Placepot Fun

As a bit of a change, I recorded my thought processes - not quite literally - during the framing of a couple of placepots I struck today. As usual, I deployed the 'in development' ticket builder to place optimized part-perms (don't worry if that sounds like alienspeak, I'll clarify another day - basically, it takes my picks and breaks them into the most likely set of outcome combinations).

I went at Ffos Las and Hamilton on video, and also had a small roll at Uttoxeter. Happily, the recorded pair both collected, while I exited at Uttoxeter when a non-runner took a five horse race down to four (win only). Annoying as I normally cover that scenario in my play. Here are the tickets I placed, where * is unnamed favourite, lowest racecard number when joint- or co-favourites:

Anyway, the main purpose of the videos is to share a little of the things I look at when framing this sort of bet. There is no narrative, just a bit of music - feel free to mute if you no likey - but you'll be able to follow the cursor around the screen, which is a reasonable proxy for my thinking out aloud.

[The controls bottom right will handle tweaks to volume, playback speed, and full screen toggle]

Ffirst up, viva Ffos Las Vegas. You can track the results here - choose 'Recent Results' > 'Thu 8 Jun' > then use the dropdown for meeting.

The tickets shaped up like this in the end (number of placed selections replacing the actual selections, which you can see in the video):

Ffos Las placepot paid £90.30 with tote's 5% uplift, so that was a nice 7/2+ winner for the £18.80 stake and £1 worth of winning tix - and plenty of fun through the afternoon.

Meanwhile, at Hamilton Park, I rolled the dice like this:

The tickets were thus:

This time I had £2.20 in winning tix, of a dividend that paid £26.25 for each pound, again factoring in tote's 5% bonus for betting with them. So £57.75 for a stake of £20.40, a 7/4 shot or so.

Nothing earth-shatteringly profitable, but two solid returns on workaday dividends and, crucially, great craic all afternoon.

For what it's worth - after the fact, literally nothing - here's the £18.12 Uttoxeter overture I played:

And here's the tiny in-running saver I had on the horse that blew up the placepot, which made it a free bet:

I hope there's something in the videos above worth thinking about in terms of the parts of the racecards you look at for various things; you have to make some inference on the basis that there's no commentary, but I'm sure at least some people will appreciate that all the more!

Stay lucky,

Matt

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