McCarron

The following is an excerpt from calracing.com that highlights the activities surrounding the record Pick-6 pool at Hollywood over the summer:

 http://www.calracing.com/press_releases.php?f=RECORDDAILYHANDLEOF113MIL.html

The biggest non-holiday weekday handle in track history came Monday, July 2, when a record four-day Pick Six carryover of $3,274,505.48 generated a single-day record Pick Six handle of $7,596,347.12 and a record Pick Six pool of $10,870,852.60.

Total handle was $18,407,581. Thirteen perfect tickets were worth $576,064.40 each, while 807 consolation tickets with five winners each were worth $2,240.40. A single winning ticket would have paid a record $7.4 million.

Eight of the tickets were purchased in California with investments ranging from $2 to $14,400. A father/daughter team had two perfect tickets at Los Alamitos — one on a $2 ticket and one on a $4 ticket. There was a $24 winning ticket at Victorville and a $432 winning ticket at Santa Anita. At Hollywood Park, one player cashed twice, once with a $768 ticket and once on a $960 wager.

At the time this story surfaced, many on this forum questioned if the $2 and $4 winning tickets were a result of impropriety instead of dumb luck, no check that, unfathomable moronic luck. My feelings on the lottery and the types of people that engage in lottery style gambling ventures are well documented. There is positively no reason for another Dennis Millerian style rant here. However, I believe those questioning the legitimacy of a winning straight Pick-6 ticket give the general public way too much credit. People love playing the same numbers, birthdates, anniversaries, lucky numbers, and all sorts of other novelties of chance on a daily basis with the hope and prayer of a huge payout.

I only rehash this because of this story from the Sunday, December 30^th version of the Form:

One New York City Off-Track Betting patron didn’t need a dollar to realize his dream. All he needed was a dime. The unidentified bettor collected the entire net pool of $23,609 when he hit the Superfecta in Friday’s third race. The winning combination of 2-6-10-4 consisted of Karakorum Roulette ($74.50) over 12-1 shot Ambidaxtrous, 43-1 shot Sounds Tacky, and 5-1 shot Phil Cat.

That is one heck of shrewd straight Dime Super play. Some may say this smells bad. I say it smells like one of the millions of uninformed degenerates in this country that got lucky. The counter argument to my sentiment is the pure statistical anomaly that allows these individuals to cash a straight ticket with so many mathematical possibilities. However, what we all need to realize is the sheer volume of people out there playing these types of wagers on a daily basis renders the statistical viability of hitting such a wager that much more realistic.