Wagering is the skill we all need to improve. And there are some structural elements to wagering on greyhound races that you should be intimately familiar with. Because the deck is stacked against you, and you need to be really really good to turn the odds in your favor.

For example, let's look at takeout. What's takeout? Every time you place a bet on a greyhound race, the track and the government take a percentage of that wager to cover their costs and taxes, respectively. The amount they take out is huge. I mean, really huge. At most tracks, the takeout on anything other than win/place/show betting approaches or even exceeds

I was handicapping the races at Bluffs Run the other day, and the number one rule of racing was on my mind: It's not about picking greyhounds... It's about wagering on them!

I've tried to explain this concept to people for over twenty years. If you want to make money playing greyhound races, stop wasting your time on trying to get better at rating the dogs. Instead, learn how to wager on the races. I've watched people spend hours and hours--really days, months and years--trying to find