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Horse Racing Betting

The racetrack operates on a basic principle . A group of bettors pool their money together through an agent , the agent takes out a cut for themselves to cover expenses and profit, and the rest is given back the winning players.

At the track there are various types of bets available. All money bet on a specific kind of wager is pooled together. Once the betting is closed, the track will deduct their share to cover taxes, dues to the Racing Association, overhead expenses, purse money, and the Breeders’ Fund. For example, at the Pimlico track in Baltimore (home of the Preakness stakes) the track will deduct 17% to 25% depending on the type of wager. The remainder of the pool will be divided among the winning bettors.

Types of Bets

There are a great number of different types of betting. The three most common forms are Standard Betting, Spread Betting and Betting on the Tote.

Standard Betting

This type of betting has been around some many time ago and it's one of the most known method of betting. If you back at the racecourse then you will place a bet of this nature with a bookmaker, the bookmaker will quote odds on his board for each horse. You then select the horse that you wish to back and as long as the odds are agreeable with you then you will place a bet at the stated odds. You will then be given a ticket that shows you some important details like the amount bet, the odds that the bet was struck at and the amount that you stand to win.

You know exactly where you stand with this bet. You know how much you stand to lose and you also know how much you stand to win. What's more the odds can't be altered after the bet has been struck.

If you are in a betting shop, over the Internet or phoning a bet through to your bookie, then you can also place a bet of this nature at “S.P.” or at starting price. This means that at the time of placing the bet you don't know what the odds will be that the bet is struck at. The odds will be set at the start of the race, hence the name starting price.

Spread Betting

This method of betting has significantly rasing in popularity in the last few years. The best way to explain spread betting is to look at some of the bets that are on offer.

Favourites Index

If you bet on the favourites index you are betting on the number of favourites that will win at a particular meeting. Favourites are awarded points for the position they get on a race. A winning favourite will pick up 25 points, a favourite that is place second will earn 10 points and a favourite coming third five points.

The spread betting company will quote the number of points that they except all the favourites at a particular meeting to amass. If there are a number of hot favourites then the quote will be high. If the favourites look beatable then the quote will be low. It is then up to you to determine if you think the quote is on the high or low side. For example if the quote is 55-59 and you think that most of the favourites will do very well and therefore they will pick up more than 59 points then you "buy" the index. If you think they won't pick up that number of points then you will "sell" the index. You bet in dollarss per point, i.e. $5 for every point. So at the end of racing, if you had bought the index at 59 and bet five dollars per point and the favourites had amassed 70 points then your profit is 11 * 5 = $55. If on the other hand you had sold the index at 55 you will have made a loss of $75 (15 points * $5).

Jockey Index

The jockey index works similar as the favourites index with the spread betting company quoting a spread for a jockey. You then need to decide whether or not you think that the jockey will have a better day then expected or not.

Winning Distances

The winning distance index is slightly different, but only in the way that the points are counted. Points are awarded as follows:

• Short Head = 0.1 of a length
• Head = 0.2 of a length
• Neck = 0.3 of a length
• Half a length = 0.5 of a length
• 3/4 of a length = 0.75 of a length

For all distances of a length and over one point per length is awarded.

In this market whole points are divided into tenths. If you 'go high' (buy) with $10 a point then it will be $1 a tenth.

At the end of the meeting all winning distances are accumulated and compared against the index.

As you can see, spread betting is very different to standard betting and offers a variety of different bets. If you haven't tried spread betting before then you need to proceed with caution. Unlike standard betting you don't know how much you are going to lose when you place the bet and you could be in for a very unpleasant surprise later.

Tote Betting

Tote betting it's a different type of betting, all of the bets placed on a race are pooled, a deduction is made to cover costs and the Tote's contribution to racing. A winning dividend is then calculated by dividing the remainder of the pool by the number of winning units. The dividend declared inclusive of a $1 stake. In other words, pool customers bet against each other, whereas with Standard Betting they bet against the bookmaker. This means that you don't know the odds that you will get when you place the bet. The odds can change all the way up to the start of the race.

Matched Betting

Another emerging type of betting that has sprung up since the start of Online betting is Matched Betting. It is basically standard betting, but without the bookmaker. The difference here is that anybody can offer odds on a race, not just a bookmaker. This means that you can visit a matched betting site and either bet in the standard way or offer odds yourself that someone else can choose to bet on.

Often a selection of odds is available and you can therefore select the best odds. If there are No odds that you like the look of you can place an order detailing the odds that you are prepared to back at. Obviously if you ask for odds of 10/1 about an even money shot then you are unlikely to get any takers, but you may well find that you can get slightly more generous odds through placing an order.

Another advantage of checking the match odds sites are that when bookies are offering S.P. only on a race you may be able to find the odds that you want on a matched betting site.