Yeah the whole idea of parimutuel betting is that there is no "bookie" and that you are betting against the other gamblers. No central entity is taking a side i

Yeah the whole idea of parimutuel betting is that there is no "bookie" and that you are betting against the other gamblers. No central entity is taking a side in the bets. This makes sense when you realize that the central entity is, for example, the State of Kentucky. Do you want a bureaucrat making millions of dollars in bets on behalf of taxpayers? Probably not. Instead, let's just collect all the bets from race fans, take out say 5% for the state, and then pay out to the fans holding tickets for the winning horse (forget about exotics like exactas and trifectas to keep things simple, but the idea is the same). That way, we don't need to have handicapping experts set odds in order to ensure the state makes money. Instead, it's all simple math that can easily be audited and still guarantees a profit. The side-effect of this is obviously that you can't know the final odds until the last ticket has been sold at post time.