Just watching horse racing is great, but the true thrill of the game is the ability to put your money where you mouth is and bet on the horses. If you would like to wager on all the action and you do not wish to drive to your regional track or OTB, AND you live in a state that enables ADW (Advance Deposit Wagering), you can wager over the internet or your phone through one of several sites.
Below is a listing of some of the bigger ADWs that people use to bet. Every website is different; some provide free video streamingothers charge a monthly fee or a”per wager” fee depending on your manage, and a few give you rebates based on how much you wager. If you choose to sign-up having an ADW, make sure you read all the rules and requirements. Most ADWs are likely to no-wagering fees and absolutely free video, but you need to always do your homework before you jump.
Additionally, such as the TV networks, not all of ADWs carry every track. Make sure you check what tracks each website lets you bet on since you don’t want to join having an ADW that doesn’t allow you to bet on Keeneland in case you really like to wager Keeneland.
[Note: If you do not know whether your state allows you to bet through an ADW, it’s pretty simple to find out. Proceed to one of the sites and attempt to sign-up. When you put in your speech, the system will let you know whether they can take bets from you or not. Additionally, an ADW will request your Social Security number. They need to do this since they must report to the IRS any winnings over $600, plus they must withhold taxes for almost any winnings over $5,000. Should you hit a trifecta that pays $1,000, that amount gets reported to the feds. Should you hit a superfecta that pays $10,000, you’ll have 25 percent taken out until your winnings are deposited into your accounts ]
Below is a short list of the large, well known ADWs. There are many others out there – some great, some not so good. We make no representation about any of them; some we have used in the past, others we’ve never played with.
ExpressBet
TVG
TwinSpires
BetAmerica
Bovada
How to Create a wager on horse racing
Betting Terminology
Alright, with that tiny bit out of the way, let us take a look at the betting lingo and the types of wagers you can make on an equine athlete. Below is the smorgasbord of wagering opportunities offered by Churchill Downs on Derby Day:
WIN: A wager on a horse to win (if you don’t know this you likely should not be betting)
PLACE: A bet on a horse to complete either 1st or 2nd.
SHOW: A bet on a horse to complete 1st, 2nd or 3rd.
Those would be the standard stakes that everybody is acquainted with. They are easy, straight forward, it’s easy to calculate the price, and they are not hard to make. Where things begin to become more complex is with what are called the exotic bets. Below are the exotic wagers offered by Churchill Downs this weekend:
EXACTA: A wager choosing the 1st and 2nd place finishers in a race.
TRIFECTA: A bet picking the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishers in a hurry.
SUPERFECTA: A bet picking the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishers in a hurry.
DAILY DOUBLE: A bet choosing the winners of 2 races, typically two consecutive races.
PICK 3: A wager choosing the winners of three consecutive races.
PICK 4: A bet choosing the winners of four consecutive races.
PICK 5: A bet picking the winners of five successive races.
PICK 6: A wager choosing the winners of six consecutive races.
The odds: how much you will win
Wagering on horses is done via pari-mutuel wagering, a system of wagering where every player is betting against other players, not the house. The track takes a percentage of the entire pool (generally 15 to 20%) and the remaining portion of the cash is paid out to all players that hold tickets. The chances represent what percent of the entire pool each horse is getting. The total generally adds up to greater than 100% as it includes the track take. Below is a odds-percentage conversion graph for typical odds in horse racing.
To figure you just how much you’ll get paid if you reach your win wager, simply split the numerator of their odds by the denominator, multiply that amount by the amount bet, and then add the amount bet.
A $2 win bet on a horse at 4/1 odds:
4 x 2 + 2 = $10 A $10 win wager on a horse at 7/2 chances:
3.5 x 10 + 10: $45
Position and Show payouts are somewhat more challenging to calculate because monitors don’t display the odds on these bets. Normally, they pay less than half what the winning odds perform (unless the horse is a massive longshot along with the favorite doesn’t end in the top three).
Figuring out the payouts on exotics are a mixed bag; tracks display the”Will Pays” for exactas and daily doubles, however you won’t have an idea about what your own trifecta, superfecta, Select 3, etc., will cover until the arrangement is finished. Broadly speaking, trifectas and superfectas will return bigger amounts, but you should be cautious, playing all of the favorites in a trifecta is likely going to come back a small amount particularly compared to how much your bet cost. Should you invest $120 on a superfecta box that comes with a lot of low priced horses, you’re likely to be quite disappointed if it strikes. The key to hitting bigger scores is to find some more expensive horses to play along with shorter priced ones.
How much will it cost?
We’ve got all these exotic stakes where you’re trying to select the order of complete or the winners in multiple races. Many first time bettors think that to play with a exacta (or even tri or some other exotic) requires one to use just two (or three or four) horses in your drama. You can select as many horses as you need but the more horses you choose, the more expensive your ticket becomes. The very first step in determining what a particular bet will cost is to be aware of the minimum amount necessary for every bet. At Churchill Downs, here are the minimum amounts required for each wager offered:
Win, Place, Show: $2
Exacta: $2 Straight; $1 Wheels and Boxes
Trifecta: $0.50
Superfecta: $1.00 on Derby Day (All other days the minimum is $0.10)
Daily Double: $1
Pick 3, Pick 4, Pick 5: $0.50
Pick 6: $2
Two additional exotic gambling terms which are connected to wager cost are”BOX” and”WHEEL”, and they apply particularly to exactas, trifectas and superfectas.
