Beat the Host 2024: How the Professor Took Our Pros to School

Horseplayer Alex Bertram works in the defense industry and has been an adjunct math professor at several Baltimore-area colleges and universities, including Towson and Loyola. But this past January and February, he spent eight weeks taking down our pros in the 19th annual Xpressbet Beat the Host contest.

From Pete Aiello to Eddie Olcyzk, and six additional racing experts in-between, the 38-year-old Bertram was the only player from more than 1,000 contest entrants to out-earn the hosts each week. The feat earned him the $6,500 Sweep the Host bonus.

We caught up with Bertram this week from his home in Kingsville, MD.

“Beat the Host was strange in the sense that I wasn’t really tracking the first half of the season that I was beating the host each week,” Bertram reflected. “When I saw there were only around 30 players left who were still alive to sweep, that’s when I really started looking at it as a head-to-head kind of contest.

“The last two weeks, I was really dialed into the hosts’ picks, hitting refresh over and over as soon as the races were over to see who they picked. I was digging around online trying to see if they had any published picks on the contest races anywhere to maybe gain some edge. That’s when it really became game-theorizing at the end.”

The extra work paid off as Bertram became the second straight solo player to garner the Sweep the Host payoff, following the feat of Thomas Bassett in 2023. Bertram’s outstanding contest run also earned him the third-highest contest total in the season-long standings, amassing $624.50 on $400 worth of contest bets (each play a $5 win bet by rule). That top-5 overall finish also garnered a Pegasus World Cup Betting Challenge berth valued at $6,000. He’ll head to Gulfstream Park to play in that prestigious contest for the first time next January. “I really wanted a reason to go to the Pegasus; now I do.”

Bertram and his wife, Christina, have visited the Irish Derby and Royal Ascot in recent years. They have two sons, aged 9 and 12. “I’m trying to get them involved at a young age. My youngest is showing interest.

“My Dad took me to the races when I was a kid. I was leaving high school to go to Pimlico when I probably shouldn’t have been when I was 18.”

Another early influence was watching the Talking Horses pregame show on the NYRA simulcasts, Bertram said, recalling the lessons learned from Jason Blewitt and Andy Serling in his formative years. “It fascinated me to listen to smart guys talk about the game in an intelligent way and how this is not just ‘get your gamble on,’ but rather an intellectual pursuit.”

As for horses and races that helped grow his passion for the game, “Smarty Jones hooked me,” Bertram said of the 2004 sophomore star. “His Preakness still is my favorite race. I’ve got 4 paintings of that win in my basement, one of them signed by (Pimlico track announcer) Dave Rodman.” Bertram was graduating high school at the time of Smarty Jones’ near-Triple Crown sweep.

“American Pharoah just awed me,” he added of a more recent equine influence. “There was something about him that when you just looked at him it was something different … something that you don’t see day-to-day.”

In terms of handicapping, Bertram is not as math-centric as you might expect. But the numbers certainly matter when it comes time to place his bets.

“I’m more of a weekend warrior," he said. "The weekends are my focus. I’m probably more old school in handicapping than I’d like to admit, Form and replays. I’m a math professor, so there’s some analytics in my approach, but for the most part it is paper, pencil and replays.”

Bertram focuses heavily on carryovers and multi-race wagers. Tampa Bay Downs is his preferred track to play. “I’m about low-takeout bets,” he said. “I’m diving into carryovers that give the player an edge and attacking low takeouts.”

He later added, “I don’t think it’s necessary, but some math background improves your understanding of odds and value. You’d be surprised how little people understand payouts vs. probability. You don’t have to be sophisticated in math to be a successful handicapper, but it helps to understand expected value and the dance between probability and payout.”

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In addition to Bertram’s successes, other noteworthy performances in the 2024 Xpressbet Beat the Host contest included regular season standings leader Kyle Newcomb as well as BTH Championship Round tournament winner Ron Watson.

For more information on the season-long tournament scene at Xpressbet, visit the Tournaments page.