Exacta Odds

1. Preakness Exacta Odds
2. Kentucky Derby Exacta Odds

To find out your exacta betting odds, simply combine the rows and columns. For example, if you bet on a 6-2 exacta, you would follow the “6 and” row over to the “2” column and see the number 30. That means your odds for that particular exacta are 30-1. You have to remember that these would be the Exacta odds. How to calculate exacta bets. Exacta bets require you to select the first two finishers in correct order. The bet cost is determined by the number of possible winning combinations from the selected horses. A box exacta is calculated by multiplying the number of selections for first by the number of selections for second, minus one. Apr 24, 2015 An exacta bet is a bet on any two horses in a single race to finish first and second. A straight, or ice cold, exacta means that you selected one horse to finish first and one horse to finish second. An exacta box means that you selected two or more horses to finish first and second in no particular order. You can see that a 2/1 (blue col on the left) is the low recommended “on-top” horse odds, and 6/5 is the low recommended “on-bottom” horse odds. Exacta combinations including horses at odds lower than that are almost always under-laid and pay off less than fair. These payouts should be considered the minimum acceptable.

Introduction

Keno Exacta is a keno game I noticed at the Orleans on April 20, 2012. It pays if two consecutive keno games have the same number of catches, and are withing a specified range of catches. For example, if the player purchased two consecutive eight-spot games, and caught five numbers on both of them, then the 25¢ Exacta bet would be $490.

Rules

1. To bet the Exacta the player must first bet two games for $1 each. These two games will pay according to the standard Orleans pay table.
2. At the time of purchase, the player may bet an extra 25¢ to qualify for extra wins for an Exacta.
3. If both games have the same number of catches, above a certain number, then the Exacta bet will win.

The following is the base game pay table.

Base Pay Table

Catch	Pick 1	Pick 2	Pick 3	Pick 4	Pick 5	Pick 6	Pick 7	Pick 8	Pick 9	Pick 10
0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
1	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	12	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	45	2	1	1	0	0	0	0
4	160	15	4	1	0	0	0
5	750	80	15	5	6	1
6	2000	400	75	30	25
7	10000	1500	300	125
8	50000	5000	1000
9	50000	10000
10	100000

The following is the Exacta pay table.

Exacta Pay Table

Catch	Pick 1	Pick 2	Pick 3	Pick 4	Pick 5	Pick 6	Pick 7	Pick 8	Pick 9	Pick 10
0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
1	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	66	3	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	910	56	8	3	2	0	0	0
4	9680	1170	117	18	5	3	2
5	48500	9840	1470	490	113	25
6	246000	49200	7350	1940	500
7	480000	97000	49400	25000
8	900000	490000	250000
9	900000	1000000
10	1000000

Base Game Odds

The following are the probabilities of winning for the base game.

Base Pay ProbabilitiesExpand

match	Pick 1	Pick 2	Pick 3	Pick 4	Pick 5	Pick 6	Pick 7	Pick 8	Pick 9	Pick 10
0	0.750000000	0.560126582	0.416504382	0.308321425	0.227184208	0.166601753	0.121574252	0.088266238	0.063747838	0.045790701
1	0.250000000	0.379746835	0.430866602	0.432731825	0.405686086	0.363494733	0.315192505	0.266464114	0.220665594	0.179571376
2	0.000000000	0.060126582	0.138753651	0.212635466	0.270457391	0.308321425	0.326654051	0.328145622	0.316426135	0.295256781
3	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.013875365	0.043247891	0.083935052	0.129819548	0.174993241	0.214786225	0.246109216	0.267402368
4	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.003063392	0.012092338	0.028537918	0.052190967	0.081503701	0.114105182	0.147318897
5	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000644925	0.003095639	0.008638505	0.018302586	0.032601481	0.051427688
6	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000128985	0.000732077	0.002366714	0.005719558	0.011479395
7	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000024403	0.000160455	0.000591678	0.001611143
8	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000004346	0.000032592	0.000135419
9	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000724	0.000006121
10	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000000	0.000000112
Total	1.000000000	1.000000000	1.000000000	1.000000000	1.000000000	1.000000000	1.000000000	1.000000000	1.000000000	1.000000000

The next table shows the return for each win. The bottom row shows the total return by number of picks.

Base Pay ReturnsExpand

match	Pick 1	Pick 2	Pick 3	Pick 4	Pick 5	Pick 6	Pick 7	Pick 8	Pick 9	Pick 10
0	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000
1	0.750000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000
2	0.000000	0.721519	0.138754	0.212635	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000
3	0.000000	0.000000	0.624391	0.086496	0.083935	0.129820	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000
4	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.490143	0.181385	0.114152	0.052191	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000
5	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.483694	0.247651	0.129578	0.091513	0.195609	0.051428
6	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.257970	0.292831	0.177504	0.171587	0.286985
7	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.244026	0.240683	0.177504	0.201393
8	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.217283	0.162962	0.135419
9	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.036214	0.061206
10	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.011221
Return	0.750000	0.721519	0.763145	0.789274	0.749014	0.749592	0.718625	0.726982	0.743875	0.747652

Exacta Odds

The following two tables are the probabilities for the Exacta game, which are simply the square of the odds in the base game.

