News stories about the book "Horseplayers"

Few joys, many woes of going pro

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Few joys, many woes of going pro

Chicago writer spends a year at the track and finds that being a professional horseplayer is a low-paid grind

By Don Clippinger | Book Editor, Thoroughbred Times | June 25, 2005

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For one year, Ted McClelland lived his dream. He was a professional horseplayer.

Of course, the year is shorter in Chicago, where McClelland is a professional writer when he is not playing the horses. There, the year begins in snow and slush at Hawthorne Race Course in late February, and it ends in the first days of the following calendar year in the snow and slush at Hawthorne.

Between the two meets at Hawthorne lies the idyll of Arlington Park, one of the world's most beautiful racetracks.

But, as McClelland found, professional horseplayers do not have time to smell the begonias. They are lost in a welter of past-performance lines, speed figures, trip notes, and the assorted minutiae that are supposed to give them an edge in the world of pari-mutuel betting, but do not.

Still, McClelland had this dream to pursue, and he had the two requisite tools: some handicapping skills and a bankroll. He obtained a $4,000 advance to write a book about his year at the races.

He also found that he had another requirement for being a professional horseplayer: a steady job that paid the rent and utilities. His employer, the Chicago Reader, kept him on the payroll to write columns about the people he met at the track.

That was one of McClelland's chief discoveries, all of which are distilled into Horseplayers: Life at the Track (Chicago Review Press, $24.95). "From what I found, no one makes a living just gambling," he said over lunch at the Mud Bug, an off-track betting parlor in a gentrifying neighborhood north of Chicago's Loop. "Even the successful players I met had something on the side. I didn't meet anyone who supports themselves entirely on betting.

So why try it?

Desire and opportunity

For one thing, when you are in your mid-30s, as McClelland was in 2003, and unhampered by children and mortgages, you can try some of the things you always wanted to do and probably never will have a chance to do again. His other desire was to write his first book, which turned out to be a lot more successful than his stint as a professional gambler.

In the looming darkness that accompanies Hawthorne's final card in early 2004, the bankroll was gone, along with some savings. But he had ended up a winner for the month of December. Why, he was ahead by $30, which covered a week's worth of Daily Racing Forms and a couple gallons of gasoline.

Still, his conclusions and observations are valuable for anyone who gives thought to trying to beat the races, day in and out, as a professional horseplayer.

The biggest handicap for the horseplayer is the takeout and breakage, the odd cents that are rounded down in making payouts, either to the closest nickel or dime. Together, they raise the discount on a winning bet close to 25%. Even your local stockbroker or loan shark does not charge that much. We are talking about payday-loan interest.

An equally potent handicap is the psychology of having to win a bet. "The pressure would make it unbearable if you had to cash a bet to pay the rent," McClelland said. "The hardest thing is keeping your emotional balance in a losing streak."

He also found that being a professional horseplayer is hardly the glamorous life. Forget the flashy clothes and the fancy cars. "Handicapping horses is the hardest work I've ever done for the lowest pay," he said. Hamburger flippers are better paid.

And, he noted, it is a game for nerds. Yes, nerds. Who else would spend four or five hours at the track, pick up the Form on the way out, and then spend the rest of the evening (and a few early-morning hours) trying to handicap the next card? After a few hours sleep, it is back to the track and the mind-spinning endeavor of trying to make winners leap off the printed page.

No wonder, he said, most of the people he encountered were, with a few exceptions, single or divorced. They do not have time for anything else. McClelland detailed in the book how he embarrassed a date by showing up for dinner ragged out after a day at the track and preoccupied with handicapping the next day's program.

He said racing is also a nerd's game because it involves so many variables, so much to learn, and so much to contemplate in a short period of time. Class and speed are significant parts of handicapping, but so are track conditions such as rail biases, trip notes on how the horses ran in previous races, and physical appearances of equipment that may not be reported. One horse won consistently when it wore mesh eye protectors that had the effect of taming its early speed.

Handicapping is taking all the books ever written and squeezing their distilled wisdom into the 25 minutes between races. Forget trying to play the full-card game. It is tough enough beating the races when you are looking at the same horses every day. McClelland's batting average began to drop when the shippers from the south began to show up in Hawthorne's races that spring.

Betting skills

Handicapping is just part of the equation, and perhaps the easier part. "I think betting skills are more important than handicapping skills in beating the races," McClelland said. "It's a betting contest. That's the real skill you have to learn."

He also found that he was playing a people game rather than the horses. "The real skill is predicting the behavior of other gamblers," he said. "In time, I could predict what the odds would be on a horse before I got to the track."

By the end of the year, he was looking for false favorites that would create value-enhancing overlays for his wagers. Think of Bellamy Road in the Kentucky Derby (G1).

"People will always bet the horse that looks best on paper, he said. "Horses may not be winning from the rail, but people will bet the rail horse if it has the best speed figure. I'll bet against that horse."

Of course, Scott McMannis, who presides over Hawthorne's Handicapping and Business Center, had tried to teach him that skill, but McClelland had to find out for himself, the hard and expensive way. McMannis, a former community college finance professor, had quit academia in 1979 to become a professional horseplayer. His big hit came a decade later, when he scored an $81,000 twin trifecta at Arlington and paid off his mortgage.

Like McMannis, many full-time gamblers depend on the big score to keep them on the positive side of the ledger for the year.

McClelland also learned that he needed as much patience as Jeremy Rose showed in winning the Belmont Stakes (G1) aboard Afleet Alex. On a December afternoon at Hawthorne, he began his transformation from a gambler into a horseplayer when he did not bet on any race for the entire program. In fact, some of the most successful horseplayers do not place a bet for days or even weeks, until the value-packed overlay shows up.

Less than 5% of gamblers win consistently at the races, and for every Scott McMannis, there are dozens who throw money aimlessly at races or scrounge, beg, stoop (pick tickets off the floor), or hustle to get the money for their next bet. McClelland's book is notable because he tells their stories not as caricatures but as flesh-and-blood individuals who trek to the track every day for a variety of reasons.

McClelland also told the story of Matt Lovello, an addicted gambler who did not crash and burn until he had racked up $170,000 in debt on a company credit card. He found recovery through a 12-step program and now avoids all things related to gambling on racehorses.

For people like Lovello, roughly 1% of the population and a larger percentage at your local racetrack or OTB parlor, gambling is an illness, but one that can be treated. A warning sign of addicted gambling is a person's belief that he is a professional gambler and that the losses (the compulsive gambler always knows how much, almost to the dollar) are only a prelude to winning.

McClelland had no trouble walking away, although he still plays regularly. After his luncheon appointment, he remained at the Mud Bug and won $40 on Arlington's races. He currently is working on a book about the people and communities along the Great Lakes. Undoubtedly, he will meet many interesting people in his research, but probably none as eccentric and fascinating as the horseplayers from his year at the track.