How to Read Odds

How you read odds depends on the format in which they’re presented. In the UK, bookmakers tend to present odds in one of two ways: fractional or decimal. Depending on your preference, you can head to the settings in your betting account and select the format you’d like to be shown across the site. 

How Fractional Odds Work

Fractional odds are the standard at UK betting sites. Reading fractional odds is simple when you remember one key rule: think of your stake as being the equivalent of the amount on the right, and your potential winnings as the corresponding amount on the left. Here are two examples:

• A £1 bet on a horse to win the race at fractional odds of 4/1 would return £4, plus the stake
• A £10 bet on a horse to win the race at fractional odds of 10/1 would return £100, plus the stake

How Decimal Odds Work

When decimal odds are presented, simply think of the number as the amount of profit you’ll win from a £1 stake. Let’s take a look at two examples:

• A £1 stake on a horse to win the race at decimal odds 3.5 would return £3.50, plus the stake
• A £10 stake on a horse to win the race at decimal odds of 12.5 would return £125, plus the stake

What are Betting Odds?

Betting odds reflect the probability that the corresponding outcome will occur. In the context of horse racing, this is most likely to refer to the action of a certain horse winning or placing in a specific race. 

For example, if a horse has been given odds of 10/1 to win a race, this is the same as saying the probability of that horse winning that race is the same as one in ten. As we’ve explained above, how to read betting odds depends on the way they’re presented to you.

How are Betting Odds Calculated?

Behind the scenes at every bookmaker is a team who sets the prices of every market you can bet on. 

A number of factors go into calculating the price you see:

• Thorough statistical analysis is used to determine the probability of each outcome and the odds are set accordingly. The most likely outcomes receive shorter odds and the less likely outcomes receive longer odds.
• In horse racing, the team will consider things like a runner’s historical and recent performance, whether it favours certain courses or conditions, the competition it’s up against, the jockey, the trainer, etc — all the things you’d want to think about as a punter before making a pick. 
• The bookmaker adds ‘vig’ on top, a small percentage that ensures it makes money. It’s a business after all!
• Based on the number of punters backing each outcome, odds are adjusted over time to ensure the book remains ‘balanced’ and the betting site can afford to pay out all winners.

Nowadays, punters can get even closer to the people behind the numbers through request-a-bet features offered by many top bookmakers. This lets you request a custom bet that you can’t find on the sportsbook, and the bookie will come up with a price. Many of these use X (formerly Twitter) such as William Hill’s #YourOdds, or the feature is built into the site like Sky Bet’s RequestABet tool.

How American Odds Work

American odds is another format that’s seldom seen at UK betting sites but is popular across the pond. You can set your bookmaker to display odds in this format from within your account. 

Wondering how to read American horse racing odds? Each outcome of an event is given a number, either positive or negative:

• Positive numbers (+) tell you the amount you’ll win from a £100 stake.
• Negative numbers (-) tell you the amount you’ll have to stake to win £100. 

Say you’re betting on a race at Urawa. You might see the following options:

• Koyu Love Love +650
• Esken to Bago +1100
• Mi Tierra -118
• Reticle +1600
• Delta +500
• I Angel +6000
• Card +280

To identify the favourite, simply look for the horse with the lowest number — in this case, it’s Mi Tierra at -118. That means a winning £118 bet on this horse would return a profit of £100. The horse with the longest odds is I Angel at +6000, and a winning £100 bet on this horse would return £6,000.

Free Bets on Horse Racing

When you sign up to a new betting site, you’ll be in line to receive a welcome package that often involves free bets. These free bets can be used on horse racing events, provided that the bets satisfy the terms and conditions of the bonus. Let’s take a look at some of the best horse racing bookies offering free bets. 

Boylesports

New members will receive £25 in free bets when they first sign up to Boylesports. You’ll need to place a minimum bet of £10 within the first 30 days of your account opening on a selection with odds of evens or higher. Once that qualifying bet has settled, Boylesports will release five different £5 free bet tokens. Other horse racing promotions include best odds guaranteed, money back if your horse loses to the starting place favourite, and extra place races every day.

bet365

Betting your first £10 at bet365 will unlock £30 in free bets. If you’d prefer to make a smaller qualifying bet, you can wager £5 instead and receive £15 in free bets. Either way, you’ll have 30 days to make use of the free bets, which must be placed on events with odds of 1/5 or greater. bet365 is also committed to providing the best horse racing odds of all bookmakers for races in the UK and Ireland shown live on ITV. 

William Hill

William Hill’s free bets welcome offer is even larger: £40 in free bets when you sign up and use the promo code Q40. Again, you’ll need to have a £10 wager of your own settled before the free bets are released, which are distributed as four separate £10 tokens. Punters can also boost the odds on one horse racing bet every day, and William Hill promises best prices on standard win-only markets from 9am the day before the race.