Exacta Probabilities — Pick 1 to 6

Catch	Pick 1	Pick 2	Pick 3	Pick 4	Pick 5	Pick 6
0	0.562500	0.313742	0.173476	0.09506210	0.051612664	0.0277561440
1	0.062500	0.144208	0.185646	0.18725683	0.164581200	0.1321284210
2	0.000000	0.003615	0.019253	0.04521384	0.073147200	0.0950621014
3	0.000000	0.000000	0.000193	0.00187038	0.007045093	0.0168531149
4	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.00000938	0.000146225	0.0008144128
5	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.00000000	0.000000416	0.0000095830
6	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.00000000	0.000000000	0.0000000166
Total	0.625000	0.461565	0.378567	0.32941254	0.296532799	0.2726237937

Exacta Probabilities — Pick 7 to 10

Catch	Pick 7	Pick 8	Pick 9	Pick 10
0	0.014780298738	0.0077909287212	0.004063786894725	0.0020967882787503
1	0.099346315250	0.0710031239815	0.048693304507802	0.0322458789504079
2	0.106702868842	0.1076795490491	0.100125499051997	0.0871765667889125
3	0.030622634553	0.0461331225017	0.060569746340097	0.0715040263017637
4	0.002723897010	0.0066428533577	0.013019992581041	0.0217028574343981
5	0.000074623766	0.0003349846396	0.001062856537228	0.0026448070626831
6	0.000000535936	0.0000056013335	0.000032713343713	0.0001317764998547
7	0.000000000595	0.0000000257459	0.000000350083345	0.0000025957820839
8	0.000000000000	0.0000000000189	0.000000001062268	0.0000000183384018
9	0.000000000000	0.0000000000000	0.000000000000525	0.0000000000374623
10	0.000000000000	0.0000000000000	0.000000000000000	0.0000000000000126
Total	0.254251174690	0.2395901893490	0.227568250402741	0.2175053154747310

The following two tables are the returns for the Exacta game.

Exacta Returns — Pick 1 to 6

match	Pick 1	Pick 2	Pick 3	Pick 4	Pick 5	Pick 6
0	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000
1	0.250000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000
2	0.000000	0.238604	0.057758	0.045214	0.000000	0.000000
3	0.000000	0.000000	0.175198	0.104741	0.056361	0.050559
4	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.090841	0.171083	0.095286
5	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.020173	0.094297
6	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.004093
Return	1.000000	0.954414	0.931825	0.963183	0.990464	0.976939

Exacta Returns — Pick 7 to 10

Catch	Pick 7	Pick 8	Pick 9	Pick 10
0	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000000000
1	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000000000
2	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000000000
3	0.0612452691	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000000000
4	0.0490301462	0.0332142668	0.0390599777	0.0434057149
5	0.1096969359	0.1641424734	0.1201027887	0.0661201766
6	0.0263680644	0.0411698014	0.0634638868	0.0658882499
7	0.0002858327	0.0024973484	0.0172941173	0.0648945521
8	0.0000000000	0.0000169963	0.0005205114	0.0045846004
9	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000004721	0.0000374623
10	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000000000	0.0000000126
Return	0.9865049927	0.9641635450	0.9617670160	0.9797230754

The probability of hitting the $1,000,000 jackpot on the pick 9 Exacta are 1 in 1,906,298,378,741. Nevada Gaming Control Board regulation 2.070 bears quoting at this moment. '2.070 Jackpot Odds. If the odds of hitting any advertised jackpot that is offered by a gaming device exceeds 100 million to one, the odds of the advertised jackpot must be prominently displayed on the award glass or video display.'

However, I don't think this regulation applies, because this is not based on an electronic game.

Combined Odds

The following table shows the expected return of the base game and Exacta according to the number of picks. The weighted return is a weighted average of 8 parts base game and 1 part Exacta.

Exacta Summary

Number	Base Game Return	Exacta Return	Weighted Return
1	75.00%	100.00%	77.78%
2	72.15%	95.44%	74.74%
3	76.31%	93.18%	78.19%
4	78.93%	96.32%	80.86%
5	74.90%	99.05%	77.58%
6	74.96%	97.69%	77.49%
7	71.86%	98.65%	74.84%
8	72.70%	96.42%	75.33%
9	74.39%	96.18%	76.81%
10	74.77%	97.97%	77.34%

Strategy

If the player is going to play a pick 1 to 10 game at the $1 rate at the Orleans anyway, he should also bet the Exacta, which returns between 93% and 100% of the Exacta wager, which is good for live keno. Considering both bets combined, the best bet is on the pick 4, with a weighted return of 80.86%.

