Gulfstream Rainbow Pick 6 Hits Twice

Gulfstream Park's new Rainbow 6, or $0.10 Pick 6 that only pays the entire pool when there is one unique winner, went un-hit for the first 17 days of the 2011 meet, creating a carryover that topped out at $194,331.  Not a bad sum for a Pick 6 that generates about $20 to $40k each day.  Finally, last Thursday (1/27) a player cashed the single winning ticket necessary to take down the entire pool and the $221,677.41 payout.  

Considering that the Rainbow 6 only pays the full pool on a single ticket one would think that last Thursday's score came in a sequence that produced a couple of bombs sprinkled throughout the leg.  In the case of last Thursday's payout, that's pretty much what happened.  Below is a recap of the winners of last Thursday's sequence:

Leg 1: 12/1
Leg 2: 13/1
Leg 3: 15/1
Leg 4: Even
Leg 5: 7/2
Leg 6: 7/1

While the back half of the sequence produced reasonably priced winners, the first three legs (legs in which a lot of players tend to play singles in order to spread deep at the end) all produced horses to win at greater than $20.  And there really isn't anything unusual about that - for a Pick 6 to hit to only one ticket we would expect either a huge bomb in the mix (50/1 or higher), or a parade of big prices.  Kicking off a sequence with three $20+ horses certainly counts as a "parade"

It took 17 days for someone to take down the Rainbow 6 for the first time but only three more for the second single ticket winner as Sunday's Rainbow 6 paid out sum $32,846.35 to a single player.  Sunday's sequence included the following results:

Leg 1: 7/5
Leg 2: 4/1
Leg 3: 9/1
Leg 4: 6/1
Leg 5: 5/2
Leg 6: 7/1

Nothing is easy in the world of betting on horses, and picking six straight winners is a challenging task, even for the best handicappers.  On the other hand, doesn't it seem a bit odd that only one player hit the above sequence?  Unlike the previous payout, this doesn't have a single horse at odds of 10/1 or higher.  In fact, if you look back at all the Rainbow 6 sequences for the meet ( Gulfstream Park Payouts 2011), you'll see days where there were multiple high priced winners but multiple winning tickets.  In comparison, Sunday's sequence was a much easier path to navigate (relatively speaking).  It's a strange result, to say the least.

I don't know how deep the winning ticket went last Sunday, but I'll take a guess that his or her dime play wasn't huge.