Placing Your Bets

To add to the excitement of the day, everyone enjoys a having a stake in picking the winner of the Kentucky Derby. To set up a simple pari-mutuel pool for your Derby party, set a price for each ticket -- a dollar is the easiest (although if you want to be realistic, $2 is the minimum wager at Churchill Downs.) Using your 'Win' Tote Tickets, our Wooden Jackpot Horses or slips of paper mark the choice of your guest for the Derby race by the horse's number or name. Betting will be for 'Win' only and the guests may buy as many tickets as they wish. When the race is over and the winner declared, count the winning tickets and divide that amount into the total money bet and you have the payoff for each winning entry.

For simplicity's sake, we suggest that one person be designated as the 'bookie' and handles the sales of the 'Win' tickets as well as distribution of the payoffs. Try to find a small cash box -- a cigar box will do -- and keep your receipts in it. A 'bank' of $1 bills to start will make it easy to change $5 bills and larger. If you receive the simulcast of all the races, start with race #1 and go from there. Another idea is to list the post positions of the horses running in the Derby. Your first guest to arrive will receive post position #1, the second guest #2 and so on. In the event there are more guests than post positions, you start over when you have reached the bottom of the list and the winnings would be split.