How to bet on the Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is run at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May, over a mile and a quarter, for three-year-olds. It is the one race a year that people who never bet horses bet on, and that crowd is what makes it different.
The Derby is pari-mutuel, like the rest of American racing. Your money goes into a pool, the track takes its share, and the winners split what is left; the odds move until the gate opens and you are paid at the final price. How to bet on horse racing explains the pool.
Where to get a bet down
- At the track. At a window or a self-service machine. Say the race, the amount, the type of bet and the horse's program number.
- Away from the track. At an off-track betting outlet or another track showing the race. The bet goes into the same pool.
- Online. Through an account-wagering service, where your state allows one. Open it and put money in before Derby day.
Don't assume your sportsbook account covers it. Racing is usually a separate product with separate rules, and what is available depends on where you live.
Twenty horses change the arithmetic
The simple bets are win, place and show: your horse finishes first, in the first two, or in the first three. The exotics ask for the first two finishers in order (the exacta), the first three (the trifecta) or the first four (the superfecta).
The Derby field is up to 20 horses, far bigger than an ordinary race. With 20 runners there are:
| Bet | Possible results |
|---|---|
| Exacta | 380 |
| Trifecta | 6,840 |
| Superfecta | 116,280 |
That is why Derby exotics can pay so much, and why they are so hard to hit.
Covering more horses costs more. A trifecta box of five horses is 60 combinations, $60 at $1 each. If you have one horse you really like, I'd rather see you key it: that horse to win, with four others for second and third in either order, is 12 combinations, $12 at $1, and it says something a box doesn't. Minimum stakes vary by bet, so check them on the day.
The price you'll actually get
The morning line comes out when post positions are drawn, in the week of the race. It is the track oddsmaker's forecast of how the public will bet, and you can't bet it.
The real odds are made by the pool. The Derby pool is the biggest of the year, so one large bet moves the price less than it would in an ordinary race, but you still don't know your final price until they are running.
Tracks also run future pools in the months before the race, and some books offer fixed-odds futures. Either way, if your horse does not make the race the bet usually loses, with no refund; the longer price is the payment for that risk. A scratch on the day is different. If a horse is scratched before the race, win, place and show bets on it are normally refunded, while exotics and multi-race bets have their own rules, which I'd read before building a ticket around one horse.
The once-a-year money
Derby day brings in money that shows up once a year. A lot of it is bet on a name, a set of colors, a jockey people have heard of, or the horse that was on television all week.
In a pari-mutuel pool that money sets the prices. It doesn't lower the takeout: the crowd as a whole still gets back only what is left after the track's share, and the share is usually larger on the exotics. But I'd say the prices on this race owe more to sentiment than the prices on an ordinary weekday card.
I won't tell you which horse that helps. I don't give picks, and anyone who says he knows who wins a 20-horse race is selling something.
Before you leave home
Decide what the day costs before you go. The Derby is late on a long card, and money spent on the early races isn't there for the big one. If you bet once a year, a win bet or a small exotic is plenty, at a stake about what you would pay for the afternoon's entertainment.
Write your bets down before you get to the window (the lines are long and the people behind you are not patient), and check the ticket before you walk away. If you want more than a day out of it, the thinking is in horse racing betting strategies.
The race lasts about two minutes. Bet an amount you are content to watch for that long.