Internal Links

• Keno appendix 1. An analysis of the top/bottom/left/right as as well as edge tickets as played at the Las Vegas Hilton.
• Keno appendix 2. An analysis of Caveman Keno as played on IGT's Game King.
• Keno appendix 3. Probabilities and returns for basic keno at the Atlantic CityTropicana.
• Keno appendix 4. Progressive keno games at the Boyd and Station casinos.
• Keno appendix 5. Nevada numbers, a progressive lottery game at some of the NevadaPark Place casinos.
• Keno appendix 6. Power Keno.
• Keno appendix 7 Super Keno.
• Keno appendix 8. Top Bottom Keno.
• Keno appendix 9. High/Low/Middle Keno: Keno game seen at the Lisboa in Macau.
• Keno appendix 10. Extra Draw Keno.
• Keno appendix 11Jumbo Keno Progressive game at the Station Casinos.
• Keno appendix 12. Triple Trouble Keno.
• Keno appendix 13. Fremont 'Super Eight.'
• Keno appendix 14. Laughlin keno survey.
• Keno props Miscellaneous keno bets.

Written by:Michael Shackleford

Download 'Betting the Exacta' as a PDF file

Betting The Exacta

In horse race betting, the exacta is the 'peoples' wager, and the favorite of the average player. The amount of money bet into the exacta pool at most tracks equals or exceeds the win pool - and almost always contains far more money than any other single-race exotics pool.

What does this tell us right away?

There is always lots of 'foolish' money in the exacta pools.

The majority of race bettors play the exacta in a helter-skelter manner at best. Probably the most common exacta play of all is the worst (almost always) possible bet one could make - boxing the two lowest odd horses. It's almost a knee-jerk reaction for many bettors to automatically include the favorite on their exacta ticket.

There are also such time-honored strategies as, 'I think I'll box the three horses with each of my kids' ages,' or 'I think I'll baseball the horses whose numbers are the last 4 digits of my social security number,' or 'I think I'll throw this 99/1 shot in with the favorite and that good-looking gray horse,' etc. etc..

That's where our profits will come from - that's the 'foolish money' we are after.

Betting for 'value' in the exacta is as important as it is for win betting. But - whereas in win betting, estimating value requires having an idea of what fair odds would be on a horse (i.e. some kind of betting line or acceptable odds parameters for your contenders), in exacta betting we can also use the tote odds as a guideline.

How does it work?

In lieu of making your own betting line, you can use the public's win odds of your two choices as compared to the projected exacta payouts. There is a mathematical formula that will tell you what a fair payout would be for each odds-pair combination. That formula is:

Bet amount (ba) divided by probability of top choice (pt) times probability of 2nd horse (ps) divided by losing probability of top horse (lpt). In the example I will give a bit later - the top horse was off at 7/1 and the 2nd horse was off at 5/1. The win probability of the top horse was 12.5% - the win probability of the second horse was 16.7% - So:

ba / (pt*(ps/lpt)) = $2 / (.125*(.167/.875)) = $84.00

Figure you need at least 10% bonus overlay to that 'fair' amount - so $92.00

How would you like to run through those calculations for a half dozen combinations or so every race!?!

Me neither!

For a printable chart (though it won't all fit on one page unless you landscape it and shrink the print size) that gives the 'useable' fair pays with a 10% overlay requirement figured in - click here:
Exacta payout chart

By 'useable' I mean - odds at which I'd suggest you consider an exacta combo bettable.

Remember that the lowest odds horses, and the highest odds horses in a race are most often bet more than they should be (bettors jumping on the favorites band-wagon, and other people playing big longshots merely hoping for a gift from heaven).

Also, keep in mind that any low-priced favorite is usually an underlay in all exactas combos.

For various reasons, race bettors are not always able to see the exacta payoffs when they need them at bet time. Below are some general guidelines for when you are not able to check the 'will-pays.' These guidelines will go a long ways towards keeping you off the over-bet and money-wasting exacta combinations:

• Only put horses on top that you consider overlays in their win-odds.
  

• Limit the lowest acceptable odds on top to 9/5 or higher.
  

• Unless you've seen something that leads you to believe a particular high odds horse has a good chance to run well - limit high odds on bottom to 40/1 max.
  

• Require 6/1 as a 'combined' odds minimum. Examples: if you have a 2/1 horse you're putting on top -
  get 4/1 minimum odds on any you put under that one / 7/5 horse on top? - require 5/1 underneath, etc..
  

• Don't combine the first and second favorite (two lowest odds horses) regardless of their odds.
  

• Eliminate horses that are going off at triple or more their morning line and are also at 15/1 or higher.

