Types of Horse Racing Bets: Complete Guide to Betting Options

What Are the Main Categories of Horse Racing Bets?

These days there are endless types of horse racing bets you can strike. 

Nowadays not only can you bet on racing from the likes of Japan, the USA and South Africa - in addition to UK and Ireland racing - but technology has allowed for access to the likes of stats, live streaming and betting tips, which has increased customers’ interest in racing betting from all over the world. There’s also been a shift in customers’ appetite for placing different types of bets, as happened in football with the recent popularity of Bet Builders, for example.  

Racing betting can mostly be divided into two types of bets. 

The first involves just betting on one horse in what are known as straight bets, such as betting on a horse to win, or an each-way bet. The second are exotic bets, also known as multi-horse accas or combos and involve betting on the performances of multiple horses, not just one. The latter are far more complex in terms of how you place them and in some cases, how winnings on them are worked out.

Straight Bets: The Foundation of Horse Racing Betting

Win Betting

This is horse racing betting at its most basic and is just a case of picking which horse will win a particular race. It will appeal to the novice bettor as research of jockey form, going conditions, trainer statistics and all the relevant fact

But it also remains the most popular horse racing bet for the more serious, or professional punter. The pro punter will be aware that bookmaker odds have house edges inserted into them and that the more selections there are in your bet, the greater the house edge as a whole on the exotic bet or accumulator bet, meaning value betting is far harder to come by than on singles. 

Most bookmakers will have minimum stakes on a single which could be anything between 5p and £1, with the latter being the case at most betting exchanges. This is also the easiest type of bet when it comes to payout calculations. When using fractional odds, you just multiply the stake by the odds. So a £2 bet at fractional odds of 7/1 is just 2x7= £14, plus your stake back (£2) = 16. 

Place Betting

With place betting, you don’t need your selection to win the race. You just need them to finish in the Top 2, 3, 4 or even 5, depending on the number of horses in the race. 

Two important points to make. The first is that backing a horse to finish in the Top 2 will pay out at much bigger odds than if you backed it, say, to finish in the Top 4. 

The second is that backing it to finish Top 2 (or 3 or 4) pays out at far lower odds than if you had backed it to win; because it’s obviously far harder to win the race than just finish in the Top 3. Place betting generally provides better value in races with large fields where any number of horses could go on to win the race. 

Show Betting

Show betting is particularly popular in the US. It’s similar to place betting but with the key difference that you’re always betting on a horse to finish in the Top 3, irrespective of the size of the field. Show betting odds are generally 1/5 of win odds and like with place betting, it doesn’t matter in which position they finish, as long as it’s in the Top 3. 

Each-Way Betting

In the UK, races like The Grand National or the Cheltenham Gold Cup have large fields in them and attract the cream of the cream when it comes to the horses competing in the race. So, many punters may decide that if they fancy a horse to run well, they’re better off doing each-way betting rather than just backing the horse to win. 

An each-way bet is divided in two, with both halves placed for the same stake: half of the bet is on the horse to win, the other half on the horse to place. 

For example, Gaelic Warrior is available at odds of 14/1 to win the 2026 Cheltenham Gold Cup.  

Each-way terms are 1/5 odds, 3 places. 

You place a £1 each-way bet on it, total £2. If Gaelic Warrior comes second or third, you’d get paid out at £1 x (1/5 of 14/1) + £1 stake = £3.80. But if it won, in addition to getting paid out as per above on the place part of the bet, you’d also collect on the win part of the bet, so £1 x 14 = £15 (including stake). So you’d collect on both parts of the bet for a total of £18.80, including your £2 stake. 

What Are Exotic Bets in Horse Racing?

Exotic bets cover all the types of bets that depend on the performance of more than one horse.

The first distinction to make is between vertical exotic bets and horizontal exotic bets. The former relates to the outcome of multiple horses in one race, while the latter relates to the outcome of multiple horses across multiple races. 

There are two very simple reasons for the popularity of exotic bets. The first is that similar to a  football acca on a Saturday, they keep punters interested across a race meeting (or several ones) for as long as the exotic bet is still live and with a chance of winning. That means punters, particularly recreational ones, can enjoy the thrill of their wager for much longer than if they’d just placed a single. 

