Note: I am the other party travelling with Mike this summer, and we discussed the approach to Vegas, possible backing etc. Feel free to take this post as biased, or motivated by self/friend interest, but it"s my endeavour to be fair and balanced here.
You"re somewhat right Leigh - the numbers are correct, but agree they are very confusing. Mike"s never sold action before, so the lack of clarity is from inexperience imo - I"ve let him know my opinion and I"m sure he"ll be on to tidy things up when he can.
However I do believe you"re overstating the impact of the "premium" - it"s not really a premium in the traditional sense of the word (i.e.selling 10% for $165, rather than $150). I know you"re well involved in staking and have no wish to be patronising, but for the benefit of those who may be less comfortable.
There is no "premium payable" unless Mike cashes. The 70/30 split is basically sharing his ROI in this tournament, it basically gives him the equivalent of a markup (or premium if you prefer) only if he cashes. A min cash of $3k would be the equivalent of buying a piece at approx 1.08 markup, a $100k cash would be the equivalent of 1.42, though I"m sure at that point no-one would be too disappointed.
As we all should, if we look at the long term:
- If the horse is actually -EV, then everyone"s only paid spot rates
- If the horse is +EV, i.e. +50% long run ROI, then backers on average get 35%, and the horse gets 15% for their time, effort and expenses.
Scale the above up or down, simply means that as long as the horse is +EV, then it"s a profitable proposition for both parties, as opposed to selling at pure spot (where basically the horse plays for free) or selling at a premium upfront (where the backers/horse have to guess at a more precise long term ROI).
In my opinion a profit share arrangement is the only fair way (for both horse and backers) to do staking - as long as stakeback is included.