The key to making consistent profits with exacta betting is limiting the number of combinations bet per race.

Each losing bet increases the minimum 'fair pay' amount you need.

If you are looking for a payout of $60 as fair on a certain combination - and you are betting 6 exacta combinations in total ($2.00 wagers) - 5 of those will lose, so now you need $70 on that combination.

Another result of limiting the number of exacta combos is that (if you are using a fixed total wager amount per race) you can then redistribute the money saved onto some of the other combinations that remain.

Of course, we've all experienced (far too many times!) leaving out the winning combo - even though we had seriously considered including it. How do you go about limiting the number of combos while not throwing out the potential winning combo too often?

The best way to automatically limit that number is to have just one 'key' horse, and use it only on top.

If you then cut off the acceptable max odds on bottom to 40/1, in most fields, you'll have 8 or fewer exacta combos. Often you will want to wager two horses on top, and back-wheel one or both of them to a few others. The number of combinations starts to build again. Again - how can you limit combos to the most likely?

'Modeling' the factors that are most often seen in horses that run second at a particular track and distance will give you a 'profile' of what kind of horse to look for in the place slot.

For example: Maybe at the track you are betting, speed holds well in sprints. One of the early pace horses usually hangs on, and an off-the-pace type typically runs second. If you keep good handicapping records and have this kind of information, it will really help you narrow down your possible exacta bet combinations.

Example race -

Jan. 5th at Golden Gate - 4th race - 1 mile for maiden claimers. The field with morning line odds and final odds looked like this:

ml	fo
1 FABULOUS RULER	10/1	7/1
2 SUNDAY SUIT	20/1	68/1
3 STRAW HAT CHARLIE	3/1	5/1
4 PROUD FRIENDLY	6/1	18/1
5 FROSTY NUGGET	12/1	6/1
6 CHEERS O'GLORY	20/1	56/1
7 ELATED WON	2/1	1/1*
8 SIDNEY BY THE C	10/1	16/1
9 I THOUGHT U KNEW	4/1	9/2

We narrowed down to 2 win contenders; # 1 and # 9. But that would give 16 possible exacta combinations with those both wheeled on top - and 32 combos if wheeled and back-wheeled to all others in the field. Obviously, this is not a strategy that can be used profitably!

You could begin to pare it down like this:

- Using the guideline of cutting off at 40/1 max on bottom eliminates # 2and # 6.

- Eliminating triple overlays (3x ml) got rid of # 4.
- Using the '6/1 combined odds' guideline gets rid of the favorite #7 under # 9.

- Our place model showed place horses most commonly weren't early pace types, but rather were horses that distributed their running energy evenly - coming from off the pace. That eliminated the favorite and # 5.

(eliminating the favorite in the second slot is great when you can do it, but remember - the favorite figures in about 55% of all winning exactas combinations - running either first or second)

So who does that leave now? Our two contenders along with #3,# 8. One of the contenders, #9, also had a matching place profile, so we used him on top and bottom. The combos then were 5 in total; 1 with 3,8,9 and 9 with 3,8. The exacta (see chart below) came - #1 with #3 and paid $91.20.

Fair exacta payout was $93, so we were loosening our demand just a wee bit - as there were 4 guaranteed losing combos.

(actually, we didn't even check the 'will pays' - we feel using the guidelines given in this article are sufficient to keep us off of most under-lay combos)

Let's say; however, that a player had a per-race exacta budget of $20. By whittling the number of combos down in a systematic way as outlined above - that player would now be able to have this payoff two times rather than once (if he'd found, say, 10 possible combos).

Charts of the race below:

1	Fabulous Ruler	1-Nose	7.60
3	Straw Hat Charlie	2-2	5.50
5	Frosty Nugget	3-2	6.60
9	I Thought U Knew	4-2	4.90
7	Elated Won	5-3/4	1.10*
8	Sidney by the C	6-Nose	16.30
4	Proud Friendly	7-3	18.90
6	Cheers O'Glory	8-10	56.10
2	Sunday Suit	9	68.80

1	Fabulous Ruler	17.20	8.20	5.00
3	Straw Hat Charlie	7.00	4.00
5	Frosty Nugget	4.20

Wager Type	Winning Numbers	Payoff
$2 Exacta	1-3	$91.20

Preakness Exacta Odds

A few final points:

* Studies show that wheeling the favorite on top in the exacta is a 10-20% loser while back-wheeling the favorite results in a small positive ROI. If you're going to use the favorite then - use it on the bottom side of other mid-odds range contenders.

* A back-part/wheel (after throwing out horses that look hopelessly inadequate to today's conditions) on legitimate contenders is also usually preferable to a place bet on the same horse.

* If you are using the guidelines we've given in this article - without checking the will-pays for value - probably best to stay out of small field races in general (true for any single race exotics).

____________________

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Kentucky Derby Exacta Odds