Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem April 2, 2026

A good Thursday morning to you all! I hope April is treating you well so far, and you didn’t fall for any bad or annoying April Fool’s Day jokes. I only bit on one, and it wasn’t too bad. We’ll call it a win!

Keeneland gets underway this weekend, and it’s always such a sign that spring has arrived when they start lining up at the gate in Lexington. I’m curious if Keeneland can find some of its mojo again after the late-odds changes last fall that had them in the dog house for a lot of horseplayers. I know they’ve added projected odds and quicker odds refreshes to their plan for this meet to help alleviate the big late shifts, so we’ll see if that helps the situation out. 

One thing I wanted to write about is that they have done this year is increase the minimums on some of their wagers. I’ve long been an advocate for this, as I feel like the low (and super low) minimums actually did players more harm than good. I’ve gotten significant blowback over the years from players who like the lower minimums, and I understand why they like them, but I still think they’re not good. Let me try to lay out my case. 

First of all, I do think they will hinder the CAWs a little bit, just because they are so precise with their combination allocations, especially with the lower minimums, like in Jackpot Pick 6 bets, where it’s a $0.20 minimum. But more than that, I think what happens with lower minimums on bets like Pick 3s and Trifectas is that people have more coverage. Well duh. But here’s why I don't think that is necessarily good for many players. 

Many players tend to go into wagers with a desired budget for a play. They might usually shoot to spend $16, $20, or $50 on a given Pick 3. In the old age of $2 minimums, that wasn’t very many combinations. With $1 minimums, it was as many combos as dollars they spent. So when the minimums got slashed to $0.50 on those bets, I don’t think people reduced their bet size; I think they doubled their combinations. They still were going to spend the same $16 or $20, but they were now going to get 32 or 40 combinations. That seems so great, right? Well, if you want to hit more tickets, sure, great. 

However, with all those extra combinations to work with, your payouts were now going down, and not just by half. The horses being added to those tickets were all the 5-1 or 8-1 shots that previously would have been the last horses people took off their tickets. Now, all of a sudden, a 5-1 shot wasn’t nearly the separator from your competition that it used to be, because so many additional bettors were included because of the low minimum. I’ve seen people on racing television say, “Well, if you don’t like the $0.50 minimum, then play it for a $1.” That to me was them telling everyone they were clueless about how pari-mutuel wagering works. Because you’re still playing against the $0.50 minimum and players who can spread larger because of the lower minimum, you’re doubling your potential payout. Still, you’re doubling a number that would be much lower if the minimum were $1 for everyone. 

People who don’t like this see it as catering to bigger players, and I understand where that feeling comes from. They think that the $1 minimum, the horses they now have to toss that they would have hit with the lower minimum will have them missing out more. I would argue that even with their smaller tickets, when they hit, they will make much more than double the $0.50 payout. I think it actually forces people to make better tickets as well because they aren’t going to be just spreading three or four logical horses wide in several legs. The minimum forces the ticket to be a little bit better from an equity standpoint. 

I’m excited to see how it works for these bets at Keeneland and really hope other tracks follow suit. The $0.50 minimum and often higher takeout on Pick 3’s, trifectas, and superfectas have made it so hard to make a decent score unless you really hit big bombs.  

Good luck out there!