BetVictor

BetVictor has one of the largest horse racing welcome offers: £50 in free bets when you sign up and wager your first £10. Terms and conditions include a qualifying bet on an event with minimum odds of evens, a seven-day expiry from your account opening, and another seven-day expiry for use of the free bets. You’ll receive best odds guaranteed on all horse racing events, plus a full bet refund if your selection fails to run. 

BetUK

BetUK’s welcome offer is £30 in free bets when you spend your first £10. Minimum odds on your qualifying wager are set at 4/5, and you have seven days to place this bet from the moment your account opened. You’ll then receive one £10 free bet to use on horse racing, one to use on football, and another to use on any bet builder. If it’s free bets you’re after, BetUK is one of the best sportsbooks around. Place a minimum bet of £15 on any race with minimum odds of evens and you’ll receive two separate £3 free bets, while other free bet offers are available on other sports.

BetMGM

New customers at popular American brand BetMGM can land £40 in free bets when they sign up and bet £10. Your qualifying bet must be placed within seven days of opening your account, and at odds of evens (1/1) or greater. The free bets are given as one £10 Bet Builder, one £10 football free bet, £10 horse racing free bet, and one free £10 acca.

Sky Bet

Sky Bet’s welcome offer is open to players of all budgets — all you have to do is sign up and place any bet with a stake of at least 5p and you’ll land £20 in free bets given as four £5 tokens. Skrill and Neteller deposits are excluded from this bonus and the stake isn’t returned from winning free bets, but any profit is yours to keep.

LeoVegas

Although LeoVegas doesn’t offer any free bets for new customers, it does feature a 100% profit boost. To unlock it, simply sign up and deposit £10. To use your profit boost, place a bet on any market with odds of evens (1/1) or greater and a maximum stake of £10. If your bet wins, you’ll get a 100% boost to the payout up to a maximum of £100.

SBK

Modern bookie SBK features £30 of free bets for new players who sign up with code ‘SBK30’ and bet £10 at odds of 1/2 (1.5) or greater. Your first deposit must be made with a debit card to qualify and the free bets are given in three chunks — £10 straight away, £10 after 7 days, and £10 after 14 days. 

Horse Racing Betting Terms

New to horse racing? Along with how to read odds, it’s a good idea to learn a few of these key terms to help you with your betting, as you’ll often come across these at UK bookmakers. 

• Accumulator – Called an ‘acca’ by most, this is a type of bet that combines at least two bets into one. In horse racing, two- and three-leg accas are called doubles and trebles. One with four legs would be a four-fold acca, and so on. Many bookmakers allow up to 15 legs in a single accumulator, but keep in mind that each leg must succeed for the bet to win. The appeal of this bet is its high risk but high reward, as the odds are multiplied to give a larger payout, but the chances of it winning are significantly reduced.
• Ante-Post – If you place a bet on a horse before the final confirmation of the runners and opening of the market, this is called an ante-post bet. It’s usually taken when a punter believes the ante-post price is currently more favourable than the starting price will be, potentially offering better value. Furthermore, Rule 4 deductions don’t apply if a runner is withdrawn.  
• Best Odds Guaranteed – Called BOG for short, best odds guaranteed means you’ll always get paid out at the best available odds once you’ve taken a bet. That means if you take an early price and the starting price is better, you get paid at the best odds if your bet wins. 
• Betting Exchange – Unlike a traditional bookmaker, you’re betting directly against other players when you use a betting exchange. One bettor might ‘back’ a certain horse, which is the same as making a bet at a bookie, and another bettor might ‘lay’ that horse, or bet on it not to win. These two bettors are then paired up by the exchange. 
• Cash Out – This term usually refers to early cash out, where a wager is settled before the final outcome. So if your horse is in the lead at the halfway mark, you could cash out your bet early for a smaller profit and avoid a loss if it’s pipped to the post. 
• Each-Way – These bets combine a win and a place bet into one, with half the stake allocated to each. If your horse comes first, you win both legs for the maximum profit, but if it only places you’ll still receive a return. 
• Favourite – Quite simply, this is the horse the bookies deem most likely to win the race. It has the shortest odds so will yield the lowest payout if it goes on to win. 
• Fold – This term refers to a single leg of an accumulator, e.g. a five-fold acca made up of five separate bets. 
• Lucky 15 – A popular combination bet, the Lucky 15 requires four different selections across separate races. Each possible outcome is combined using four singles, six doubles, four trebles, and a four-fold acca. 
• Nap – Short for Napoleon, a Nap is a racing tipster’s best bet of the day or the one they deem most likely to pay out. 
• Odds-Against – This term refers to odds where the profit from a winning bet will be larger than the stake. In other words, odds larger than evens. 
• Odds-On – The opposite of odds-against, this is where the odds are less than evens so the profit will be less than the stake from a winning bet. 
• Place – Placing is when a horse finishes in a top position. The number of places paid depends on the race and number of runners, but two or three places is most common. The biggest events like the Grand National often feature promotions with up to eight places paid. 
• Rule 4 – When a horse is withdrawn from a race, the bookmaker can deduct a certain percentage from winning bets to account for the increased chances of those horses winning. The deduction amount depends on the number of runners.
• Spread Betting – In sports betting, betting the spread usually refers to a team’s required margin of victory for a bet to win. For horse racing, some bookies like Spreadex offer a version of spread betting on markets like number of winning favourites at Cheltenham. 
• Tote – With tote betting, all wagers go into a central pool and winning bets are paid out as a percentage of the total, based on how many people backed that outcome. 
• Yankee – Another popular system bet based on four selections, a Yankee is made up of six doubles, four trebles, and a four-fold acca.

