Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 19, 2014

Now it’s starting to come together!

Rut Roh! Sounds like trouble! Good morning everyone!

Kolossal obviously switched Quickdraw with Sparkplug. Clever and stupid at the same time. I’m sure he made lots of money on the race, but he doesn’t think he’s going to get away with this, does he?

In real life horse racing, happens all the time…..keep holding back a good horse until you get long odds, then let him go….he doesn’t actually have to get better.

….but I don’t understand……thought Angus wasn’t INTO gambling…..and Sparkplug’s movie fee was going to eliminate the need to race him

Good morning, all!Now is getting interesting! Kolossal is up for a colossal troble!

At least we know what business Angus is in.

Angus will figure this out in a heartbeat. And when he does, Kolossal’s heartbeats will be numbered.

Angus know how to get good bang for his buck..this is cool..

I have to agree with those who feel Ghote and Sail will encounter, and be saved by, the missing former moon people…

In all the discussion yesterday about references to the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello, I didn’t even mention Quick Draw McGraw:

Now it’s clear how Angus knew Kolossal was blowing money at the track….Angus OWNS the track.

What does she mean, “We can’t keep up with the payouts”? Surely the track runs a parimutuel system, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine that any track would be using fixed odds. Under the parimutuel system, total payouts are never as high as the total bets. The actual odds are calculated once all bets are in. The strip yesterday showed an odds board outside the betting windows, but that has to be updated as the betting progresses.

JonahHex, you posted almost the same thing I did while I was writing mine. I didn’t see that till after I posted.

(Typo: In the first panel, I think “unnecessary” needs one more “n”)

Good moring fellow DT fans

Happy days for the winners!

So, it now comes out that Mr. Angus in fact owns (or at least is “the boss man” of) Wilcox Downs Racetrack (BTW, this does not automatically make him a gambler himself, if he’s just in it as a business). This cannot bode well for Kolossal, because his ringer ruse will fall apart as soon as an investigation examines the horse involved. Yet I also note that Fred and the Parimutuel Lady are themselves racing, to their conclusions…. Well, sometimes the storyline has to be moved along quickly, I guess.

Never mind the Marx Brothers — anyone seen Paul Newman and Robert Redford hanging around the track? (And is that Scott Joplin music playing over the loudspeakers?)

wow … but I am sure that everybody saw this coming

So, you’re saying that he’s a “Kolossal liar”? (hee hee hee)

Was Mysta riding “Quickdraw”? Inquiring minds want to know.

……the only way a track couldn’t keep up with the payouts is if exactly the opposite happened…..huge FAVORITES at odds way under 1-9 kept coming in. Most tracks, by law, have to return at least a $2.10 payoff for a $2.00 bet, so if not enough money comes in on the other horses combined to cover that, the track has to make it up. (Uhhhh….for some straaaange reason usually when a favorite gets bet down to where the track could lose money, it “mysteriously” loses, lol)

It has been many years since I’ve worked at a racetrack, but I do remember the basics of the Parimutuel system. The most important part is that as the number of bets on a horse goes up, the odds on that horse go down. So if there are a lot of bets on a horse at 30-1 that will push the odds down. As Fredville has pointed out, only when you have a string of favourite’s winning do you have problems with payouts.

That’s true unless of course someone has been messing with the Parimutuel computers so that the odds stay high despite the number of tickets sold, which of course would be a criminal matter. At the track where I worked we had a presence not only from the American Totalisator Company (as it was then) but also from the Federal government to keep an eye on operations.

I bet (no pun intended) that Kolossal doesn’t know that Angus is running the track, and likely to figure out the scam.BUT… wouldn’t it be illegal for a horse owner to also operate the track?

As for the guys at the track -I’m sure I’ve seen Rusty in another comic strip, a long, long time ago. (Tarry…? Tarry…? Do you read me? Can you resolve this?)-———————————————And, yes that was Chico Marx selling the ‘Tootsie Fruitsie Icea Cream’ yesterday. (And his pushcart contained books which explained his racing tips.)Just so you know, Chico’s hair was much darker brown than was colored here, Harpo never spoke in their movies, and Harpo’s wig was red. -As for why some of you were confused…Yes, the 5 Marx Brothers did look alike, but I’m pretty sure Joe had nothing to do with it. In fact, I’d say you’d have to blame that all on their parents.As Groucho sang in the song, “Father’s Day”:“…For according to our mother, you’re our father, and that’s good enough for me.“And that’s good enough, for me.”

Can’t these writers stay on a storyline worth reading?

So in all of the entire racetrack industry, it’s a teller at the payout window who suspects a fixed race?

Neil Wick, you’re right about the payouts. However, by doing things this way, we can get Mr. Angus all upset — which is doubtless the point of this thread.

Congratulations to DaJellyBelly for being the first to mention it. I don’t know how I missed that except that there was a lot going on yesterday in the strip.

Heehee. Good one, JPW.