What to bet on horse racing

You still don’t know what to bet on horse racing? We give you all the details to bet successfully on horse racing.

What to bet on horse racing?

Every horse race has multiple opportunities for players. Bookmakers offer many different markets in each race, from the most common to the less common.

• Race winner

Millions of players bet on the favourites in horse racing every day. It is the most common in this sport. It is as simple as betting on the winner of a race and, if that horse is the first to cross the finish line, getting a winning bet.

There is a version of that bet that is the insurance bet. It consists of betting on a horse, but with the particularity that if it finishes second or third, it depends on the insurance that we apply, we get back the money bet. In exchange for using the insurance, the odds are lower than the normal bet on the winner of the race.

• Betting on placement

In addition to a winning horse, the first ranked horses in each race are called placed. Depending on the number of participants, those placed horses will be more or less. For example: in a race of four horses or less, there are only bets on the winner; between 5 and 7 participants, there is one winner and one placed; between 8 and 15, there is one winner and two placed; and in races of 16 or more horses, there is one winner and three placed.

In addition, there are famous races that, due to the great number of participants, offer quotas of placed horses up to the fifth or sixth place. These are races such as the Grand National or the Cheltenham Festival, to name a few examples.

There are even occasions when the bookie itself improves the conditions for a race and, instead of accepting the usual placements due to the number of participants, it increases that amount, offering advantageous bets for the players.

• Twin

It is one of the most popular bets among players, although it is difficult to get it right. It is about knowing who will be the first two horses at the finish line and the order they will occupy. The difficulty is double with respect to the market of the race winner, but in exchange the quotas that are obtained by guessing the twin are very high.

There is a variant that is the triple twin and, as its name indicates, you have to guess who will be the first three classified in the finish line. Although the difficulty increases exponentially, the odds are also much higher, so there are always players looking for winning bets in this market. In addition to twin and triple twin, we can find this market as 1-2 and 1-2-3.

• Multiple bets

Matching the winner of a horse race is much more difficult than matching the winner of a football or tennis match, where there are only two possible winners. That’s why the odds are usually much higher than in other sports. But it is very common in the world of turf to make combined or multiple bets.

This makes it more difficult to achieve a winning bet, because if one of the horses in the combined bet does not win, the bet will be red. But, in exchange, the odds rise exponentially and you enjoy the excitement of racing in several events, but combined in the same bet.

• Advance bets

This is another characteristic of the world of horses: betting on the winner of a race that will take place weeks or months later. As in other sports, you can bet on the final winner of the Champions or Roland Garros tournaments months before the finals of those tournaments, the same happens with some events in the equine calendar.

Classic events such as the 1000 Guineas Championship, the Gold Cup, the Derby or the Grand National are offered to fans months in advance. The good thing about these bets is that you can get very interesting odds on some horses, much higher than in the hours before the races. In exchange, you run the risk of betting on a horse that, when the time comes, is not in the best shape.

• Head to head

It’s the classic ‘face to face’ or H2H. Here you put two horses face to face and you have to decide which one of them will reach the finish line first. In this case it doesn’t matter who wins the race, it only matters if the horse you bet on crosses the line before or after the other participant you are playing against.

• Live Betting

When the races start, the chance to bet on the winner is still on. Most bookmakers allow you to bet on any of the participants up to a few seconds before the end of the race, which gives you the chance to watch the race live and make bets based on what is happening at that very moment.

Now that you know, find the race your favorite horse is running in and place your bets for the horse races. You will enjoy this event with an extra point of excitement.