Breeders' Cup / Will Hayler / 02 November 2009 /

Exchange customers can now bet on the US Tote - a prospect that is hugely exciting to Will Hayler, who looks at the new betting options available to Betfairians ahead of the Breeders' Cup

An article in The Economist recently stated only 34 per cent of Americans over the age of 18 hold passports. Evidently, travelling to foreign shores isn't a major ambition for most in the US, but when it comes to exotics of the wagering kind, adventurous Americans show us the way.

What will be your highlight of Breeders' Cup' weekend? Conduit bidding to win the Turf again? Rip Van Winkle taking on Zenyatta in the Classic? Ballydoyle ?

For many punters it will be the prospect of tackling the guaranteed US$3million Pick Six on the Saturday of the meeting.

Not only is more money on offer than the Scoop6, but the races covered by the bet will include no impossible 10-1-the-field sprint handicaps (indeed no race has more than 14 runners and most will have less) and there is a guaranteed payout on the day with the pool being split among punters who have managed to find five winners if getting all six proves impossible. In 2005, 40 ticket-holders won US$90,000 each for getting five out of six. Not a bad consolation!

Four times in the last 10 years, the bet has made winning punters millionaires. In 2003 at Santa Anita, Graham Stone cashed an US$8 ticket in for US$2.7million.

When Ravens Pass took the Classic 12 months ago, his victory led to a payout of over US$55,000 for a US$2stake, despite no winner returning at more than 8-1 with British bookmakers and several of the most obvious-looking bankers - Goldikova, Midnight Lute, Conduit - all obliging.

After a reshuffle of the running order this year's Pick Six will cover the Sprint, Juvenile, Mile, Dirt Mile, Turf and Classic.

Not that the Pick Six is the only big pot on offer. The Pick Four starting on race two on Saturday has a guaranteed pot of US$1million, with the Pick Four on the final four races (Mile, Dirt Mile, Turf and Classic) being worth US$2million.

As well as those bets, there are rolling Pick Threes starting on every race, not to mention Daily Doubles, Exactas (first and second in the correct order), Quinellas (first and second in either order), Trifectas (first, second and third) and Superfectas (first, second, third and fourth).

Looking at past results, the key to a decent payout seems to be to mix in Europeans with some slightly off-the-wall choices from among the home team. When Conduit beat Eagle Mountain in the Turf last year, the Exacta paid only 52-1, but the unfancied Dancing Forever - third of five Americans in the betting - took the Trifecta payout up to 1405-1.

Not that was an unusually large dividend for a Breeders' Cup exotic. In the 1999 Classic, when Cat Thief beat unfancied outsiders Budroyale and Golden Missile, the dividend was nearly 20,000-1. The Superfecta - paid out to punters somehow selecting the first four - was 692,906-1. None of the first six in the betting managed to make the first four.

Bets with unit stakes of just 10 cents will be available once again on the Superfecta this year making large perms much more attractive to those without massive bankrolls.

Of course if you'd won any of these huge payouts at the track, you'd have faced the pain of a trip to the dreaded IRS window where any win at odds of more than 300-1 gets chopped by the US taxman unless you have the relevant American ID documents.

Happily, there will be no such financial embarrassment for Betfair customers paying into the pools from the comfort of their armchairs. And if you do find yourself going strong into the final leg of the Pick Six, you have a ready-made hedging facility, not to mention a forum upon which to tell everyone about it...

To read a full explanation of all the bets available on Tote US please click here

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