Horse Betting 101

101

Few sports have as many betting tips and strategies compared to horse racing. Horse betting strategies are almost an art form, but many beginners can benefit from using some basic horse betting tips that will get them off to a good start.

The odds for any particular horse are not based upon that horse’s abilities. Rather, they are based on how much money is bet on the horse. Win odds are posted on TV monitors and the infield tote board. These odds are updated every 30-60 seconds and will fluctuate from the time you wager until betting ends. When you win, your payoff is. Horse Betting 101 Edit. How Dessert Can Help Handicappers Overcome Obstacles By Ray Wallin. Reading Time: 3 minutes Everyone loves dessert, especially when it’s the. Betting on Horse Racing For Dummies offers lots of info to help better your odds including advice on what to pay attention to and what tools can help you at the track as well as the mechanics of placing a bet, the types of bets you can place, and your odds of winning.

Contents

  • 1 Beginner’s Tips
  • 3 Advanced Horse Betting Strategies

Beginner’s Tips

101

You may have heard the terms “win”, “place”, and “show” which is how you can bet on a horse race. In horse betting tips, this is what each phrase means.

  • Win: Only if the horse comes in first place
  • Place: If the horse comes in first or second place
  • Show: If the horse comes in first, second, or third place
Horse Betting 101

Obviously, start with some small bets on “show” which greatly increases your chances of winning. Keep in mind that in this betting environment, you are playing against the other bettors and not the house which is a big difference compared to casino gambling.

Start Small

Horse betting starts in $2 increments, so keep it low when you first start. As with any betting, you should always use the money you are comfortable with losing so you don’t get in over your head.

Bet the Favorite

Horse

By betting on the favorite, you will win approximately 33% each time which is a pretty good horse racing betting strategy.

Bet Low on Win, Bet High on Show

As you become more familiar with betting strategies, start by betting a low amount of money on “win”, followed by a larger amount on “show” for the same horse. Since favorites win 33% of the time, you increase your odds of getting something for the money you bet.

Keep the Winning Tickets

Horse Racing Betting 101

Betting

You can cash in your tickets at once which you should do at the end of the day. Keep the winners in one place so you can leave with your winnings.

Get The Tips From Horse Betting Systems

To be successful in horse betting you need to choose the most successful horse racing tipster to get horse racing betting tips. Before proceeding to online horse betting first you have to research in your own way and compare them with the horse betting tips provided by the sports handicapping system.

There are some horse betting systems like Zcode System, First Favourite & Horse Players Heaven are having very good track records of providing accurate picks in the field of horse racing.

Advanced Horse Betting Strategies

Once you feel comfortable with standard betting, it’s time to move on to more advanced efforts that will improve your chances of winning. Here are a few horse betting tips that will help win more money.

Bet on a Beaten Favorite

If a favorite had lost a race and is racing again, bet on that horse. Even the best horses get beaten every so often, so the odds say that they will make a comeback at some point unless the loss was due to injury.

Bet Against the Horse

Instead of picking the winner, you are betting on a horse that will not finish in the top three. Find a race with at least 10 horses, choose a horse with the lowest odds and bet against them. You should win this type of bet roughly 80% of the time because of the number of horses in the race.

Keep in mind that if you bet over a series of races during the day, your odds of winning at least some of them go up dramatically. By using the right horse racing betting strategy, you can become comfortable placing bets and racking up wins if you start small and use the right horse betting strategy.

