Why do some horse betting tracks pay a low payout?

Question

Why do some horse betting tracks pay a low payout?

Answer 1

Payouts are not determined by any track anywhere, but by a rigid parimutuel system.

A winning horse will pay out all monies bet on the other horses, MINUS THE TRACK "TAKE".

This is a percentage that does vary track to track, state to state.  In California, on the win end, it's about 16%, tho more for the exotic bets. In some states it could be as high as the mid-twenties.

The higher this "take" the lower in general the payouts will be.

The take includes track profit, purse money, taxes, etc.

Answer 2

Most tracks take 15-20% cut for maintainiang and running races. So the bettors only get 80-85% of the money wagered. Favorites payout less and longshots payout more. It is as simple as that.

Answer 3

some race tracks pay small purses compared to other tracks because they rely on income from attendance money and entry money for races so until they can afford better facilities and can put on better races they are let to it though most get some form of help off the racing levy board

Answer 4

all tracks are there to make money, so the tracks like los alamitos, won't have the same pay-off like the big tracks, Santa Anita, Hollywood park, Del mar,but you just might catch a nice superfecta if ya lucky......

Answer 5

because of the size of the betting pools... which means exactly how much money is bet in the win, place, show, exacta, trifecta, pick three, pick four and pick 6 pools...for instance...a track like los alamitos might have a pool of 20 thousand in the superfecta pool...while today one of the churchill downs races had over 900 thousand in the superfecta pool...the pool as los alamitos will probably have two or more horses who figure in the betting in the race that finish in the superfecta, the churchill race had 10 betting interests (so the money is spread out wider)...that alone should tell you that you have a better chance of getting paid a good amount, simply because of the size of the pool, one is about 50 times the size of the other with twice the number of good possibilities to use in the ticket... but just for informations sake there was one ticket only...it paid 904,000 for a two dollar superfecta, and 63, 000 for a two dollar trifecta...it really does have less to do with the takeout for the track than it does the size of the pools and the way some people bet at tracks where few horses figure...trifectas and superfectas as well as exactas are all small prices because bettors playing those tracks will often 'pound' those races, playing 10 and 20 dollar superfectas further driving down the betting value and payoffs ...btw the average take out on para mutel pools is about 15 to 18 percent, pick three pools 15 percent, and a set number also on exactas trifectas superfectas pick 3s 4s 5s and 6s...the payouts are based on the number of tickets bought in that pool divided by the amount of money in that pool...