Horse Racing Betting Tips: Improve Your Odds

Dec 03, 2020
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Historians say the first horse races took place 5,000 years ago when Bronze Age nomads domesticated wild horses on the plains of Central Asia. The nomads hadn’t yet adopted the notion of money, so early bets were probably based on bragging rights.

There’s more than bragging at stake today. Betting on horse racing is big business around the world – particularly in the UK, where it has a long and arguably respectable history.

We’ve gathered up some information and horse racing betting tips for your benefit. Horse racing is fun and betting is thrilling, but data and probabilities are the bread and butter of the business. The more you understand, the better your odds.

The Win Bet

If you’ve never seen horse races or visited betting sites, this is the place to start: a wager that your favourite horse will win the race.

Odds make even this bet more complicated than it seems. Based on the likelihood of the race going your way, the odds are a mathematical ratio that lets bookies calculate how much you’ll win if your horse comes in first. At many racetracks, these odds – based upon the jockey, the horse, the results of previous races, and other factors – are represented as decimals. In the UK, odds are displayed as fractions. Odds are set by bookmakers employed by betting sites.

For example, if you place a winning bet of £10 at 3/1 odds, you’ll get £40 if your horse wins. That’s your £10 stake back plus £30 profit. The win bet is as simple as it gets. You bet on one horse in one race. If it wins, you get paid according to the odds. If not, you get nothing.

The Each-Way Bet

If you want to understand betting tips for horse racing, the each-way bet is important.

An each-way bet isn’t one bet, but two equal bets on the same horse. Half your stake is wagered on your horse to finish in first place. The second half is wagered on your horse to place, which generally means in the top three, depending on how many horses are racing. The payoff for the first half of the bet is the same as if you had placed a win bet. The second half of the bet is the win payoff times a fraction – usually 1/4 or 1/5.

This is what makes the each-way a great way to bet on horse races. If your horse wins the race, you get the payoff for both halves. If your horse comes in second or third, you get the fractional payoff.

Let’s return to the race in our first example.

You wager £20 in an each-way bet. That’s equivalent to a £10 win bet and a £10 bet that the horse will finish in the top three.  Let’s say the winning odds are 3/1 and the place multiplier is 1/2. Your bet could be summarised as “£10 at 3/1 EW 1/2 1-2-3”. This is where horse racing tips are essential: explaining the results.

If your horse wins, you win both halves of the bet: your £10 stake plus £30 profit for the first half and your second £10 stake plus £15 profit. You get a total of £65.

Here’s how the second race’s profit is calculated. You bet £10 at 3/1 odds with a place multiplier of 1/2. The profit is £10 x 3 x 1/2, or £15.

If your horse comes in second or third, you lose the first half of the bet but you win the second half. You get £25 – that’s your £10 stake plus £15 profit.

Many successful bettors place each-way bets on horses that are unknown or unlikely to win. The stake is protected if the horse places, and there could be a great payout.

Multiple Bets

Multiple bets start with doubles and end with the Goliath: 247 simultaneous bets.

Multiples are also called accumulator bets or accas. As the name suggests, the bets accumulate. If your first horse wins, the stake and profit will be wagered on the second bet. If it wins, the money will move to the third, and so on. If just one of the bets doesn’t go your way, the whole bet is lost – and you will wish you had a better source of betting tips for horse racing.

Forecast Bets

There are various types of forecast bets: straight forecast, reverse forecast, combination forecast, tricast, and combination tricast.

In the straight forecast, you bet on horses to finish first and second – in order. Both the winners and the order must be right for you to win the bet.

A reverse forecast is a two-part bet like the each-way. You bet on the first and second horse, with half your bet applied to the horses finishing in one order and the other half applied to the other order.

The tricast is called a trifecta at some tracks.

Horse racing forecasts and bets are mostly single bets. They are riskier than wins and each-ways, but the payouts can be much larger.

How to Place Winning Bets

Here are some proven tips that have helped other bettors improve their win percentages.

Read the Racecard

Racecards provide a wealth of useful information about the race, the horses, and the jockeys. You can find all the relevant information you need to make a smart bet, including factors like jockey records and past results. Once you’ve picked a favourite, you can compare the numbers with other horse results to see if a bet is prudent.

Read the Horses

This old-fashioned trick worked well before the internet ushered in the era of digital betting. It used to be possible to walk down to the stables and check out the horses before they lined up at the race’s start. Bettors were on the alert to detect signs of twitching or discomfort. One popular belief was that aggressive, anxious-seeming horses were raring to go and had a better chance of winning the race.

Horse racing betting tips for beginners and veterans alike no longer include that advice. Horses that seem calm and collected often perform better.
Another important element to winning: reading the horse’s form. A lot of the information regarding horses can be found on racecards, but you may have to dig a bit deeper to get your hands on all of the relevant data.

A horse’s draw, for example, which determines the stall and lane it starts the race in, may be important – especially for shorter races. But many bettors believe that it creates an unconscious betting bias. It’s important to examine past results, not just past performance, so make sure you understand the difference.

