When people wager on Greyhound Trifectas they REALLY get in a rut. There are FAR too many people that use standard wagering forms:

1/23/ALL
1/2345/2345
Box 3 or Box 4
123/1234/12345

Almost all of these simple wager structures are inefficient and lead to trouble. Most have too much play on the best dog to win, and a lot have too much play on the best dog in third, just as a generality. And almost all suffer from the "eliminate some dogs from my bet" mentality.

As a first defence, after you are done handicapping you should look and see if your top selection is the same as the crowd's top selection. If you all agree and you all win, you're going to get small payoffs. That's starkly simple, but people can't seem to get it. If you agree with the crowd favorite and you WIN you don't get much. If you agree with the crowd favorite and LOSE, you don't get anything. Two possible outcomes, neither of which is very satisfying. Much better to disagree with the crowd favorite, and STILL win! That requires a wagering strategy, not a handicapping change.

As a second defence, after you are done handicapping you should look at the Tote board and figure out what you're going to get paid if you win. If your top-ranked dog is 3-1, you are much more likely to have a bigger payoff upon winning, as opposed to times when your dog is 4/6, when you are likely to get a tiny payoff. Maybe think about making a wider bet in 3-1 situations, and making sure you don't include a stronger crowd favorite. On the 4/6 side, if you insist on playing that dog, then narrow up the wager somehow, and hit it 15 times, instead of playing a wide wager with each combination represented only once. If you FORCE me to take a $30 trifecta payoff, I want it 15 times, not once.

The whole issue of playing (or NOT playing) the best dog in a race is important, and people can't face it. The best dog in a race might win 25% of the time. That means he LOSES 75% of the time. Why bet on him to win when he's going to lose three times out of four? Your own handicapping tells you he's going to win only 1 out of 4, but you're going to bet on the 1 out of 4 case instead of the 3 out of 4 case! And on top of it, the 1 out of 4 case pays squat, while the 3 out of 4 case pays anywhere from "better" to "wow"!

If you bet on your top-ranked runner, and your handicapping agrees with the crowd (a very likely situation) then you are going to be continually cashing those little $30 and $60 and $90 trifecta payoffs. If you learn that the favorite doesn't win all that often, and decide to figure out how to make trifecta plays that don't involve that dog, then BY DEFINITION, you will start cashing the bigger trifectas. Remember, SOMEBODY cashed the $250, $450 and $650 trifectas. It just wasn't a guy with his money on the favorite to win in his little trifecta pyramid.

For starters, maybe people could think about it like this:

I can EASILY identify the crowd favorite. It doesn't take much handicapping, and may even take NO handicapping if I'm smart enough to look up at the Tote board once in a while. Okay, now I know which dog to AVOID using in my bets. Now, let me change my handicapping strategy to figure out which OTHER dogs might figure to be in this race, particularly if the crowd favorite ISN'T!

Another important idea to consider... I'm perfectly willing to NOT win the $30 trifecta payouts. When one of those $30 things happens, and I didn't cash it, I can smile and be happy. I didn't waste a bet on a no-ROI wager. I'm perfectly willing to watch SIX of those $30 payoffs go by, if on the next race I cash a $350 trifecta when the favorite is out of the money. Patience. No panic. Adequate bankroll. Maybe people should think, "My strategy is to cash one $350 trifecta tonight" instead of "My strategy is to cash three $30 trifectas tonight." It takes a completely different strategy at the track to accomplish the former. It's no sin to leave the best dog out of your bets, and it may be a profitable virtue!
I ran out a study just now for all greyhounds that went off at 2-1 odds or shorter in QLD for a major part of this year. This happened in 675 races.

- The top-ranked dog (at 2-1 odds or shorter) won 43.85%.
- The top-ranked dog finished in second place 17.63%.
- The top-ranked dog finished in THIRD place only 9.78% of the time.

Compare that third-place performance to the rest of the dogs:
The second-best dog finished third 15.26% versus the fav's 9.78%.
The third-best dog finished third 15.11% versus the fav's 9.78%.
The fourth-best dog finished third 14.96% versus the fav's 9.78%.
The fifth-best dog finished third 13.64% versus the fav's 9.78%.
The sixth-best dog finished third 11.54% versus the fav's 9.78%.
The seventh-best dog finished third 10.50% versus the fav's 9.78%.
The worst dog in the field finished third 9.00% versus the fav's 9.78%.

So in those races where the fav is 2-1 or less, ALL other dogs will finish in third place more often than that favorite, except for the very worst dog, and THAT dog is barely below the fav's third-place percentage.

Now from that point of view, tell me why it makes any sense at all to put a strong favorite in third place in a trifecta wager?

Look at the ROI in the following structures, as measured across all possible races:

1/2345/2345 = -24.73% ROI.
2345/1/2345 = -29.30% ROI.
2345/2345/1 = -33.19% ROI.

12/2345/4567 = -13.62% ROI.

That 11 percentage points better than the BEST of those three strategies, and almost 20 percentage points better than the WORST.

Hope this helps in your trifecta structuring....start playing the trifectas an you start playing against me....