by Trey Nosrac

The engine of our sport, gambling on horses using a pari-mutuel wagering system, is losing steam. The timing of the engine failure is the only question. The reasons are technological and psychological. Two factors weigh on Trey’s brain when he wagers on a race, which he has done much less often during the past decade.

First, Trey is no longer wagering against a thousand people sitting in the grandstands or standing on the apron of a racetrack. At the racetracks of our youth, wagering equals, superiors, inferiors, and some inebriated gamblers were our competition. In that pari-mutuel setting of yore, Trey could maintain the illusion and delusion that his harness-racing handicapping wisdom would prevail.

Today, Trey is no longer sure who is in the betting pool, but he is sure that most of the money is not dumb and some wagering is not human. He realizes that in 2025, he sits at the bottom of the wagering food chain.

The second reason Trey does not play in the harness horse racing pools like he used to is that winning fifty bucks no longer sends him into spasms of ecstasy. A gambler winning a race no longer gets the thrill of a teller handing him a fistful of paper money. A gambler today can no longer brag in front of his pals. He merely sees numbers change on his phone. The endorphins no longer flow like they used to flow.

Wah, wah, wah. Whadda ya gonna do about it?

I suggest two things:

Dump wagers that pay peanuts. Our payoffs should get the juices flowing due to their massive size. We should use these big payoffs to entice lottery-type money into our pools. Let me try to outline one sample of my madness.

If eight horses are in a race and you randomly pick the numbers 4 and 6 to finish in the top two positions (we call this a perfecta or exacta box), the percentage of randomly selecting this winning pair of numbers is 3.57 per cent (1 in 28 possible pairs). Even I have accomplished this feat a few times.

Wagering exacta boxes is not my point. This first tier of the wager is not revolutionary and is not the proposed new wager. The crux of this madness is that the odds go wild in attempting to repeat the exacta box with these two numbers a second and third time. The goal is to set up a parameter where the payoffs could be game-changing or life-changing.

Heading into the second race with eight horses is where the tension builds because the potential payoff increases dramatically. Why? Your odds of repeating a second consecutive random 4, 6, or 6, 4 finish skyrockets to 0.1276 per cent (1 in 784).

At this point, careful analysis of human behavior and data from algorithms may suggest this is the end of the wager, and it is time to pay the happy customer. I recommend extending the wager to a third level because the odds are astronomical if you attempt the random 4, 6 pairing a third consecutive time at 0.00456 per cent (1 in 21,952).

If you are a hard-core handicapper who thinks this wager is just a “lucky numbers” situation, think again. The calculations above rely on random selection. A sharp handicapper is not random and should quickly see the 4, 6 exacta box has live horses in these three consecutive races, and your handicapping ability does not disappear.

The theme I am stumbling to suggest is that to players, both wise and foolish, picking a pair (an exacta box) from a group of eight does not seem that difficult. The multiplying effect of consecutively repeating this pair of numbers leads to fantastic, promotable payoffs that may appeal to true horseplayers AND players who pick a pair of random numbers.

Imagine yourself in the shoes of a player watching the first race who has chosen and wagered on the numbers 4 and 6. You win the first race, but you win nothing except a ticket on 4 and 6 to repeat in the next race. You know you win a tidy sum in 20 minutes if 4, 6 repeats. You would speed text a lot of people during those 20 minutes. The potential amount of money at stake gets the endorphins flowing. The outcome does not feel impossible. There would be many “so close” moments.

And a third tier of the wager? Yowzah, you want drama, you got drama.

A high fixed-odds payout winner at level two for the wager gets the attention of those who, under normal circumstances, will never be fans of the sport. It seems simple – pick two numbers and spend less than an hour watching horses race around the track, focusing on the two numbers you selected. And should we be so bold as to dare, the possible mega-dollar payoff for level three could garner serious attention.

The main benefit may be the elusive formula where the gamble could combine harness handicapping with pure lottery luck.

See what happens. Wagers such as this could multiply our ranks.