TODAY: $1.5 MILLION Rainbow Six at Gulfstream!

With carryover at $1.3 mil, record payout guaranteed

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Anticipation is building at Gulfstream Park as the scheduled guaranteed payout of the Rainbow 6 jackpot on Saturday grows closer. As long as no one claims the $1.3 million-plus jackpot in the meantime, bettors will be scrambling to get a share of a bonanza that could grow as high as several million dollars.

The innovative 10-cent wager has required a bettor to be the only ticket-holder with a single winning combination on the last six races in order to claim the jackpot that has been growing since Feb. 17. On Saturday, the next to last day of the 2011 Gulfstream Park meeting, the entire pool is scheduled to be disbursed among all bettors with tickets including the winners of the last six races on the 12-race program..

The guaranteed payout of the entire pool may send bettors into somewhat of a quandary about how to bet the Rainbow 6. They will have to decide whether to avoid betting more than a single ticket on each combination or forego the chance of winning the whole jackpot and play multiple tickets in the hope of carving out a bigger share of the huge guaranteed payout.

The Rainbow 6 jackpot has been hit four times, including a $221,677 payout on Jan. 27, and the large evenly-matched fields in the six races on Saturday may make it possible for a single bettor to take down the whole jackpot. If not, the entire Rainbow 6 pool, including the $1.3 million-and-growing carryover, will be spread out to all betters holding tickets with all six winners in races 7-12.

Anticipating a jump in betting, starting Thursday Gulfstream’s pari-mutuel clerks will accept wagers on the Rainbow 6, which previously had been accepted only at self-bet terminals.

The Rainbow 6 will be kicked off in the seventh race, a seven-furlong race for $12,500 claiming maidens that drew a field of 12. A field of 12 $15,000-$20,000 claimers was entered for the eighth race, which will be run at five furlongs on turf. The ninth race, a maiden special weight race at six furlongs, will include the smallest field of the six races with 10 entrants. The final three races of the Rainbow 6, a mile allowance, a 1 1/16-mile allowance and a 1 1/8-mile maiden race for $20,000-$25,000 claimers, all attracted 12-horse fields and will all be run on turf.