The Pick 5 bet began at Hollywood Park as an interesting idea. It has a lower takeout rate (14%) and a low minimum bet (50 cents). The problem with the bet at HP was that part of the pool was paid for meager consolation payoffs. At the current Del Mar meet, there is no consolation payoff and the payoffs have been great!
During the first two weeks of the meet, there was only one payoff under $1,000 ($315 on the second Sunday). I finally played my first Pick 5 on July 30th, a Saturday. It was a $210 bet after cutting two horses at the last moment. Naturally, one of them won, leaving me feeling stupid. The next day, the races looked too easy, so I passed. That was the day it paid only $315. The following Saturday, I played a $250 ticket – $500 combinations that would have cost $1,000 if it was a Pick 6 and had a $2 minimum). I used 4 horses in the first race, singled the second, then used 5 horses in each of the next three races. That’s a lot of coverage!
My top horse won the first and paid $7 and change. The single won the second and paid $5+. Then I caught three nice price horses in a row – $31.60, $18.00, and $21.60 – leading to a fat payoff of $9,297.55! That’s a payoff of 36-1 for a bet that had a pretty good chance of winning. Yet it wasn’t even the highest of the five possible prices I had alive going into the last leg, which were – $2,246, $2,089, $9,297, $12,839, and $16, 851. Still, it’s a nice feeling going into the last leg with five horses live in an eight horse field.
Obviously, the Pick 5 is going to be a focus of my play for the next few weeks.