Bought lucky ticket for simulated horse-racing game in Waldorf
A Racetrax enthusiast from Baltimore won $31,454 by betting $1 that the longest odds horses would finish in the first, second and third place spots in the Maryland Lottery’s simulated horse-racing game.
When his March 13 race finished, horses 12, 11 and 10 were in the first three spots, exactly as the player had bet. The winner had placed a $10 Trifecta bet on horses 12, 11, and 10 for a series of 10 races. To win, the horses had to finish exactly in the spots chosen by the player.
The betting is complicated by the fact that each of the 12 horses in the race has a different probability of finishing first or in any spot. The odds of a win on a 12, 11, 10 Trifecta bet are 1 in 47,619.05.
From a betting perspective, Racetrax and thoroughbred racing have one major difference. In Racetrax, the odds of a horse winning never change. The No. 1 horse always has a 1 in 4.50 chance of finishing first. In thoroughbred racing, odds are determined not by the horse’s actual statistical probability of winning, but rather based on the percentage of money bet on that horse. The more people who bet on a real horse, the shorter its odds.
Racetrax has another advantage over thoroughbred racing: convenience. The game is available at thousands of locations across Maryland, and there are 276 races each day, one every 4 minutes and 30 seconds.
The winner, who had given no thought yet to plans for spending the prize, bought the lucky ticket in Waldorf at The Liquor Store in the Smallwood Village Center. The business receives a bonus of $314.54, equal to 1% of the prize, from the Lottery for selling a winning Racetrax ticket of $10,000 or more.
