysts, so I\'m guessing there might be some logic to it.

[mjellish]

I\'ve hit all many times

[Lost Cause]

mjellish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I\'ve hit all many times


same here...Sometimes you look at a race and hate the favorite but you can\'t get an angle on picking the actual winner that is when I do it..

[P-Dub]

Works well underneath too

[big18741]

Underneath in the Derby works well.

Orb All exacta 981
Orb All Revolutionary tri 6925

[Topcat]

Chaos can work to your advantage, especially on big days and/or off tracks, with full fields.   I\'ve seen guys take home the track with single/5-piece/all/all tickets on late pick-fours . . .

[Rich Curtis]

Paolo wrote:

\"the tactic is used quite a bit by TVG/HRTV analysts\"

That\'s reason enough not to use it. Kind of like the way Jackson Browne stopped using cocaine when he found out the CIA was selling it.

[SoCalMan2]

The Dixie was a race I hit by using the all button.  My view on the race was that you already had to go pretty deep to get all the logical contenders, and then you start looking at how many out of ALL you are excluding and what the savings are versus what potential payouts you were dialing yourself out of.  Of course it backfired on me when of the 4 horses I took in the Preakness, none of them was Oxbow.  However, I was alive to some very very nice payouts in the Preakness if Orb did not fire (and one of my 4 won in his place).  If you were playing the horizontals into Orb, I would say it would not make sense to hit All because you are already killing your payoff by including a 3-5 shot in the wager.  All only makes sense if you will get paid right if things come in the way you would like them too.  If the payout is not worth the risk, then you are probably not making the right bet.  You have to remember that sometimes you can play all and end up with the favorite or second choice winning, so if you are leaning on a short price elsewhere in the ticket, that is the deathknell (well, maybe that is too dramatic, but you are in the zone where you can hit your bet, but still lose money -- although the IRS views it a different way).

[Rich Curtis]

The ALL button also dials you out of what you would have collected had you eschewed the ALL button and instead loaded up on combinations you actually preferred. In this sense, the ALL button is an opinion diluter. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends on the quality of the opinion that is being diluted.

[Rich Curtis]

Lost Cause wrote:

\"Sometimes you look at a race and hate the favorite but you can\'t get an angle on picking the actual winner that is when I do it..\"

You hit the ALL button and by so doing make a bet on a horse you hate? Instead, why not toss the horse you hate and use the money saved to bet more on a horse you don\'t hate?

[Paolo]

Joking aside, that actually reflects my original thought. These guys on TV have the unenviable task of making selections for each and every race. Hard to have a strong opinion on the 3rd at Parx every Tuesday afternoon, so why not use the ALL button for entertainment. The suspicious part of it is that the ALL selection is usually followed by the phrase \"hoping for a longshot\". Sure it works at times, but so does the quick pick for the lottery. Nobody can deny that the lottery is a long-term losing proposition. Likewise, it seems clear that indiscriminate use of ALL in racing will also be a long-term losing strategy due to the takeout. I am a bit surprised at the support for the strategy on this forum because I don\'t recall ever seeing it used on the ROTW or the Redboard analysis sheets. Nor have I seen it on the Bris Player\'s Pool tickets (although I have only seen a few of those tickets).

Regardless, my only goal in asking the question was to estimate how prevalent the use is by the big money players, and how it affects vertical payoffs.

As far as my own thoughts on the subject, my current thinking says the strategy probably only offers true long term value when chasing horizontal tickets with a large carryover.

As always, I appreciate just hearing other opinions.

[Boscar Obarra]

As mentioned, ALL, in any slot, is a bet ON CHAOS.

 If you\'re good at spotting races with weak chalk and live bombs, nothing wrong with the all. You can make a case for leaving out the chalk altogether, but you\'re not saving much.

 You can try to land on the winners via \'capping, but you\'ll often be frustrated by missing a big payoff, while being dead right on the thesis.

 Just don\'t over do it, the ALL is not a substitute for \'no clue\'

[mjellish]

Here are some examples of how the ALL button can be worth using in my opinion.

You like 10-1 shot (A horse) to win a race and want to play him in the TRI.  You have three other horses (B horses) that you like to hit the board with him.  So you play the race like this

10 unit wager A/B/B
5 unit wager A/B/All
3 unit wager A/ALL/B
2 unit wager A/ALL/ALL

Now if you are dead right and it finishes A/B/B you hit for 20 units.  If you are only partly right and it finishes A/B/something else, or A/something else/B you still cash for either 7 or 5 units.  And if you are right about your 10-1 and wrong about your B horses you still cash the Tri.


Another good use of the ALL button would be if you were playing a pick 4 and your whole play was designed around a strong opinion in one race.  In that case you may play the pick 4 like this.

Ticket #1 5 Units
A Horses
A Horses
Your Single
A Horses

Ticket #2 3 units
ALL
A Horses
Your Single
A Horses

Ticket #3 3 units
A Horses
ALL
Your Single
A Horses

Ticket #4 3 units
A Horses
A Horses
Your Single
ALL

Now if your single wins and you are right about the A horses in the rest of the races you hit the pick 4 for 14 units.

If your single wins but you get busted out of one race you still hit for 3 units

If you get busted out of 2 races or single doesn\'t win you lose.

At least this way you have your money somewhat structured around your opinions.


To me, the ALL button is best used when you have a strong opinion about something (preferably a horse that is not the favorite) and you want to make sure you cash something no matter what.  But I almost always also have a few other tickets that use just the horses I like.  That way you are focusing some of your play while protecting it at the same time.

This can be an especially strong play when you like a longshot.  There is nothing worse than liking a 10-1 or a 20-1 that runs in and not cashing because you missed one horse in 3rd (vertically) or another bomber in the sequence (horizontally).  If your longshot comes in you will make enough money anyway so why not protect yourself.

It\'s a little tougher to use ALL with the favorites because you can wind up cashing and not making any money.  You usually have to be a little more focused.

[Paolo]

Very much appreciate you sharing your rationale. Hard to believe the majority of players have the fortitude or $$ to consistently play the verticals that way in a full field, and that may very well be part of the reason you find it more profitable to play that way instead of just playing the exacta and win pools. (Of course, picking the A horse is still the most important aspect.)

But if everybody played the verticals this way, I would hazard a quick guess that you would only average about the same effective ROI as a win bet?

Anyway, if a decent portion of the pools is played this way, then it stands to reason that predicting tri and super payoffs from win odds (and thus probabilities) will tend to overpredict payoffs for longshots and underpredict payoffs for favorites.

Not sure where I am headed with this. I have been playing the races for over 50 years and have yet to consistently turn a decent profit. Then again, I have not lost a house, restaurant, car, wife, kids, or even the shirt off my back.

[Fairmount1]

Mjellish,

A few questions if you don\'t mind.  

With respect to the trifecta example, are you thinking it is a really chaotic race besides the horse you like best at 10-1 (A) I assume when you would attempt this strategy?  

Do you think this has been better value in your experience than betting to win as a result of the mulitple units of the trifecta?  In a 12 horse field, the cost depending on the unit amount a person chooses could be quite a sizey win bet instead on a 10-1 shot.

And would you not consider a ticket with your A horse in second such as B/A/B and(or) B/A/All?  Or do you eschew using a horse in the 2nd position as a backup?