Horse Racing Variation

3146 Words13 Pages
Impact of the Variation of Horse Racing Odds on the Outcome of Horse Races at the Champ de Mars Sameerchand Pudaruth*, Computer Science and Engineering Department Faculty of Engineering University of Mauritius s.pudaruth@uom.ac.mu Nishchay Nemdharry, Trivartsingh Ramjeawon Harrykesh Ramma and Ritesh Mungroo Computer Science and Engineering Department Faculty of Engineering University of Mauritius Abstract?Horse Racing is the favourite sports of Mauritians. This can be demonstrated by the presence of huge crowds at the Champ de Mars on racing days. Many people wait for the last moment to bet as they feel that the variation of odds has an influence on the winner of a race at the Champ de Mars. This…show more content…
An overall percentage of 7.4% was obtained for the prediction of winners. This shows that the variation in horse racing odds does not have any impact on the outcome of horse races at the Champs de Mars. To our knowledge, this is the first study which studies the relationship between the variation in odds and the rank of horses. Keywords?horse racing; variation in odds; rank; prediction I. INTRODUCTION Horse Racing is one of the most ancient sports in Mauritius. The Mauritius Turf Club (MTC) is the organisation which is responsible for the organisation of horse racing in Mauritius. On top of that, we have the Gambling Regulatory Authority which ensures that things are happening in the proper way and according to the rules and regulations. Horse Racing is the most popular sports in Mauritius. Every racing day, it attracts a huge crowd at the Champs de Mars. The Champ de Mars is found in Port Louis, the capital city of Mauritius. It is a race- track which is well-known for its tricky curves and this is acknowledged by most local and international jockeys. Many top riders from all over the world are fans of the jovial atmosphere that resides at the Champ de Mars during a…show more content…
They constructed 35 fuzzy rules and tested their algorithm on 26 races from 3 consecutive meetings. The system could only spot 6 (23.1%) winners. However, it was also found that, the winner was among the first three predicted horses in 20 races. Kempston (2007) used support vector regression to predict the finishing line margin behind the winning horse [19]. Besides the usual attributes like percentage wins by horse/jockey/trainer, weight carried, age of horse and final odds, he also considered the sex of the horse and the medication that was given to the horse. Training and testing was done on a huge dataset of races. However, the accuracy was only about 1% better than a na?ve prediction strategy. The purpose of all the above cited works was to predict the winner of horse races with an accuracy that is better than the market odds or random choice. Horse racing is not a game of chance. Horses are animals that behave in different ways with the environment it is subjected to and consistency of performance can vary to a notable level. A neural network is a tool that can be used in assisting prediction, however, because of the complexity of the domain, hundred percent is

More about Horse Racing Variation

Open Document