Quote:
Originally Posted by metro
I understand how you got the 37.9 million combinations for the 3x3 but it really doesn't make any sense. If someone plays this bet (won't be me) and they hit the 1st leg their odds on hitting the 2nd leg would be 336-1 again not 112,896-1, same for the 3rd leg. If they're live to the last leg they're not going to turn to their friend and say "well I'm 38 million to 1 to hit it!"
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First off just because there might be 336 combinations doesn't mean that the chances of hitting a trifecta cold in a random 8 horse field is 336-1. (how many dollar tris pay $336 for a dollar or higher in 8 horse fields-not a very high percentage). Obviously if you play the favorites to come 1-2-3 you have a much, much better chance to hit and if you play the 3 longest shots on the board you have a much, much smaller chance of hitting. Every other combination will fit somewhere in between those 2 extremes. I think the point of his illustration is to show how many more available combinations there might be in this wager than there will be in a typical pick 6.
But back to the point you are making. Lets say the typical chance of hitting a trifecta in an 8 horse field is actually 1 in 60 (obviously all races are different, but by calculating the average trifecta price in 8 horse fields over a large sample you can get a decent idea of what the chances are to hit a trifecta in a typical 8 horse field). We are assuming the chances of hitting each one would be roughly 1 in 60, or 1 in 3600 for the 1st 2 and 1 in $21,600 for all 3. So obviously if you hit the first one your one (i am assuming you have one combo in each leg) you have transformed your probability of hitting to 1 in $3600. If you hit the 2nd one, you have transformed your probabilty of hitting to 1 in 60.
What doesn't make sense?
