How to bet on the Belmont Stakes
The Belmont Stakes is the last leg of the Triple Crown for three-year-olds. You bet it the way you bet any American race, into the track's pool, and in a year when one horse has won the first two legs the whole betting public piles onto him, which changes every price in the race.
Where the bet goes
Like the Derby and the Preakness, the Belmont is pari-mutuel. You bet against the other bettors, the track takes its share of each pool, and the winners divide the rest at the final odds. At the track or at an off-track betting outlet you give the race, the amount, the type of bet and the program number. Online, an account-wagering service sends your bet into the same pool, where your state allows one; the choices are set out on horse racing betting sites. The basics are on how to bet on horse racing, and how to get down on the second leg is on how to bet on the Preakness.
I'd read the distance in the program and ask of every horse whether it has shown it can run that far. It matters in every classic, and by the third leg these horses have been asked to do a lot in a short time.
Two kinds of Belmont
In most years the Belmont is a good race with an ordinary crowd, and you can handicap it like any other. In a year when the Derby and Preakness winner is going for the sweep, it is a different betting event. People who never bet horses want a ticket on history, and they all want the same horse.
That money goes into a pari-mutuel pool, so it moves the prices. The favorite goes off shorter than the form alone would put him, and the rest of the field goes off longer. Say he is 3-5. A $2 win ticket pays $3.20, and he has to win more than 62.5 percent of the time for that to be a fair bet. Plenty of horses have won the first two legs and lost the third, so I wouldn't take that price on reputation. I'd want a reason to think he is better than five in eight.
The show pool with a heavy favorite
The odd thing about a big Belmont is the show pool. Large bettors sometimes put big money to show on a heavy favorite, chasing a small, near-certain profit. The trade calls them bridge jumpers. Here is what their money does.
Say the show pool is $100,000, the takeout leaves $84,000, and $70,000 of the pool is on the favorite. If he runs in the first three, the track first hands back the money bet on the three horses that showed. Say that is his $70,000 plus $4,000 and $3,000 on the other two, $77,000 in all. That leaves $7,000 of profit to split three ways, about $2,333 each. On the favorite's $70,000 that is just over 3 cents on the dollar, less than most tracks' minimum payout, so the ticket pays the minimum, usually $2.10 on $2, and the track covers the shortfall from its own pocket.
Now say the favorite runs fourth. The three horses that showed carried $5,000, $4,000 and $3,000, so $12,000 is handed back and $72,000 of profit is split three ways, $24,000 each. The horse with $5,000 on it pays $2 plus $9.60, or $11.60 to show. That is a win price for a show bet, and it happens because so much of the pool was sitting on one horse. I never thought much of the bridge jumpers' arithmetic (the name comes from what they're said to do after a loss). They risk dollars to make pennies, on a horse that can stumble at the start like any other.
Against the favorite in the exotics
If you think the favorite is overbet, you don't have to bet against him only to win. An exacta or trifecta that leaves him out pays very well if he misses, because so much of the money in those pools has him in it. A ticket with him in second or third, under a horse you like, is the gentler way to say he is beatable without saying he loses. Exacta, trifecta and superfecta bets shows how to build and price those tickets.
If you think he wins, betting him in exotics across the top of a big field gets you very little, because everyone else had the same idea. Some books also offer fixed-odds props on the sweep itself, priced off the same sentiment; I'd work out the chance and the payout before taking one, the way you would any other bet.
The day
The Belmont usually comes late on a long card, so set the budget before the first race. If you bet once a year, a win bet or a small exotic is plenty. And if the horse you didn't back wins the Triple Crown, you watched history for the price of a ticket. It is not the worst way to lose $2.