Trainer and Jockey

Another tip: look into the records of jockeys and trainers. If a trainer’s horses consistently place near the top, it might be a good sign even if they don’t win. Like the track record of the horse, the history and performance of the jockey are significant. A jockey who consistently places near the top but never wins might be desperate and reckless. A jockey who never hits the middle ranks might not have it in him to ride even the perfect horse to the win.

More tips for horse racing betting: Consider the age and weight of both the jockey and the horse. The age factor differs a bit for thoroughbreds. The combined weight of the horse and jockey comes into play when deciding upon handicapping numbers. That’s something you should learn after you’ve mastered the race card.

Research Extensively

There’s no substitute for information, so do your research. It may include keeping track of details like which racetracks have turf and which are mostly dirt. Do winning horses perform equally on all tracks, or is there a discrepancy? Even the weather can influence a race’s results and ruin your racing predictions.

You can also look into stables, trainers, and breeds of the horses. Some people prefer to bet on horses that are either sired by or related to other winning horses. There is some evidence that genetic background makes some horses faster.

Is it a short track or a long one, and does your horse pull ahead at the start or take a while to build up momentum? Learning the answers to questions like these can make betting not only more fun but more lucrative. Do the research! It’s one of the most consistent and valuable horse racing betting tips you will ever receive.

Choose the Right Bookmaker

Most people place horse racing bets over the internet these days. And it turns out that choosing the best betting site is different from choosing the perfect bookie. When you are choosing a site, be sure to pick one that offers you lots of information and plenty of options.

It’s also a good idea to ensure that the site you choose supports virtual horse betting. It’s becoming increasingly popular in the UK, where only three out of four bets on horse races have anything to do with real-life racetracks.

Other things to look for when researching bookies are bonuses and insurance. Some websites offer fallers insurance, which ensures recovery of your stake if your horse doesn’t finish the race. Bonuses and promotional deals can be enticing (and sometimes misleading). Run the numbers for yourself and see if a particular bonus justifies placing a bet.

You want to evaluate your website’s odds-setting style, of course. Some betting sites are sure to offer better odds on your favourite horse than others, so shop around a bit. Membership benefits and live-stream coverage of racetracks are also important.

Cast a Wider Net

Once experience and the best tipsters among your social group have taught you the nuances of betting, you may want to cast a wider net. Races that attract a lot of attention rarely offer the best odds. Overshadowed races may offer better odds and easy reads on horses so you can place an informed – and lucrative – bet.

Engage In Multiple Bet Types

Trying different bets is educational and could well be profitable – especially if you use an onsite odds checker to back up your hunches. Venturing into each-way and reverse forecast betting could offer more fun and a higher return than plain old win betting.

Grip Your Bankroll Tightly

Bankroll management is important, especially if you are betting online. This is one of the betting tips for horse racing that anyone who has ever lost a lot of money at the track will give you.

Bankroll management starts with making sure that you have enough money set aside to fund your betting. You should never use the money you need for necessities, nor what you’ve saved for a rainy day. Ideally, betting money should come from your recreation budget.

Once you’ve funded your bankroll, it’s time to decide how you will bet. If you plan to bet once a day, you can set aside a percentage of your bankroll to stake in any bet. Many horse racing tipsters believe that a percentage is better than a fixed amount.

If you have decided to bet only 5% of your bankroll each day, the amount will be more if you have been winning. It will be less if you have been losing and depleting your bankroll. You can divide your bankroll by race if you prefer.

Of course, you should never bet what you can’t afford to lose, no matter how certain you may be regarding the outcome of the race.

Horse Racing Betting Strategies

Many punters adopt a system for betting adapted from existing systems or of their own devising. It’s a good idea to learn about common betting strategies.

Laying Favourite Strategy

The laying favourite strategy may seem counter-intuitive at first. It’s basically betting against the possibility that the favourite might win. It’s a clever strategy, and if it’s employed properly, it can win you a lot of money.

Statistical analysis shows that the favourite horse wins only 33% of the time, so wagering on the favourite to lose is a good bet. One of the betting tips to help with this strategy is that you should bet against favourites only if the odds are three to one or lower. Otherwise, an upset in the race could deplete your bankroll.

Recent Winners Strategy

This is a solid, simple strategy. Instead of delving too deep into researching horses and jockeys, you simply bet on the horses that have been winning lately. It’s reasonable to predict they will continue winning – so reasonable that the odds may not allow you to win much money with this strategy.

Dutching

The Dutching system is complicated, especially compared to the recent winner strategy. Dutching is a favourite among the horse racing world’s best tipsters, who employ it to mitigate losses. The idea is that you split up your stake and bet on multiple horses so that no matter which wins, you make money.

Dutching requires you to decide how much to risk and then to split it up against the weighted odds for each of the horses you want to back. Dutching requires a fair bit of numerical work, but these days, betting websites offer online calculators that can help you with the calculation.

Conclusion

Remember, even the best horse racing betting tips, strategies, and systems don’t guarantee success. It’s betting; it’s not supposed to be certain. If you knew what you would win at every outing, betting wouldn’t be fun or exciting anymore. Still, it pays to know more about betting and to perform such due diligence before getting into horse betting. Learn as much as you can – and don’t forget to have fun.