Payment Options for Betting

Once you’ve got to grips with how to read odds, you’ll want to sign up to a betting account and add some funds. Here are some popular payment options at betting sites. 

Debit Cards

You’ll find debit cards at every sports betting site, offering familiar terms of use and access to all betting bonuses. Just be aware that withdrawals can be slow, sometimes taking as long as five working days. 

e-Wallets

e-Wallet withdrawals are much faster than those processed back to a debit card, but the payoff is that deposits rarely qualify users for betting bonuses. PayPal, Skrill and Neteller are the main e-wallet providers available at UK bookies. 

Paysafecard

With the prepaid card service Paysafecard, users purchase vouchers in denominations of £10 before uploading the credit to their betting account using a unique PIN. It’s highly secure and better enables bettors to manage their funds, but withdrawals usually aren’t possible. 

Trustly

Banking institutions use Trustly to connect their accounts to end users, removing the exchange of card information during transactions. Your bank will need to subscribe to the Trustly network, but if it does, you can expect speedy deposits and withdrawals.

AstroPay

AstroPay combines top security benefits with the functionality of an e-wallet. With this service, you can generate virtual prepaid cards to use for transactions, keeping all your own financial information private. Withdrawals are generally fast, but you won’t find AstroPay at many bookies yet as it’s still quite new. 

Pay By Mobile

Pay by mobile services like Boku allow you to make a deposit to your betting wallet using just your phone number. Simply confirm via SMS and the money lands in your account instantly, with the amount taken from your PAYG credit or added to your monthly phone bill. This method doesn’t support withdrawals and there are usually fees attached.

Neteller

Neteller is another e-wallet that’s popular with horse racing bettors. It’s broadly the same as PayPal, offering fast withdrawals, top-notch security, and additional features like the Net+ prepaid card. However, there are some small fees attached when moving money between your Neteller balance and your bank account.

Skrill

Owned by the same company as Neteller, Skrill is highly similar in its functionality. Security, speed, and convenience are again the main highlights of this service, with a few fees being a minor drawback. Skrill and Neteller are both often excluded when claiming sign-up bonuses as well. 

Cheltenham Festival Odds

The Cheltenham Festival is one of the major events in the horse racing calendar, and we’ll be bringing you all the latest betting odds throughout the four-day event. Check back regularly throughout the Cheltenham Festival in March for odds on the biggest races, including the Cheltenham Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle.

Responsible Gambling

Gambling responsibly is about understanding the innate harms of gambling and recognising the warning signs that a problem is starting to develop. Horse racing betting has been a popular activity for many centuries, but it’s important that you stick to the following principles every time you place a bet. 

Set Budgets

It’s vital that you only ever bet what you’re comfortable losing. To that end, set yourself a budget and enforce it – you can use account management tools to place limits on your spending.

Self-Exclusion

If you need to take stronger measures, GAMSTOP’s self-exclusion tool is available at every licensed bookmaker in the UK. Self-exclusion can be put in place for days, weeks, months or years at a time. 

Never View Gambling as a Means to Make Money

You’re always more likely to lose a bet, which is why you should never view gambling as a means to make money. View it instead as an exciting hobby that can deliver the occasional payout. 

Responsible Gambling Organisations

There are a number of professional, confidential and friendly organisations that specialise in supporting those with gambling problems. If you or someone you know is struggling, don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of the following:

• GamCare — an independent charity raising awareness of problem gambling and providing treatment services;
• BeGambleAware.org — an online resource providing information on gambling’s harms and the places offering help; 
• Gamblers Anonymous — a similar fellowship to Alcoholics Anonymous, where those with gambling problems help each other overcome their issues.

Frequently Asked Questions