Do you have a favourite horse racing game?

Back in the day before we had computer games people would play games such as Escalado, in which eight metal horses would race along a fabric track that was vibrated using a mechanical crank. Only one player would work the crank which was supposed to produce random vibrations so that each horse has an equal opportunity of winning.

You would place bets on your favourite horses generally on a winner collects all basis. Despite that it was introduced originally in 1928, the game is still available today and costs around £100 new, though you can generally find some good bargains on used games. Perhaps it’s not quite as good as it was; the old lead horses have been replaced by plastic ones which don’t move around in quite the same way.

Another great horse racing game that people used to play before computer games and is still going strong is Totopoly. This was first launched in 1938 and today you can buy one for under £20. It uses a two sided board and the movements of horses depend on the throw of a dice. The first side of the board represents the build up to the race and horses collect advantage and disadvantage points while facing the chance of being eliminated. The second side is for the race itself. You can bet on any horse. Horse movements again are controlled by dice throws and advantage and disadvantage cards are played and used for setting odds.

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Naturally, to a large extent these horse racing games have given way to computer and online games. Many of these are virtual reality games where you can take on multiple roles. For instance you can own your own race horses, train them, select your best horses for particular races, and race your horses against other owners’ horses. Many of these use some form of league structure that you can climb and win championships.

While you can usually play these games at a basic or introductory level for free, to progress in the game you will usually need to purchase game credits. While some are just for fun, in many you can also opt for play for fun or play for money. Examples of these types of games include:

• Virtual Owner – one of the more sophisticated virtual reality online horseracing community games
• VR Horse Race Run & Jump – a horse race simulation game
• Starters Orders – downloadable offline game for PC or mobile with first person jockey mode. You can train, breed, bet, and even race against build in simulations of  legendary horses from the past.
• iHorse Racing – train multiple horses and compete in leagues
• Derby Quest – Create and train champion horse handling every aspect of its life
• Horse Manager – choose your horse and jockey
• Horse Racing 3D – select your horse and let the odds guide your choices
• Virtual Horses – place bets on virtual horse racing games for real money or just for fun

A different kind of horse racing game that is crossing the barriers between horse racing games and real horse racing include developments such as ‘Get in the Race’. This includes a live betting app along with a virtual reality viewer that tracks GPS devices carried by real horses. When you play you are literally in the saddle while you receive information on the horses’ heartrate, race position, distance to run, stride length and so forth. Eventually these type of games will be available with VR headsets.

We’ve come a long way since the launch of Escalado in 1928.

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The son of a bookmaker, Alex Bird made a fortune betting on horses against the bookmakers, using the insider knowledge he had learned from working from his father.

In his book “Alex Bird: the Life and Secrets of a Professional Punter” published in 1986 this wily gambler describes some of the tricks he got up to as a professional horse racing gambler between 1946 and 1985. While a fascinating read, many of his tricks have now been made impossible by modern technology, but for anyone interested in the history of betting on the horses and fixing the odds it is certainly worth reading.

500 Winners in a Row – Betting on Photo-Finishes

One of his more profitable betting strategies was betting on photo-finishes.  Today the results of photo-finishes are decided quickly, but back in Alex Bird’s day the process took considerably longer.  Real photographs were recorded and took several minutes to process. During that time considerable betting on the final outcome was usual; after all you had an apparent 50% chance of selecting the winner.

Of course, Alex Bird had much better than a 50% chance; for him the final outcome was almost a certainty. This was because he had noticed that in a typical photo finish an optical illusion caused it to look as through the furthest distance horse from the aspect of viewer was the winner. 

Having noticed this, he would position himself as close to the winning post as possible on an elevated position. This provided him with a much more accurate view and, by closing one eye, he was able to create a mental image of the finishing line which he used to assess the final outcome. He proved to be as accurate as the camera. For over 20 years he used this technique to amass a huge number of wins; reportedly he won 500 successive photo finish bets.

While we can no longer use his method, there is of course a lesson to be learned, and that is only bet on events that have happened already if you are certain of the winner; failing to do this cost the bookmakers a considerable amount of money.

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Wily Tactics to Fix the Odds

Bird was also an excellent strategist and tactician when it came to fixing the odds. He reports how he used to create false favourites. If he wanted to lengthen the odds on a horse that he favoured, he would ostentatiously place a seriously large bet of up to £10,000 on another horse and let it be known that he had made the bet. Such was his reputation for choosing winners that this would encourage other punters to follow his lead and as the money flowed in the odds on that horse would shorten and often ended as favourite. Consequently the odds on the horse he really fancied would lengthen.

Of course he couldn’t bet on this horse on the racecourse. But, supported by an extensive group of helpers located throughout England,  he would place bets on that horse totalling £50,000 or more at off-course bookmakers. Given that this was now a big advantage bet, his long term winnings using this technique were huge.

