by Tom Kelley, publicity director, Balmoral Park

Crete, IL — Balmoral Park will offer the wagering fireworks Saturday night (July 4) with two guaranteed pools to kick off the holiday weekend.

The mile track will offer $75,000 in guaranteed wagers this weekend. Because the 50-cent minimum wager Pick-5 was not hit last Sunday night a generous carryover of $9,913 will be added to tonight’s pool. The Saturday Pick-5 will have a guaranteed pool of $30,000.The popular low cost Pick-5 wager is offered on races four through eight on Saturday night.

In addition to the Pick-5 guarantee, fans will have a chance to walk away with a big payday right after that as Balmoral will also offer its usual Saturday $20,000 guaranteed pool on their $1 Pick-4 wager. The $1 wager is on races nine through 12 on Saturday night and features a low takeout of just 15 percent. The Balmoral Pick-4 is experiencing record growth with pools averaging more than $38,000 in June. The average $1 Pick-4 payout in 2015 is more than $2,200 for a dollar.

Post time for Saturday’s opener at Balmoral is 7:10 p.m. (CDT).

The Sunday card will feature a $25,000 guaranteed Pick-4 pool.

Handicappers across North America can get a head start on their competition with free 12 line program pages for the guaranteed pools for Saturday and Sunday courtesy of the USTA Strategic Wagering Program and TrackMaster on the handicapping section at www.ustrotting.com.

Maywood Park has also announced that beginning on Thursday (July 9), the Pick-4 guarantee on Thursday will be boosted to $10,000 instead of the current $7,500 guarantee that has been in place. The Friday Maywood Pick-4 paid $15,616 for a buck.

Saturday is also offering great value on the track apron with the very popular Miller Lite Saturday Night. Live entertainment as well as great food and drink specials make a beautiful night at the races even better. Balmoral adds to the value by offering free parking and free admission.

Balmoral races every Saturday and Sunday. The Balmoral signal has been extremely popular throughout North America, with nightly handle in June averaging more than $1 million.