I worked on course at the races for around 13 years, from the early 80's to the mid 90's. The last 3 years I worked for a Bookie whose staff put in $20 or $30 each, each race day, and put on a Quaddie. Wanting to be a part of the team, I joined in. I only lasted around 2 or 3 months, before I opted out of their Quaddies again.
Why?
They were making the most common mistake of nearly every "friends Quaddie". They were what I would call lazy and obvious. By the time each person put in their 0.02¢ worth on the selections, we pretty much ended up with the top 3 to 6 in the betting in all our legs. Now short term, on a one off basis, just trying to get a collect on any given day, that probably represents your best chance of achieving that collect. Long term, you may as well set fire to the money, or use it to buy a lotto ticket. It is basically close to impossible to use that sort of method, and make a profit over the longer term.
Realistically, you won't collect the quaddie often enough, and when you do, the dividends will be largely disappointing, with the odd exception of a "fluke" good collect, once or twice a year.
I kept a loose mental note of how they fared in the months after I dropped out. They would have been lucky to recover 50% of their accumulated outlay in that time.
What could they have done differently?
Well, let's look at a typical structure they may have used, and analyse the better options they could have done instead.
This will be a "basic" variation. When I do a Quaddie for my friends group we generally end up putting on around 30 to 40 Quaddies using a more complicated structure. That wouldn't have suited the situation we faced back then, and would of confused them somewhat. In addition, flexi-betting wasn't available back then, so it also limited the options a little.
Their structure might have looked typically something like this:
1st leg: 1, 2, 3
2nd leg: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
3rd leg: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
4th leg: 1, 2, 3, 4
Outlay $180 for a 0.50¢ unit.
For the sake of ease, let's say 1 was the favourite, 2 the 2nd favourite etc, and the blue numbers represent horses around $6-$9 mark, and the red numbers horses around the $10-$12 mark.
The only times they ever collected anything worthwhile, was when 2 or more of the blue or red selections won. A lot more often than not, nothing was collected, or if they did collect, they got just a little more, or a little less(!) than what they outlayed.
Look at the breakdown of their outlay:
360 combinations covered
All black numbers: (2x2x3x3) = 36 combinations
3 black numbers + 1 blue or red number: (1x2x3x3)+(2x3x3x3)+(2x2x3x3)+(2x2x3x1) = 120 combinations
So 156 of their 360 combinations (43% of their outlay) were doomed to probably not collect anything, and if it did, theyd be lucky to cover their costs.
The "obvious and lazy" part is starting to become a bit more evident. They spent too much of their money on combinations "everyone" had, and were too lazy to fix it. They were lucky to collect around 25% of the time, so that in itself suggest they needed to do something different to their current play.
So what should they have done differently?
They should have looked at this as a long term concern, and not a week to week process. Their aim should have been to make a profit each year, NOT each week.
2 solutions. As I said earlier, these are in my opinion, basic fixes, and less complicated than I currently employ.
Solution 1. - only put on the Quaddies that have 2 or more blue or red numbers.
1st leg: 3
2nd leg: 3, 4, 5
3rd leg: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
4th leg: 1, 2, 3, 4
Outlay $36 for a 0.50¢ unit.
1st leg: 3
2nd leg: 1, 2
3rd leg: 4, 5, 6
4th leg: 1, 2, 3
Outlay $9 for a 0.50¢ unit.
1st leg: 3
2nd leg: 1, 2
3rd leg: 1, 2, 3
4th leg: 4
Outlay $3 for a 0.50¢ unit.
1st leg: 1, 2, 3
2nd leg: 1, 2
3rd leg: 4, 5, 6
4th leg: 4
Outlay $9 for a 0.50¢ unit.
1st leg: 1, 2
2nd leg: 3, 4, 5
3rd leg: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
4th leg: 4
Outlay $18 for a 0.50¢ unit.
1st leg: 1, 2
2nd leg: 3, 4, 5
3rd leg: 4, 5, 6
4th leg: 1, 2, 3
Outlay $27 for a 0.50¢ unit.
Total outlay $102 for a 0.50¢ unit
Now, while this would have drastically reduced their number of collects over a year, it actually would have also gone close to doubling their ROI. It removed most of the lower paying combinations, and ensured any collect was a worthwhile, and a profit. Whenever you are punting on exotics like this, it is obviously the better collects that make the biggest difference, to your end of year bottom line, so why not concentrate on them, and ditch the low paying combinations?