The Track

One story on horseracing. I rarely go to the track without a tip, as the vig is huge. Even though you are betting against idiots that make decisions based on names or colors. On one occasion, a friend and I hit the Meadowlands track. If you haven’t been there, it is quite large. The grandstand alone holds 40,000, and there are many sections. We were wandering around the facility when I ran into someone I knew. Turns out, he had a horse running that day. Turns out, he said they were going to run it for the first time. That is, it had run many races, but this was the first time they would try to win. And that meant it would go off at far higher odds than the actual odds of winning.

Well, I trusted him to be truthful. I believed the horse would outperform its record and that he thought it would win. But I didn’t trust him to be honest with himself. That is, I wasn’t certain he had evaluated the situation well enough. So, I bet to place. Sure enough, the horse outperformed, and placed missing the win by the proverbial nose.

Always look for an edge. But if an edge falls into your lap, nicely packaged with a big bow — hedge your bets a bit.

The Glamorous Life of an Advantage Player

Isla Verde is a beautiful area near San Juan. But it has good and not so good areas. In the late ’70s, I tried a junket to one of the hotels. It wasn’t a dive, but hardly a great resort. There was a cock-fighting rink across the street. I wasn’t complaining, at first, as the trip was free. The casino was small and unattractive. I picked a table and went to work. One good thing, the dealer was one of the fastest I had ever experienced. Cards appeared out of nowhere. The faster the game, the better I count. On the bad side, I have never been so closely watched in my life. I felt like a piece-worker in a sweatshop, sewing shirts and being watched to make certain I didn’t steal a thimble. I escaped for a while and found a much better casino. But I still had to return to play the junket chips until I had real chips.

Now don’t get me wrong. Puerto Rico is a beautiful island. But this junket was awful. Once I finished playing, I walked out

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger