The educational guide on how to bet on horseracing

How to place a bet on The Racing Post 

The Racing Post website and app offers the greatest variety of prices for any race, highlighting each bookmaker's best offers each day and allowing you to compare the odds offered. 

• Go to the racecards for the meetings that day
• Find the race and the horse you want to back and click on the odds
• That opens a screen telling you the odds each of the top seven betting bookmakers are offering for that horse, while also showing any free bets offers available to new customers and indicating which bookmakers offer 'best odds guaranteed' - that means if your horse starts at a bigger price and wins you get paid at those odds. 
• Select the bookmaker with the best odds or offers and the selection will be added straight to your betslip.

That's all it takes!

Online bookmakers

If you've registered for an online bookmaker account you can bet from the comfort of your home through their website or app. 

• Log in to your account, navigate your way to the horseracing tab
• Find the race you want to bet in
• Deposit your money
• Select the horse you would like to back and add it to your virtual betslip. 
• Pull up your betslip, put in the amount you would like to place and hit ‘place bet’.

You can watch the race through most bookmaker apps and websites, including the Racing Post and, if you're a winner, you'll get paid out almost immediately into your bookmaker's betting wallet.

If you're looking to open an account check out this page with a plethora of free bet options available.

Betting shop

Placing a bet in a betting shop couldn't be easier and the staff are there to help you if you need advice. 

• Pick up a paper betting slip from the wall, shelf or counter 
• Write out the name of your selection, making sure to include the time of the race and the track such as Cheltenham or Ascot where they are running, the type of bet (win, each-way, multiple) and the stake (money you want to place) 
• Hand it over the counter with your money to a member of the betting shop team. 
• They will give you a printed version of the slip. 

An example of a betting shop

Make sure you hold on tight to it so you can collect your winnings when your horse crosses the finishing line in front . . . or so you can screw it up and chuck it in the bin when the horse finishes last and falls out the back of the TV! 

At the races

If you've ventured to the racecourse there are several betting options available. You will find betting shops similar to those on your local high street and if you head to the front of the main stand you’ll find what is called the betting ring. This is where multiple bookmakers will compete for your business. 

They will show the ever-changing odds they are offering on electronic screens and will take bets right up to the start of each race so shop around, checking several screens to source the best odds. 

The betting ring at CheltenhamCredit: Matt Cardy

Once you have selected your horse and decided on the bookmaker you are going to bet with, go up to them and tell them the amount you want to put on the horse, bet type and number of your horse: eg £5 win on number eight. Once the race has finished and if you'e won, go back to the same bookmaker and hand over your slip to collect your winnings.

Understanding the odds

The odds are the chance offered for the selection to win and is also referred to as the price. The shorter the odds or price the greater in theory the chance of the selection winning, although it's rarely that simple!

If a horse is offered at 3/1 and wins that means for every £1 you put on it to win it returns £4 which is £3 profit and you also get your £1 original bet back. If it wins at 10/1 you would get £5.50 back for a £0.50p bet with £5 profit and the return of your £0.50p and so on which is hopefully easy enough to follow, but there can be more complicated returns which require slightly more working out.

An example would be 5/2 which is 2.5-1 (quite literally five divided by two) and that would return £3.50 to a £1 bet with £2.50 of winnings and your £1 returned. Another example might be 7/4 which is seven divided by four and would return £2.75 for a £1 bet with £1.75 profit and your £1 returned. 

Favourites will sometimes be "odds-on" which means your winnings will be less. For instance a horse might be odds of 1/2 which means a £1 bet on a winner at those odds would return £1.50 which is £0.50p profit as well as your £1. You can also get selections which are evens, or sometimes referred to as Evs or 1/1 which means on the £1 example your winning return would be £2 which is £1 of profit and your £1 returned.

Betting on-course with a bookmaker will nearly always be odds in fractions, but most websites now allow you to see the odds as decimals and all Tote returns (see below) are also in decimals.

Betting in decimals takes the fractions out of the equation. It will show the odds and your original bet returned as one, so for example something at 3-1 will be shown as a decimal of 4.0 and for every £1 on a winner you'd get £4 back.

The fractioned odds of 5/2 and 7/4 would be 3.5 and 2.75 respectively and so on. Traditionalists prefer the fractions, but for newcomers it might be easier to understand betting returns with decimals and the Racing Post's Free Bet Calculator is perfect for those at all levels of betting knowledge.

How Tote betting works 

The Tote does not set the odds that you'll receive when backing a horse in the same way a traditional bookmaker would as you are betting into a cumulative pool.

Those who backed the winner receive a percentage of that pot, depending on the size of the bet. The returns are determined by the number of people who have backed that particular horse so the more people that bet on the same horse the smaller the payout, but there will be larger returns if fewer people bet on the same horse.

You can also make a place bet, which means the horse doesn't have to come first. Whether this is a top-two, top-three or top-four finish will depend on the number of runners at the outset.

There is no place betting with four or fewer runners and it's the top two finishers in races between five and seven horses. It's the first three for eight runners or more and with handicaps of 16 or more runners then it will be the first four horses.

The Placepot is a popular bet with the Tote

The most popular bet on offer with the Tote is the Placepot, which requires you to pick a horse or several horses in each of the first six races at a track. If one or more of your horses place in every race you win a share of the prize pool based on your bet size. If you fail to find a placed horse in the first two races you can put the remainder of your selections into the Quadpot to try to claim a share of that pool.

Read more . . .

A beginners' guide to a day at the races 

The golden rules for betting at the Cheltenham Festival 

A race-by-race guide to the Cheltenham Festival 

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