Any advice as to what to look for(clues) on the Tote Board ?

Question

Does the Board tell you when to bet a horse and when not to?

Is early money the best or late money?

Answer 1

I have had luck doing the following with the tote board:  Betting a horse that has taken an unusually large share of action right when the races opens at the board; a 7-1 shot or higher that opens up around 5/2, let's say, is a horse that is worth putting a couple of bucks on even if you landed on a different animal when you were studying the past performances.  Likewise, I like to bet overlays.  The morning line odds maker for a track knows something about the horses that race on the premises.  If he set the odds differently than the way the punters are playing them, I tend to put a lot of creedence into that.  When a 2-1 is at 5-1 near post time, or a 5-1 has slipped down to 15-1, you stand a better than normal chance of making a good profit.  The late money can be good for determining a winner, too, but when they take a lot of late money that also reduces the payout.  I only bet the late money movers when it validates what I already think but am on the fence about, though I do know people who claim to do pretty well following it.

Answer 2

tote boards show their odds

I always bet late to see if someone put allot of money on a horse late Thats shows that someone might Know something ? Good luck

Answer 3

Interesting question. "Playing the boards" involves psychology

and racing angles and not handicapping per se, since it eliminates knowing anything in the past performance lines.

You are relying strictly on the parimutuals of the race.

Playing  overlays based upon the morning lines can be successful if the track secretary assigns realistic odds. For example, yesterday at Colonial Downs 7 finishers in the money(top three) had ML odds worst than 8:1 and 5 horses

had ML odds worst than 20:1.  Anyone playing the board based upon the ML odds had a bad day.

Early and late betting have some merit but many times leads to betting hysteria. If many people bet a horse on a hunch, many see the odds drop , think that someone has a hot tip,

and climb aboard, thus bringing the odds down lower.

If you want to experiment with the boards, try this as a tie breaker: Let's say you've narrowed your selections down to three horses, for either a win or perhaps in the exotics. Choose the horse whose odds have remained the same

between 10 minutes and 5 minutes before post time.

The tote board is not always cooperative with this method, but I've had some success doing this , especially in part wheel exotics.