The last time I was in ‘Vegas, in December, I met with my friend Jeff Sillifant.  Jeff, as many of you know, is one of the most prolific handicapping system writers on the scene today.  His The Sound System, in fact, is one of the best selling methods of play of all time, not only here in the states, but in Canada, Australia and Hong Kong as well.  It’s a remarkably profitable, systematic approach to cashing mutual tickets and its success has been documented far and wide.  Jeff also authored the highly successful Works For Cash, II and the 3-D System.

Our meeting was twofold:  One, just to visit and gab about old times and, two, to discuss his newest method, which he said I had to ‘see to believe’.  Words like that seldom tumble from Jeff’s lips, so I knew he was very excited about his new discovery.

He called it the The Cash Cluster.  ‘Cluster’ because the payoffs seemed to come in ‘clusters’, or ‘winning streaks’ as I would call them, and the losses in between the ‘clusters’ were always very brief.

The system’s profits were based on an across-the-board wager and good returns were shown for win, place and, yes, even ‘show’.  The Exactas added some hefty profits as well, with most paying in the $70 to $210 range.

Jeff had the simple rules written down on paper and asked that I give it a try while in ‘Vegas.  ‘No time better than to get started right now,’ I said to him, so we honed in on Santa Anita, Gulfstream, Aqueduct and Tampa Bay.  The selection process began with the morning line.  We passed certain races: small fields, 2-year-olds, etc., and simply looked for any Cash Cluster qualifier.  We did this for five races at each track.  The result:

→12 plays, 4 wins ($11.80, $4.60, $9.80 and $20.40), 2 others that placed, bringing the place total to 50%, and 2 more that showed.  A $20 flat win bet returned a $226 profit; +$90 on the place and +$22 on the show.  (8 out of 12 at least ‘showed’, a % I found that held up beautifully in our massive 600,000 race database – in fact, the final % of show came in at 78%!)

Was I impressed?  Definitely.  But this was only one day and 12 plays.  I was going to be in ‘Vegas another four days so I told Jeff I’d continue to test his PPS.

Well folks, I experienced only one losing day in the next four, a -$39 day, and racked up another +$516 on the other three.  I wasn’t playing the Exactas, but they would have added another $633 (one Exacta paid $210) to the pot.  And it was only on day four that it dawned on me what Jeff was doing with CC, and it was absolutely ingenious, though he tells me he and an unnamed partner came up with it purely by fluke, and no genius was involved.  OK, let’s just call it ‘inadvertent’ genius!

I continued to follow the Cash Cluster when I got back, and the results continued to amaze me.  Just when I thought I’d seen everything this game has to offer, BOOM, along comes something that knocks your socks off. And the fascinating thing about CC is that it pays off as well even if you aren’t someplace where you can monitor the near-post-time odds.

And you know what: you don’t have to do it everyday.  If you only go out to the track a couple days a week the long term results are still going to reflect the results we have realized in our tests and actual play.  And, this is a method you can use ‘on the side’, so to speak, meaning that it is so simple and consumes so little time that you just play the horses when they qualify, while at the same time you can be doing your other ‘things’ at the track — your longshot play — your computer play, etc.  And all the time you will know that CC is grinding out a nice profit for you.