I ran across an article by Ryan at Betting the Odds
Betting the Odds where he summarized the rules from articles by Tom Amello from America's Best Racing
Tom Amello articles

Tote board watchers have 4 types of betting patterns that they need to recognize as post time nears:

"Monster Board
The favorite is heavily bet.

These very low-odds horses win at such a high rate that it would be careless to always bet against these favorites.

The strategy with these races is to accept that the favorite is going to win and look to bet exactas tossing the 2nd and 3rd choices in the betting.

Two-Headed Board
The public cannot make up its mind on who it favors. Tom’s analysis says this is the board classification when the two favored horses combine for 65% to 80% of the pool.

One of these two heavily backed horses has a high percentage chance to win.

The betting strategy is to play an exacta with both favorites on top and eliminate the 2nd and 3rd choices from the place slot.

Balanced Board
The favorite is in the 8/5 to 2/1 range.

A balanced board is just that, the public has a clear 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice in the betting.

His suggestion is to say the favorite is a play against and look to make a win bet on the 3rd choice. Then look to use a combination of exactas with the top three betting choices.

Chaos Board
No runner is 2/1 or less.

Opportunity to bet on long-odds runners that aren’t part of the top three betting choices. Don’t be afraid of Dutch betting win tickets.

Look to bet combinations of exactas with horses used to win in both 1st and 2nd place slots with other longshots you view as contenders. Also, add the morning line favorite only in the 2nd place slot."



With Determinator, we don't have to wait for bettors to show us the type of race we are playing. The AI Line gives us the same information when we open the race to handicap it. We definitely have the advantage!!

Do you agree with the suggestion that there are 4 different types of races?

Do you play them differently?