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.

“In the gambling world we crave action, if we just make mental bets we will lose our minds.”

Bob Carson

Many of us approach slot machines as if they were radioactive. We view lottery tickets as absurd. After a few spins, roulette looks hopeless. Our mindset is a preference for doing something where we have a semblance of control and making some decisions with our gambling dollars.

Other recreational gamblers prefer random action. Neither a reasoned wager nor a random selection is right or wrong, but it is frustrating to horse racing that randomness has a leg up in the race for loose money. Active or passive gamblers are different but without a doubt, some “randomness” revenue could be helpful to horse racing.

Introducing pure luck into a game that takes pride in being an intellectual challenge is tricky. The foundation of harness racing is built on pari-mutuel wagering, a betting system in which all bets are placed together in a pool. Taxes and take outs are removed and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all winning bets. This means that horse racing handicappers are competing against each other and the house does not care who wins.

Tinkering with a foundation is dangerous, even if that foundation is showing some cracks. This pari-mutuel system has worked well for a long time, especially when the field was free of interlopers. We live in a new world today. Perhaps it is time to look at incremental inroads that make our sport more palatable for our friends who prefer to do less thinking when they place a wager. We might want to test a few gaming models not based on the pari-mutuel system for our friends who just want to have fun.

Aside from horses, my only other gambling dalliance is Blackjack. The card game is addictive, takes some strategy, has plenty of action and the house is in the mix. Blackjack is not a pari-mutuel wager; you are not playing against other individuals. Everyone at the table can win or lose a hand. This card game gives players the illusion that they have almost a fifty/fifty chance of winning; the “almost” is where casinos make money.

Rumor has it that the game of Blackjack is the “best wager” in a casino. Alas, this “best wager” theory has yet to prove true in my world. Every time I sit down to play Blackjack and declare, “stay” or “hit me,” as I leave the table I feel certain that I would have been better off handicapping horse racing.

I digress.

For those who just can’t get aboard the harness train with all of the complexities and variables involved (which is an annoyingly large percentage of the population), let’s create a few games where they might choose to climb on board.

For example, let’s design a wager along the lines of Blackjack. Let’s make this game NOT dependent upon the pari-mutel system but a hybrid that uses our races and can be played simultaneously. For demonstration purposes let’s call the new play WATT (Wager Aggregate Total Time).

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Located on the toteboard, or on your computer screen, just above the traditional post positions and odds for the trotters and pacers you will find the following information:

Race Number 6

The Wager Aggregate Total Time (first five finishers ) for this trotting race is 10:02.2 (This number will be generated by computer probability and will represent the total amount of time for the first five finishers).

You can wager over or under on the WATT.

The bets are locked in.

The race is contested.

The official times for the first five horses are totaled.

After a few moments, the final WATT number blinks on the tote board.

10:02.1 (under wins)

For this race, players who played the WATT under will double their money.

For this race, players who played the WATT over will lose.

The house wins and takes all the money when the WATT is exact.

I’m sure you get the drift. The part of this scheme that I want to emphasize is that anyone can play. After all, this wager is basically a coin flip, but not completely. Real handicappers could use traditional tools and data to figure out whether or not they think the house number, the WATT, is too high or too low.

This would also be a hybrid wager that could be played concurrently with traditional wagering. This could allow a wager on a harness race to be both reasoned and recreational. Those who like the traditional pari-mutuel wagering system are not affected by the WATT players. Gamblers of different minds would not step on each other’s toes.

Would you play this game? More importantly, would the non-harness race section of the planet, those who prefer random selection, play this game?

WATT the heck, why not give non pari-mutuel wagers a chance?