by Bob Carson

Editor’s Note: The USTA website is pleased to present freelance writer Bob Carson and his popular “Outside the Box” features. This monthly series is a menu of outlandish proposals presented with a wink — but the purpose behind them is serious. The views contained in this column are that of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of the United States Trotting Association.

Whoever is winning, at that moment, will always seem to be invincible. — George Orwell

Winning, duh. — Charlie Sheen

Bob Carson

Our unconscious minds are impulsive, they know we want to have good feelings and they know we want to have them immediately. In addition, our minds subliminally overestimate our abilities. We constantly deceive ourselves in pursuit of pleasurable sensations.

For example, when asked to estimate what percent of six foot putts they drop, professional golfers answer seventy percent. Statistics show that less than 54 percent of six footers are made. Those golfers overestimate their success in large part because they want good feelings.

Gambling is a mind game. Our minds want success. We want it quickly and repeatedly. This hurts horse racing. Wagering on horse racing requires time and study before the race. After the race, handicappers have plenty of time to ponder a loss if the race does not go as predicted. Horse players get a slow, clear picture of the flow of their fortunes.

Casino players are masters of deluding themselves, or to be more accurate, they have been deluded by technology and psychology into believing they are faring better than they really are. Casino games subliminally condition slot machine players by allowing them to frequently “win.” Each win is a pleasurable sensation, often reinforced and enhanced by sounds and graphics. The machine conditions the players to quickly minimize each loss with an instantaneous new opportunity.

The science of designing slot machines is astonishing. The engineers who construct these games study the optimum number of times the player needs to get adrenalin rushes from successful plays to mask the hard fact they are slowly losing. This euphoric trance of repetitive play and what seems to be repetitive winning is hard to beat.

But horse racing can beat the machines at their own game.

We can beat the casinos by instituting a new play at the racetrack — the bête Mall (French for ecstasy in the building). The bête Mall is a horserace wager where the player wins every single time. Yes, the player receives the pleasurable sensation of winning every race, every time. Talk about optimal conditioning — a game where you never lose.

In an eight horse field, the bête Mall wager is $16. Just stroll up to the window and then using your best French say, “bête Mall, s’il vous plaît, for duex dollars.” You are handed a ticket where you win every time. Of course, technically, you only come out ahead monetarily if the winning horse goes off at odds of 8-1 or higher. But we are not talking math — with the bête Mall, we are talking human nature.

Human psychology is crazy.

You may feel you are immune, but you are not. Imagine that you play a bête Mall wager for $16. In this race, the winning horse pays a nice $14. Somewhere in our strange psyches, we get a double dose of positive feedback from this result. First, we won. It doesn’t matter if you win a slice of cold pizza at a bingo game or tickets to a mime show — winning is fun. Second, when we strut up to the teller we are handed $14. People handing you money is wonderful feedback. Somehow, someway, the fact that we actually lost a few bucks is masked by all the happy vibes from winning.

This principle has served casinos well for a long time. Horse racing should capitalize by consistently letting our players “win.” This non-stop winning for our bête Mall players would be good for new players and true handicappers would find odds skewed favorably. I would go so far as to recommend a few bête Mall plays for veteran handicappers who are in the throes of extensive losing streaks because winning a string of races, cashing a string of tickets, is good practice. The money may be chicken feed, but the sensation is chicken soup for the soul.

A test session with the bête Mall theory was very instructive. Eight consecutive bête Mall wagers at my local racetrack opened my eyes to several unanticipated results for my investment of $128.

• My longest winning streak of all time — eight in a row. I was giddy.
• Very easy selections.
• Plenty of time to eat and drink between races.
• Did not need a race program.
• Did not second guess myself after each race.
• Found myself rooting for dead heats.
• Favorites that go off-stride are wonderful.
• Wicked early speed duels between co-favorites are golden.
• I “won” $84.60
• I feel confident I could win tomorrow.

What a pleasant evening.

Bet’em all, baby.