On The Rails | Hold your horses as the $1 bet is not the ticket

Turnover is up at the first three meetings, with a proportion of it certainly due to the healthy jackpots in the Triple Trio and the Six-Up - and it is to the ongoing health of those pools where we turn our attention.

Some colleagues have made much of the introduction of the $1 bet this season - the changes to betting rules which have made it possible to take certain bets for a single dollar per combination provided there is a minimum cost per ticket of $100.

Fortunately, though we suspect there would be minds at Sports Road keen to pursue the same route across the board, the club has elected to look at the results of this move across Double Trio, Treble, Tierce, Trio and First Four betting before they go anywhere foolish with it.

We have no information on whether it is deemed to have had an impact on the very small sample to date but any of those well-meaning folk who think this is the cure for a downward trend in the Triple Trio and Six-Up pools belongs with the Curiosity Rover on Mars. Or back home as it might be expressed.

Those who think it's a great idea point to the wider net the average punter can cast across the TT - let's keep the TT as the main focus, since the same principles also apply across the Six-Up, or any pool which has at the heart of its success or failure the underlying potential for jackpotting into a life-changing event.

In fact, if you want to take that simpleton's viewpoint, then there is no end to it. You could make the Triple Trio open to bets of 1 cent per combination provided there is a certain minimum spend. Maybe it could be $10.