Those people who play the English soccer pools, or used to, may be familiar with what the Poms call 'perms' - or permutations. These were used to link selections so the bettor had a chance to obtain a big win for a comparatively small outlay.
They are not used much in racing. Some years ago, P.P.M. revealed a permutation plan for Yankee bets. The plan I am about to reveal today covers six selections, all of which are permed to give you a fighting chance of a big collect, even though not all combinations are covered.
Whether the perm eventually proves successful is going to be reliant on your own skills as a selector! No staking plan can succeed if the selections fail, as we all should understand.
What my plan does is to give you a strong chance of getting into the spoils, but I do stress that the selections must be a balanced line-up. Maybe a couple of horses in the 3/1 to 4/1 bracket, two at short prices, and the final couple at more generous odds. By doing this you are stretching your approach across the board, and raising the possibility of hitting some fine doubles and so on.
If, by some streak of skill and luck, you happened to strike six winners, even at ordinary odds, the profit potential is astounding with this kind of bet.
The suggested perm for the six selections (all in different races, of course) is as follows:
- X - - - - X X X - X -
- X X X X X
- - X X X X - - X
- - X X - - X X - X
- X X X - - - X X
- - X - X X X X
If we assumed that the bets are named as follows, we can then see what bets we are looking at:
- BOB
- JOHN
- CHRIS
- DAVE
- DON
- PAUL
Using the perm, the complete list of bets would look like this:
DOUBLES
Bob-John
John-Chris
Chris-Dave
Dave-Don
Don-Paul
TREBLES
Bob-Chris-Don
Bob-Chris-Paul
Bob-Dave-Paul
John-Dave-Paul
ACCUMULATORS
Bob-john-Don-Paul
John-Chris-Dave-Don
The following are the 'guarantees' if you strike various combinations of winners:
2 WINNERS
It's 2/1 against a winning double.
3 WINNERS
Either a double OR 2 doubles OR a treble.
4 WINNERS
Either 2 doubles OR 3 doubles OR 2 doubles and a treble OR a double and 2 trebles OR 2 doubles and an accumulator OR 3 doubles and an accumulator.
5 WINNERS
Either 3 doubles and 3 trebles OR 4 doubles, a treble and an accumulator or 3 doubles, 2 trebles and an accumulator.
6 WINNERS
You get the lot!
Let's say, for example, that your winners are Bob, Dave and Paul. The perm does not link them in a double but they are linked in a treble. So your 3 winners have landed the bacon in this respect.
If we say their prices were 2/1, 6/1 and 10/1 (a mixture of prices across the board) the treble would return you odds of 230/1, an enormous profit on the total $11 outlay for the 5 doubles, 4 trebles and 2 accumulators.
Because you are not covering all combinations, there are going to be frustrating times when you get, say, 4 winners but they are so placed in the perm that all you get are a couple of doubles.
But, all is not black, and there will be other occasions when 4 winners land you, say, 2 doubles and an accumulator, or perhaps 3 doubles and an accumulator. It all depends on which of the selections win their races.
If you feel that a win approach with this permutation would be too difficult to handle, you can always use it for the place. This would certainly ensure a greater flow of returns - and a far higher chance of actually landing the 'jackpot' of all 6 selections coming up 1st, 2nd or 3rd, thus landing you the entire bet.
Quite a few punters I know are regular players of permutations. They say it allows them to have a chance at cracking big returns with only a small outlay. Even horses which pay as little as, say, $1.50 for the place can return you good money when you land them in a four-horse accumulator.
A $5 bet on 4 placed horses at $1.50 each means a return of $25+, or more than 400 per cent on the initial outlay. Not bad, in anyone's language!
When using a bet permutation as I have outlined, you need to have taken a committed decision to bet on such a plan over a certain length of time. At $11 per bet, you could, perhaps, say that you will use a bank of $550, which means you are betting 2 per cent of the original bank each time.
You will not 'score' with every bet. Your aim should be to pick enough winners to keep abreast of things, and then come up with enough 'good days' to boost your profit level to such a plane that you can, over 12 months, make a decent profit.
One really good hit with win bets could cover your expenses for the entire year, let's face it. This is the intrinsic appeal of these types of maxi-bets.
By Alan Jacobs
PRACTICAL PUNTING - SEPTEMBER 1995