A bet that’s BOXED means that your selections can complete in any order. By way of example, say you like the #1, #2, and #3, you want to play them in an exacta but you don’t understand which one you wish to pick on top (to triumph ). You could”BOX” those 3 horses in an exacta and you would win if any of those 3 end first and second.
A WHEEL (or PART WHEEL) is different than a box since it involves selecting different horses in each place of the wager. For example, let’s say you enjoy the #1 to win, but believe that the #2, #3 and #4 may finish second. In that situation you would bet an exacta wheel where the wager would be set up to cover if the #1 wins and also 2-3-4 finish next. If any of 2-3-4 win and also the #1 finishes 2nd, you wouldn’t win with this exacta wheel.
You could be thinking,”Why would anyone NOT box an exacta, trifecta, or super since our selections can finish in any order, while using a wheel is less margin for error?” The brief answer: since boxing a wager prices more.
Straight wagers are simple to compute: a 20 win bet costs $20. No matter there.
A box wager is calculated by multiplying the bet amount by the total number of horses chosen, and then multiplying by the entire number of horses chosen, with no one. Or, stated another way:
Choices: 1-2-3-4-5 (five horses)
$1 Exacta Box Price: $1 x 5 x 4: $20
Make sense? For trifecta and superfecta boxes that you calculate the cost precisely the same manner but maintain subtracting one from the entire number of horses in each leg. For example:
Selections: 1-2-3-4-5
$1 Trifecta Box Cost: $1 x 5 x 4 x 3: $60
Selections: 1-2-3-4-5
$1 Superfecta Box Price: $1 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2: $120
You can see how the prices start to escalate at a box position because you’re playing every possible mix with those amounts.
With a WHEEL wager, the price is kept down however you need to decide which horses you like in certain positions. Let’s take the above mentioned situation . Let’s say you like the #1 and #2 to win, but think any of those five could complete 2nd. Here is how you could compute that wager price:
Choices: 1-2 to finish 1st, 1-2-3-4-5 complete 2nd
$1 Exacta Wheel Cost: $1 x 2 x 4: $5 8 Because you’re using the 2 and 1 in the triumph and place slots, then you calculate the wager by multiplying the amount of horses at the first leg by the amount of horses at the next leg, minus one. If you excluded the 1 and 2 from the second position but still used five horses, the bet would compute as below:
Choices: 1-2 to finish 1st, 3-4-5-6-7 to complete 2nd
Cost: $1 x 2 x 5: $10
Right away you can see that an exacta wheel wager costs about half as much as the box position as you are playing fewer combinations. There is a higher risk, but the rewards (and profit margin) are better because you aren’t wasting money on mixtures that you don’t believe will arrive in.
(Side note: if you’re in the track or a OTB and wanted to create either of these exacta stakes in person, you would walk to the window and say:”Track Name, Race Number: $2 Exacta Box, 1-2-3-4-5″ or”Track Name, Race Number: $2 Exacta, 1 and two with 1-2-3-4-5″. Saying”with” is how you separate horses from the very first, second, third or fourth positions to the clerk. And always check your ticket until you walk off )
Calculating trifecta and superfecta wheels follows the identical formula as the exacta bet above. But if you would like an easier way to compute your wagers, it is possible to locate an assortment of waging calculators on the internet, including a good one at WinningPonies.com.
So we’ve discussed the perpendicular exotics (exacta, trifecta, superfecta), let’s discuss the horizontal bets, which are a few of the most well-known bets in the track. A flat wager isn’t any bet that involves betting on a series of races, rather that just one particular race. A Pick 4, where you try to choose the winners of four consecutive races, is a flat bet and can pay very well, depending on the odds of the horses that win during the sequence. Much like wagers, it is possible to pick as many horses as you need but the price of your ticket increases with every horse inserted into the mix.
Let us say You’re looking at a four race arrangement in which you Enjoy the following horses in each race:
Race 1: 1-2
Rush 2: 1-2-3-4
Race 3: 1 Rush 4: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7
To collect on a Pick 4 wager using the horses you would need at least one of your selections to win in each leg; pretty simple. Using just one horse in a specific race, as can be performed in the 3rd race in our example, is called”singling” a horse. Singles are very important because they help to reduce the price of your ticket.
Calculating the cost of a vertical wager is simple: simply multiply the bet amount by the amount of choices in each leg. With our above example, that Pick 4 ticket will cost the subsequent amount.
$0.50 Pick 4: $0.50 x 2 x 4 x 1 x 7: $28
The power of this”single” should be obvious; if we had chosen two, three or even four horses at that 3rd race, then our ticket would have doubled, tripled or quadrupled in cost. It is not mandatory that you use one; if you have the money to invest and you want better policy, pay off. But most players prefer to attempt to find one race where they possess a prime only so they could use more horses in the races where items appear more wide-open.
Additionally, you do not have to play each wager to the minimal amount. Our Pick 4 example above could be performed to some $1 foundation, or $2, or whatever you desire. Of course, the more elaborate the base sum, the more expensive your ticket becomes.