by Trey Nosrac

Despite an endless barrage of sports gambling commercials, blogs, radio shows, podcasters, and young men hyperventilating about this topic, I have scant knowledge or experience with prop bets. A quick google gets me started. A prop bet, short for proposition bet, is a sports betting wager not tied to a sporting game’s final score or outcome. Prop bets are not a significant part of the horse-race wagering landscape. Maybe they should be.

For some reason, prop wagers in other sports seem to operate in groups of three, and there are three basic categories of prop bets aimed to add excitement to watching the game unfold and keep the gambler engaged.

Player props focus on individual player performances. For example, in basketball, you might bet on how many points a specific player will score in a game, how many rebounds a player will snag, or how many minutes a player is on the court.

Game props center around specific events or occurrences within the game and are unrelated to the final score. In a soccer match, you bet on which team will score first, how many red flags get thrown, or the number of shots on goal.

Novelty props are quirky, fun bets that often revolve around events, such as betting on the length of the national anthem, the temperature at kickoff, and what color the Gatorade will be that’s poured on the winning coach.

I watch a lot of MLB games. Lately, there is a new twist. Several times, broadcasters will post graphics and numbers for each game. These graphics show a prop of what must happen in a baseball game to win a wager. For example, to win this prop parlay wager, three things must occur:

• Catcher Austin Hedges must get at least two hits.

• Pitcher Tanner Biebe must strike out at least six batters.

• The total number of runs for both teams will be more than eight.

Then, things get a little fuzzy with all the numbers and the plus or minus signs for the payoff, something like +1400, – 800, times the square root of helium. And get this, the payoff odds change as the games progress!

I appreciate it when a baseball announcer explains a wager similar to the one above, “For those of you confused about the payoffs, let me put it in English: if you wager $10 immediately, and these three things happen during the game, you will win $50.”

Was that so hard? The payoff on this particular wager seems appealing until you realize the last time Austin Hedges had multiple hits in a baseball game, he was in the seventh grade. Now, here is the gist of this column. Why can’t harness racing offer prop wagering? Something like:

• The number 6 horse, Strange Allocation, will finish in the top five.

• The official win time will be UNDER 1:57:2.

• The top three finishers’ post-position numbers will total more than 11.

Now remember, these parlay wagers are all or nothing. You must have all three events occur, or you lose. It seems that wagering along these lines would add a significant layer of fun to a horse race, especially among younger demographics. The proposition wagerer would have several things going on during the race, and the prop payoffs should pay more than peanuts. Prop bets could spice up a harness racing program. Prop wagering on the gambling menu would be a refreshing change from the pari-mutuel models we have used for the previous century. Of course, Trey always goes overboard. He would set up a prop bet along these lines:

• The winning horse has more than 13 letters in their name.

• The race will start less than 6 minutes after the listed post time.

• The #6 horse will finish ahead of at least two horses.

Shakespeare once wrote, “To prop or not to prop, that is the question.”

I’m voting, aye.