Related

How To Bet Horse Racing

Horse Betting 101

At its simplest, horse betting is looking at a lineup of up to 14 horses, and predicting which one(s) you think will place. We looked exclusively at the thoroughbred sphere of horse racing, as this is considered the most sophisticated form of the sport, meaning there is the most betting occuring and the most information about races.
At the time of placing the bet, you have certain resources available to you:
  • Toteboard: A large signposting of useful information, such as the win odds or payoffs for each horse, the total win pool, and the amount bet on any given horse. The toteboard rounds down odds to the nearest dime, so the exact payoff may be slightly more or less depending on the exact value of the odds.
  • Racetrack Program: This has details on all the horses, trainers, owners, and jockeys in the races. You must pay $3 for a copy.
  • The Daily Racing Form: This provides the historical racing data for each horse racing, as well as some articles and handicapping information by the staff responsible for this form. You must pay $4 for a copy.
  • Handicapping Tip Sheets: The handicappers at each race track publish these daily to offer some selections of information and tips regarding the handicapping. You must pay $2 per copy.
  • Public Handicapper Selections: Depending on the town and situation, some town newspapers pay a handicapper to make selections which are then published. Cost paid depends on the local newspaper.
As horses participate in races, they accumulate points according to a system
To calculate the exact odds on a horse based on the information from the toteboard, do the following:
  1. Cash paid out = (Total pool)*(1 - take) - (amount bet on given horse)
  2. Exact odds = (Cash paid out)/(amount bed on horse)
  3. Round for breakage.
The steps to do this are as follows:
  1. Take 2 times the first number of win odds
  2. Divide this value by the second number
  3. Round the decimal down to the nearest dime.
  4. Add $2
  5. To get your actual payoff, remove 14%-20% for the take. (Values below don't account for the take)
Assuming a $2 bet, we can calculate some sample payoffs using a set of odds as examples1:
Win OddsProb of WinPayoff for $2
1-990%$2.20
1-583%$2.40
2-571%$2.80
1-267%$3.00
3-563%$3.20
4-556%$3.60
1-150%$4.00
6-545%$4.40
7-542%$4.80
3-240%$5.00
8-538%$5.20
9-536%$5.60
2-133%$6.00
5-229%$7.00
3-125%$8.00
Win OddsProb of WinPayoff for $2
7-222%$9.00
4-120%$10.00
9-218%$11.00
5-117%$12.00
6-114%$14.00
7-113%$16.00
8-111%$18.00
9-110%$20.00
10-19.0%$22.00
11-18.3%$24.00
12-17.7%$26.00
13-17.1%$28.00
14-16.7%$30.00
15-16.3%$32.00
16-15.9%$34.00

There is an intricate system of placing bets on horses for every race. Many different types of bets can be placed, as outlined below. It is useful to note that most tracks require a $2 minimum bet.
  • Win: You place a bet on one horse and it must finish first to collect. Average chance of winning.
  • Place: You place a bet on one horse and it must finish first or second to collect. Good chance of winning.
  • Show: You place a bet on one horse and it must finish first, second, or third to collect. Very good chance of winning.
  • Exacta: You place a bet on two horses and they must finish first and second in order to collect. Hard to win.
  • Exacta Box/Quinella: You place a bet on two horses and they must finish first and second in either order to collect. Average chance of winning.
  • Trifecta: You place a bet on three horses and they must finish first, second, and third in exact order to collect. Hard to win.
  • Trifecta Key: You place a bet on at least three horses and choose one as the key horse. The key horse must come in first, and any other horses you bet on can finish in second and third in any order to collect.
  • Trifecta Box: You place a bet on three horses and they must finish first, second, and third in any order to collect.
  • Superfecta: You place a bet on four horses and they must finish first, second, third, and fourth in exact order to collect. Extremely hard to win.
  • Superfecta Box: You place a bet on four horses and they must finish first, second, third, and fourth in any order to collect.
  • Superfecta Key: You place a bet on at least four horses and choose one as the key horse. The key horse must come in first, and any other horses you bet on can finish in second, third, and fourth in any order to collect.
  • Daily Double: You place a bet on two horses in separate but consecutive races, which must both finish first to collect. Hard to win.
  • Pick 3/4/6: You place a bet on three (or four or six) horses from separate but consecutive races, who must each finish first their respective race consecutively for you to collect. Very hard to win, extremely hard to win, and basically impossible to win (respectively for 3, 4, and 6 horses).
  • Win odds: Using the win odds, you can determine the amount of profit you will get if your bet is correct, referred to as the payoff. An important distinction here is that this is not the total amount you will receive, just the profit. For example, if you are correct for a win odds of 20-1, you will get a $20 profit for each $1 wagered. In the end, if you bet $2, you will receive $42 total.
  • Breakage: This is the downward rounding that occurs from actual win odds to the win odds displayed on the toteboard. In the US, breakage is in the downward direction to the nearest dime.
  • Total (win) pool: This is the total amount of money bet on all the horses to win for a given race. It is important to note that this is not the amount that will be given out to winners because the track deducts the take . The take goes to funding the track's commission (for profit and expenses), taxes, and purse money for horsemen, and is between 14% and 20% (state dependent).