Horse racing betting strategies
Every horse racing betting strategy starts from the same fact: the track takes its share of the pool before anyone is paid. A strategy is worth having only if it gets you past that share.
The track's share
Take a takeout of 16 percent as an example. The bettors in that pool, as a group, get back 84 cents on the dollar, so to break even you have to do 19 percent better than the average ticket in the pool. At a sportsbook the hurdle on a straight bet at -110 is about 4.5 percent.
Racing is a harder game to beat. I'd rather you knew that before the first race than after the last one.
The real takeout differs by track and by type of bet, and the track publishes it, so looking it up is the first piece of strategy. How to bet on horse racing shows how the pool pays.
Price against chance
Every price is a percentage.
| Odds | A $2 win ticket pays | The horse must win more than |
|---|---|---|
| Even money | $4.00 | 50.0% |
| 2-1 | $6.00 | 33.3% |
| 3-1 | $8.00 | 25.0% |
| 5-1 | $12.00 | 16.7% |
| 10-1 | $22.00 | 9.1% |
| 20-1 | $42.00 | 4.8% |
The one strategy that holds up over time is to bet when you think a horse's chance is higher than its price requires. The best horse in the race can be a bad bet at a short price, and the third best can be a good one at 10-1.
The trouble is that you don't know your price when you bet, because the odds keep moving until the gate opens. Much of the late money comes from large players who bet in the final seconds, and many of them get part of the takeout back as a rebate, which you don't. So bet as late as you can, and expect a price you like to shorten.
Favorites, longshots and the rest
Studies of racing pools have long found that favorites lose less per dollar than longshots do. The favorite wins more often than any other horse and pays the least, and losing less is not winning. Longshots are the other half of the same finding: the crowd likes a big payout and overbets it, so longshots as a group are the worst value on the board. I never minded a crowd that loved a longshot. Somebody has to pay for the favorites.
Dutching means backing two or more horses in one race so the return is the same whichever wins. With horses at 3-1 and 5-1 and $60 to bet, put $36 on the first and $24 on the second, and either one returns $144, a profit of $84. You need one of the two to win more than 41.7 percent of the time. It is a way of sizing a bet. It gives you no edge by itself.
Exotics (boxes, keys and multi-race tickets) carry large payouts, a cost that multiplies with every horse you add, and a takeout that is usually higher than on win bets. A ticket that hits one time in thirty needs a bankroll that survives the other twenty-nine, so I'd stake less on exotics than on a win bet, not more.
Staking systems, doubling after a loss and its relatives, change the size of your bets and leave the edge exactly where it was. See what a betting system is.
What actually helps
Bet fewer races. A card has many races and you have no opinion on most of them, and the pass is the one bet the takeout can't touch. Specialize, too: one track or one kind of race, followed closely. The crowd is good on average, so you need a corner where you know more than it does.
Between two bets you like equally, I'd take the one the track charges less for. And keep records by type of bet, because most players find one type that costs them most of their losses, and you can't find yours without the numbers.
Money for the day
Keep a bankroll for racing and stake 1 or 2 percent of it on a win bet. Set a loss limit for the day and stop there; the last race is not a rescue. Judge a method over a few hundred bets, because one afternoon proves nothing either way.
The crowd is right more often than any one bettor would like. You get paid when it is wrong and you aren't.