Roth Regatta

The daily double is one of those bets that has been around for a long time but is often overlooked as a money maker.  Many tracks now offer doubles in more than just the first two races, sometimes called rolling doubles.  While I recommend straight win betting as the best way to handicapping profits, for those who want to play the exotics, here are some thoughts and tips on playing daily doubles.

First of all, you need at least one race of the two that you can handicap and have a strong opini

on about.  If you can’t look at one of the races and at least narrow down your choices to one or two horses, then you may be looking at two very chaotic races and should pass the double.

Other people may say that such races offer a great possibility for making a profit, but I say, you have to play so many combinations to cover the field, if you don’t have a clue, that any profits will be wiped out by all those combinations you buy that don’t pay off.

So stick with doubles that have at leas

t one good race that makes sense on paper.  Isolate one or two key horses in that race and then key them with horses in the second race.  Let’s say you like the 1 and 2 in the first race and think that one or the other will win, then in the second race there are 4 horses you think could win and some are at pretty long odds so there is the possibility of a good payoff.

You bet would look like this…

12/1234 or, the 1 and 2 in the first race, keyed over the 1,2,3,4 in the second race.

Based

on a $2 bet, this would offer 8 combinations and cost $16.

My favorite scenario, when it comes to betting these exotics, is a race with two good horses so that the bettors can’t just key on one standout horse and drive the prices down and a second race that is very contentious offering at lest 4 horses who have the potential to win.  OF course, I use the betting strategy mentioned above and it costs $16, but the double payoff is often many times that figure.

I have found that on most race cards, the first or second race will offer a favorite or two that stands out from the rest of the field and there is a double bet available.  I don’t know why that is, whether it just works out that way or the hand of the racing secretary is behind it to encourage the bettors, but that seems to be the case.