[Math] Probability on a horse race by randomly selecting a horse

probability

If I bet $1 on a randomly selected horse in a race with the following odds against (or payout for each 1 dollar bet), how much would I expect to win / lose assuming the horses are priced fairly?

2.4
8
3.6
13 
13
26
13
15
17
13
13
61

— thanks.

EDITED: odds to payout to make it clear

With my limited understanding of horse racing, (please correct me if I'm wrong) a payout of 2.4 implies the horse has a 1/(2.4 + 1) = 0.294 chance of winning. Source: How to find the odds of a horse wining a race?

Best Answer

If the horses were priced fairly, no matter what bet you make you would expect to break even. But that's certainly not the case here. If you get your dollar back in addition to the listed payoffs, the probability of an outcome with payoff $r$ should be $1/(r+1)$. If you don't, it should be $1/r$. But neither the $1/r$'s nor the $1/(r+1)$'s add up to $1$.