By Jim Freer
Saturday, June 27 — Gulfstream Park is heading into two days with potentially huge payoffs on its Rainbow 6 bet on the last six races.
The Rainbow 6 frenzy will culminate with a mandatory payout of the full pool tomorrow.
Today, there will be a carryover of $351,156.
That is a seed for Gulfstream’s guarantee today of a payout of at least $500,000 to be divided among all of today’s winning ticket holders. It is doing that based on expectations that $500,000 or more will be bet today on the Rainbow 6.
Today will be a standard day when Gulfstream will pay out the full Rainbow 6 pool (day’s bets plus carryover) only if there is just one ticket with all six winners.
Gulfstream will have ten races today with first post at 1:00 p.m. There are no stakes races on the card.
The Rainbow 6 is on today’s fifth through tenth races, starting at 3:00 p.m.
If there are multiple tickets with six winners, Gulfstream will divide 70 percent of the day’s Rainbow 6 pool among them. The remaining 30 percent will be put into the carryover.
On Sunday, Gulfstream will pay out the full pool no matter the number of winners.
Without explicitly saying so, Gulfstream is hoping that there is no single winner today. Such a winning ticket would “take down’ the full Rainbow 6 and leave the pool to start from scratch on Sunday.
If there is no single winner today, recent history indicates that $2 million or more will be bet on the Rainbow 6 tomorrow. That means the payout could be $3 million or more.
The Rainbow 6 is a 20-cent only bet–i.e. 20 cents per combination. A ticket can have multiple horses per race, thus creating multiple combinations.
For example, a ticket with two horses per race has 64 combinations for a total of $12.80.
Friday was the 23rd consecutive racing day. since May 22, when there were multiple winning Rainbow 6 tickets. That has led to the build up of the carryover.
Multiple tickets with the 8-1-7-5-7-6 combination Friday were each worth $658.38.
Bettors at Gulfstream and around the country wagered $106,125 on the Rainbow 6.
Gulfstream is having a mandatory full payout on Sunday because of regulatory reasons.
It will end its 2015 spring meet on Tuesday and open its summer meet on Wednesday.
State rules prohibit Gulfstream from extending a Rainbow 6 carryover from one meet to another.
Naturally, a mandatory payout will attract more wagering on Sunday than on Tuesday.
There will be a one-day Rainbow 6 pool on Tuesday, and a new pool will begin on Wednesday.