An Eye for the Horses 

He also really did have an eye for horses and following form. He success at picking winners was extraordinary. Probably his biggest single win was on Mill Reef. Between 1970 and 1972 Mill Reef ran 14 races of which he won 12 and was placed second in 2. Following his first defeat in his third race at Prix Robert Papin in France, he was entered in the Gimcrack Stakes at York. However there had been torrential rain the previous night his trainer wanted to scratch him, but they went ahead with the entry.

Alex Bird was not put off by the going. He bet £60,000 on the horse which went on to win by ten lengths.

Such skills are a rare thing in racing and while it would be tough to replicate Bird’s tactics in this day and age of the internet, betting exchanges, live TV coverage of every race and so on, we can marvel at his achievements as a pioneering professional gambler. 

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Stanford Wong was born in Georgia in 1943 and his real name is John Ferguson, but he is better known by his pen name. He is most famous for his gambling book, published in 1975, called Professional Blackjack.

Early life

His family moved around a great deal when he was young, but eventually settled down in Beaverton, Oregon. As a young man his passion was solving puzzles; any puzzles would do. As long as there was an algorithm to be devised, he was happy. Following on from High School, be enrolled at Oregon State University, gaining Batchelors and Master’s degrees in business administration. After graduating he became professor of mathematics at the university but found the role insufficiently challenging so in search of excitement and adventure he embarked on a military career which included tours in Vietnam.

Wong discovers Blackjack

He returned to civilian life after two years, returning to his studies. This time he enrolled at Stanford University for a PhD in Finance while also taking on teaching duties. Those were magic days at Stanford. It had been discovered that Blackjack was a game that could be won consistently by playing an advantage game counting cards. Edward Thorp had published his classic Blackjack strategy book “Beat the Dealer” in 1962 and it was that book that inspired Wong.

Soon he was making substantial gains from the game of Blackjack, applying Thorp’s strategies and devising his own algorithmic approaches to the game. He was earning far more at blackjack than he was from his role as a professor, so he minimised his university duties taking a huge drop in salary in order to devote more time to gambling.

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Wong’s new approach to winning at Blackjack

Wong achieved all this by building substantially on Thorp’s strategies. When Thorpe published his book on card counting, casinos typically used a single deck of cards. This was easy to read, and accounted for the early success of several card counting teams. But casinos were able to counter this in several ways. To foil the card counters they began using multiple decks in a blackjack shoe. They also stopped permitting players to double down on any two cads and hitting soft 17. This had the effect of undermining Thorp’s strategies to the extent they were no longer profitable.

Publication of Professional Blackjack

It was during this time that he penned “Professional Blackjack”. Realising that authoring a book that showed people how they could routinely win at blackjack would make him unpopular with casino owners everywhere, he chose to publish it under the pseudonym Stanford Wong. It became a best seller, and is still a favourite amongst professional blackjack players.

It was the changes casinos made to the game that were addressed by Wong’s approach. He devised new counting techniques and mathematical analysis of each of these changes. He also employed another of his passions, computer technology, to create “Blackjack Analyser” to help him analyse these variants.

Blackjack mid-shoe entry and the practice of “Wonging”

His techniques relied on entering a blackjack game after analysing it for some time and determining that the remaining shoe had a positive count.  He could then enter the game and make consistently high bets with a considerable advantage over the casino. This was called mid-shoe entry and, following the publication of his book, was adopted by many blackjack players. The technique became known as “Wonging”, though many casinos neutralised the strategy by banning mid-shoe entry to the blackjack tables.

Blackjack News

Wong followed up the publication of the book with a blackjack newsletter called “Current Blackjack News” which is still published. The newsletter runs to 70 to 80 pages and lists just about every blackjack table in every casino across the US. Each table is analysed for the casino edge, the number of decks in a shoe, the cut, minimum and maximum stakes, and specific table rules. Even individual dealers are sometimes commented on.  If any blackjack players wish to select the best table for their games, “Current Blackjack News” is essential reading.

Wong’s Blackjack tournament team

In 1985 Wong put together a blackjack tournament team consisting of five male and one female highly talented blackjack players. Their target was blackjack tournaments where they could make money quickly. Unlike other blackjack teams such as the famous MIT team as featured in the movie “21”, by playing only in tournaments they were able to avoid spending months grinding away counting cards at blackjack tables. Their target extended further than blackjack too; craps, keno and handicapping tournaments were all fair game.  They were amazingly successful and gained the reputation as being the most successful legal gambling team in history. Within two years they won eight major tournament prizes raking in almost half a million dollars.

Wong on dice control in craps

One of Wong’s more controversial theories is that the game of craps can be controlled by developing specific skills at throwing dice. He equates the necessary skills with those needed to hit a golf ball from a tee on the golf course. He claims that at one time he was able to win using these techniques, but he has now lost his ability to do so. This was the subject of his latest book published in 2005 called simply “Wong on dice”.

A quiet retirement in publishing

Currently he lives with his wife in La Jolla, California. He spends much less time in casinos than he used to, now he occupies his time doing other things including writing and publishing his own and other writers’ books through his own Las Vegas based publishing company called Pi Yee Press.

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