This means that there is a 70% chance that Winsalot will win today's race, and a 20% chance that DoesOK will win, leaving the rest of the field with a combined 10% chance of winning. Clearly, Winsalot has the best chance of winning the race, and will likely be the favorite.

In fact, he's likely to be a heavy favorite. Suppose he goes off at odds of 1/5. This means that if he wins, he'll pay $2.40. But remember, there's still a 30% chance that he won't win this particular race. Let's say that he always goes off at 1/5. If you bet $2 on him 100 times, you'll win 70 races, and will collect 70 x $2.40 = $168. But you bet 100 x $2 = $200. So, in the long run, you will lose $32, or 16% of your total bets!

Of course, we really don't know whether he'll win today's race or not. However, the expected value of a $2 bet on Winsalot at 1/5 is still a 32 cent loss.

Now, if Winsalot is bet down to 1/5 and the betting on the rest of the field stays the same, then the odds on DoesOK must increase. A betting line of 1/5 equates to a probability of 1/(1+5) = 83.3%. If the rest of the field stays at 10% probability, then the betting line on DoesOK equates to 100% - 83.3% - 10% = 6.7%. Converting this back to betting odds, we find DoesOK at (1/0.067)-1 or approximately 14/1. Now, if we bet on DoesOK at 14/1, we still have an 80% chance of losing our money. But consider the expected value of the bet.

If we bet 100 times at 14/1, we would expect to win 20 races, collecting $30 for each win, for a total of $600. In this case we bet the same $200 as in the Winsalot example, so we are showing a profit of $400, tripling our $200 bankroll. In other words, the expected value of a $2 bet on DoesOK at 14/1 is a profit of $6, versus a loss of $0.32 for a bet on Winsalot at 1/5.

Take a moment to digest this. What we're saying is that, in spite of the fact that Winsalot is the most likely winner of today's race, DoesOK represents the better wager, by far.

Value betting is all about finding the wager with the highest expected value. Although it is sometimes difficult to force yourself to do so, this often means betting against the horse that you think is going to win the race!