The best thing about horse racing is it never stops. Punters can bet on racing every day of the year, with only Christmas Day barred from racing, but somewhere, in a different time zone, you can probably still bet on the horses online.
The Melbourne Spring carnival is the big attraction every October/November and is where the big bettors come to play, but with Sydney’s Autumn carnival ‘The Championships’ it’s now a jam-packed year filled with great Group 1 racing action.
Serious punters like to bet on sports with many variables, like Baseball, and with so many different aspects figuring into a horse race, it’s a punters dream.
Many of the most popular online betting sites are devoted to horse racing, and wagering on these events is really thrilling. It’s also very affordable, which makes it great for beginners. As you punt more and more you will get to know what to look for and how to bet, but we have also put a basic guideline together for you here.
One of the most exciting aspects of horse racing betting is how many different wager possibilities there are. These allow novices to explore simple bets and experienced punter to create more complex ones.
When you are getting started, Win and Place bets are straight wagers where you choose a winner or second or third place. Several wagers are based on these, so refining your abilities to choose is highly recommended. Look out for horse racing tips that will allow you to make astute guesses as to where competing horses will come.
As your punting skills grow, you are sure to want to explore exotic bets such as exactas, trifectas, first four, quadrellas and quinellas. You may also feel ready to maximise your winnings by placing multi bets that run across several different races. There are also some unique horse racing bets that are offered from time to time, to keep things exciting for the most seasoned of players.
Top Horse Racing Betting Sites
Sportsbet excels amongst the horse racing betting sites market in many ways. They are among the leaders in getting the markets out to the public. Saturday feature racing markets are typically released as early as Wednesday, giving punters plenty of time to get the best value possible.
If you like a bet on international horse racing, especially in the United Kingdom, then you can’t go past WilliamHill as they have the inside knowledge of everything international. They release their Royal Ascot markets very early so punters get every chance to place their bets.
Sportsbet.com.au is a trusted brand in the horse racing industry and with an easy-to-use website interface, CrownBet is a must-try for all horse racing bettors.
The best thing about CrownBet, in our experience, is they aren’t afraid to accept a big bet and they generally offer more than competitive odds, especially for the favoured runners. If you look across all CrownBet will provide a good and fair price.
Types of online horse racing bets
It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced punter or a novice, betting on horse racing is simple and there are numerous ways of making it fun and profitable.
The standard bet types are as easy as clicking on your runner and adding it to the online bet slip; these include win, place, quinella and trifecta.
To place a win bet with an online bookmaker all you need to do is sign up, log in, select which runner you think will win the race and click on it.
This will add that runner to your bet slip which will commonly be either on the right hand side of the page, or the top. Punters then add the amount they want to bet and click confirm – your bet is good to go.
If you want a place bet, that option will be on the right side of the win bet column. Place bet odds are smaller compared to win bets because of the increased likelihood of a place bet cashing.
For quinella and trifecta bets, punters must select more than one runner which can be difficult if you’re not used to the online format.
For quinella bets, click on ‘Quinella’ under the exotic tab. Select all runners in a boxed (runners can finish in any order) quinella and enter the amount you wish to pay.
Trifecta betting is when you need to select the first three runners home. Exotics – Trifecta – select runners and if you want more than three runners, click the % bet option and enter the amount you wish to pay.
Punters can also bet from race to race on such options as doubles, trebles and quaddies. In order to win from a double, you must select the winners of two consecutive races, three for trebles and four for a quaddie.
The quaddie is an extremely popular betting option, due to the massive potential payouts – especially on Victorian racing.
Most Saturday’s the quaddie pool will be in excess of $200,000 and during the Melbourne Spring carnival, the quaddie pool will reach into the millions. What does this mean for you? It doesn’t matter how big the pool is, you can win it all providing your selections win and no-one else has selected it.
Terminating quaddies are the best as they must go, so you could have a small percentage bet, but if you’re the only live ticket at the end of the day, you win the entire pool.
Horse Racing Online Betting
Once you know what horse bets you want to place, you need to decide what horse to back. Often punters have an instinctual feeling about this, which should not be ignored. However, there is also a lot of other information that can help you make canny decisions.
Firstly, you should always find out as much as possible about the horses that are racing. The win/loss percentages, whether it is on a winning or losing streak, the horse owner and trainer and lots of other information is available and should be taken into account.
Next, you need to find out who will be riding any horse you are interested. In a race, the jockey and the horse are a team, and the way they work together can make all the difference on the track. A winning stead with the wrong jockey is often an unwise bet because the rider has such a big influence on the horse.
Reading Horse Racing Odds
The odds will be displayed in what is known as a decimal format. This means that the number you see is expressed as how much money you will have in your pocket should you win your bet, including the amount you spent on your original wager. For instance, should you bet AU$1 at 3.00 odds, winning will mean AU$3 in your pocket. It is your original dollar along with the AU$2 you have won.
There are other formats used at horse racing betting sites as well, but most will allow you to choose decimal odds should you want them, or any other of the main methods you may prefer. An unusual practice that should be explained when it comes to horse racing betting, however, is the method used to display payouts in the USA. The method is similar to decimal odds, but always assumes a $2 bet.
After a race has ended, you may see that the winning horse has paid out $6. This figure is based on a $2 bet, which would be the same as 3.00 if it were written in the decimal odds format.
Have fun with horse racing betting at the best bookmakers today!