Why is there less money in 'Show wagering"?

LOL---Show money is like money in the BANK for lots of those big betters in VEGAS....If they think that its going to hit the board they will drop 10 20 K to show on it ...Those 2.10 to shows add up dropping 10 20K on them....BUT....Sometimes those 1/9 2/5 1/2 3/5 Dont hit the board ...Like Saturday..... Dubai Escapade was 2/5 at CALDER and MISSED the board completely and shows prices was....79.00 32.00 65.00....So not every caulk horse is ALWAYS a lock.!!

The answer is easy. Show wagering is like insurance on your bet. You are saying "he is good enough to be in the top three" but you are not brave enough to say "he or she will be in first". It is a lot easier to conclude that a horse might finnish "in the money" but a lot harder to peg down an actual win. So then, the value of a straight win is more valuable to the better. However, creative wagering allows us some options. Take the 2002 preakness stakes. A 200 dollar wager on War Emblem (the favorite at 2-1) to win might have have won you about 500 dollars (I think). But if you did a 200 dollar place bet on the second place horse, Magic Weisner at 45-1 you would win about 3300. People called "bridge jumpers" sometimes employ this tactic in a more severe way when they can capture a favorite to show at 2- 1 and bet thousands of dollars on him to show. They win a few hundred but risk a lot of money to get there. Hope this helps.

Most of the time, 99% of the time, show pays a fraction of what win pays.

However, I'll never forget a race where the favorite ran "out of the money".

It was sometime around 1980 in New York.

I coined a phrase from that race...

Show is the only WAYA to go".

Waya was the horse's name that won, and he paid more to show than to win.

That's an unusual situation where the track has few show bets to cover, so it has to pay more.

If I remember the payouts...

Waya paid $10.00 to win $20.00 to place and $50.00 to show.

All you had to do was bet $2.00 to show on him and you'd get $50.00 back.

Again, only because the horse that attracted the most money failed to show up.

This happens once in a great while, and not too often in these times either.

It is simply because the show pool is split, according to amount wagered on each runner, between the top 3 finishers. The place pool is only split between the top two finishers, and the win pool goes only to the winner of that race. All pools are paid after the track take is deducted from the total amount wagered.

When the straight wagering pool is split with multiple finishers the payout has to be less. If you need more information please visit my website, listed below.

Murph