When I was a sophomore at Princeton, I won a daily double (i.e., I picked the winners of the first two races) at approximately 240-1 odds on a single bet at Pimlico on Preakness day, then followed up the next Saturday at another track with another big daily double on a single bet. Thereafter, I had a small following of freshmen who would cut class to take my bets to the tracks. Ah, misspent youth!
Like most of us of a certain age, my powers of concentration are not what they were when I was an undergraduate. I made a single bet on the winner of today's Preakness, and I was lucky enough to win the exacta in the Preakness (i.e., I bet on the first two finishers in order) at 93-1 odds. Because I made two exacta bets, not one, the odds on my total exacta bet were cut in in half. As my bets on the Preakness were my only bets today, I did well: so well that I won back about half of what I lost betting on my own horses, Hot Money and Mustang Island, last week.
