Though our efforts to save Detroit by winning the $600 million Powerball jacket failed to produce the hoped for results, we at Deadline Detroit knew that we’d stumbled upon a way to help this city overcome it’s crippling debt. By gambling leveraging assets in a bold, new public-private partnership, we can identify new revenue streams for Detroit.

News that the DIA’s collection may be at risk in the event of bankruptcy meant we had to move quickly—with relentless positive action—on helping solve this problem. There’s only one place you can go when repo men are circling the block, the one place where in moments of quiet desperation you can take the electric bill money and earn what you need to cover the mortgage. I speak, of course, of the horse track.

As with the Powerball investment, Deadline Detroit staked me with $10 and I went to Hazel Park Raceway Friday night. The track was fast on this clear, cool night and, though I've never bet on the ponies before, I was ready to lift Detroit’s weary spirits with some winning trotters paying off on long odds.

The 3-1 favorite in the first race was named Lady Deda D. A sentimental or superstitious man think, since I’m wagering for the D, I should put some money down on a horse named D. I am neither sentimental nor superstitious.

Instead, I put $2 down on Rehab Mountain to win. The race program listed Rehab with 6-1 odds. It has been finishing in the money of late. The track announcer picked this horse and though that probably tightened the odds, it validated my instinct. Short odds or long, a winner is a winner.

Rehab Mountain is a winner. He led the race wire-to-wire, pulling away from the pack down the stretch for an easy win, and paying out $10.20. Lady Deda D was a non-factor, unable to get to even get to the rolling start with the rest of the field. Betting on sentiment is decadent and depraved. The superstitious will not save the city. This job that requires a cold objective eye. An eye that looks at a horse like Rehab Mountain and sees a winner.

I didn’t have a good handle on the second or fourth races and my horse in the third was scratched before I could lay action, so I kept my powder dry until the fifth race where I bet $2 on Here’s Guffman at 8-1.

Guffman’s recent record was middling—one win but out of the money in five other races—but it had been ridden by different jockeys each time. Friday, Don Currier was in Guffman’s harness for the second straight week. I figured a familiar jockey might be enough to help this horse beat the odds.

It wasn’t. Here’s Guffman didn’t show. Or place. And it certainly didn’t win. In fact, it finished dead last. I hate you Here’s Guffman. I hate you and I hate your assface.

No worries, though. We’re still up.

In the sixth race, I wagered $2 that Blessing Stone, listed as a 5-2 favorite, to win. It had won four times and placed once in its previous six races. The race began promising enough. Blessing Stone was contending early and even took a brief lead at the half-mile post, but then it quickly faded. My horse finished fourth.

In the seventh race, I took DW’s Rooster to win at 4-1. DW’s has won three times and placed three times in its last eight races. A less astute gambler investor might have passed over DW’s Rooster because the horse was out of the money in its two most recent races. However, those were longer distance contests. At around a mile clip—the length of races at Hazel Park—this horse had been dominant. He didn't disappoint Friday.

Pro tip: DW’s Rooster is a beast in one-mile trots. The horse took the lead just before the three-quarter mile post and coasted to a solid win. That meant we're now another $8.20 closer to closing Detroit’s financial gap.

I ended the night by putting down $2 on Didrickson, at 7-2, to win in the eighth. This horse is a comer with three money finishes in its last seven races, including back-to-back places in its most recent runs. Didrickson was due.

And is still due because while it lead much of the race, this horse faded down the stretch and finished third.

Still, we started the night with $10 and finished with $18.40 for Detroit. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot next to Detroit’s $14 billion in long-term debt, but one simply cannot argue with an 84% return on investment.

If Dave Bing or Kevyn Orr requests it, we’ll happily send a check for $18.40 to the city’s pension funds. However, it might be better to keep this money working for the city. We can roll these profits into our next gambling adventure investment. Coupled with the usual $10 stake, we’ll have $28.40 in assets to leverage for the city. Maybe our good luck keen investment strategy will continue until we have enough to enter the World Series of Poker and play for the no limit purse.

Nothing can lift Detroit’s weary spirits like going all in with pocket Aces.