The second reason is that exotic bets can return far greater returns than a single ever would. Most stories in the newspapers or online about huge wins for hundreds or millions of pounds come from punters winning on big exotic bets, rather than on singles.   

Of course, backing one horse to win a race, even at big odds, is far easier than nailing a big accumulator bet where six or seven horses all do exactly what you need them to: one mistake in an acca and it’s all over. 

So exotic bets involve researching the chances of multiple horses, meaning more hard work in researching such things as speed ratings and class analysis and needing some luck to go your way in each of the legs, which is what makes them such a difficult bet to nail.

Exacta and Quinella Bets: Predicting the Top Two

If you’re not that experienced as a racing punter and have rarely ventured beyond just betting on a horse to win, quinella betting and exacta betting are two good ones to get started on. 

Exacta Betting

With an exacta bet, you’re picking which horses will finish first and second in the correct order. Typically, a tried-and-trusted betting strategy is to do so in races where there are two clear favourites: then it’s just a case of deciding which of the two you think will beat the other. 

Like with singles or any other types of bets in horse racing, minimum stakes will vary from one bookmaker to the next. But because the odds are generally far greater on a quinella bet than a single, punters tend to wager less on the former than the latter. 

A typical exacta bet might be to back Hercules (decimal odds 2.8) to win and Julius (decimal odds 3.2) to come second, which would come to odds of around 5/1. 

A popular betting strategy for quinella bets is a box bet. Let’s say you placed the Hercules/Julius bet but also a Julius/Hercules one which would win if it was Julius coming first and Hercules second. 

But you decide you also want to include Brutus. So in total, you’d place the following bets: 

• Hercules/Julius.
• Julius/Hercules.
• Hercules/Brutus.
• Brutus/Hercules.
• Brutus/Julius.
• Julius/Brutus. 

Theoretically, your box bet could cover all the possible combinations but you’d be likely to only make money if at least one of the horses finishing in the Top 2 was a considerable outsider. 

As long as two of the three horses finish first and second in any order in the example above, you’ll have a winning bet. 

A quinella wheel bet works slightly differently. Let’s say you decide Hercules is a sure thing to win. You then have Hercules winning with Julius second, Hercules winning with Brutus second and Hercules winning with Spartacus second. Again, theoretically, you could pair Hercules with all the other horses in the field. But if Hercules doesn’t win, you’d lose on all your bets. 

Quinella Betting

With Quinella betting, you still have to pick the Top 2 in the race, but the order doesn’t matter. 

So a quinella bet on Hercules/Julius would be a winner if those two finished first and second, irrespective of the order they did so. 

A quinella bet is therefore considerably easier to win on than an exacta bet but the odds reflect that.

Trifecta and Superfecta: Multi-Horse Combinations

For racing bettors looking for serious payouts from just one wager rather than using disciplined staking plans and bankroll management to slowly accumulate profits, Trifecta betting and Superfecta betting may be the ones for you. 

Trifecta Betting

If picking the horses you think will come first and second in the correct order is hard enough, then it’s even harder to also include the horse you think will come third…with all three in the correct order. This type of bet is known as a trifecta bet, is one of the hardest to win on, but also one of the ones offering the biggest returns, exactly for that reason.

As ever, minimum stakes will depend on the particular sportsbook but in some cases, the minimum bet may well be lower than it would be on a single. 

Box bets and wheel bets can also be used for trifecta betting in a similar way to how they’re used in exacta betting. 

A third strategy is called a Trifecta key. Like with the wheel bet, it starts with you picking the one horse you think will win. This time round you decide Julius is the ‘sure thing’ so you combine Julius (winning) with certain other horses, needing any of the other two to finish second and third in no particular order. The more combinations there are, the greater your chances of winning, but only if Julius wins the race. 

But as the table below also shows you, based on a £1 bet, the more combinations you have, the more it will cost you. In this case, ‘1’ in the table represents Julius. 

Superfecta Betting

All we said above about trifecta betting is also true of superfecta betting with one huge difference: rather than picking the Top 3 in the correct order to win, you need to pick all of the Top 4 in the right order with a Superfecta bet. 

Though all the strategies mentioned above can also be applied to Superfecta betting, the sound advice is to remember there are no certainties in horse racing betting, so if you’re going to have a key bet covering lots of different combinations, keep stakes sensibly low. 

Super Hi-5 

Instead of ‘only’ picking the First 4 in the correct order, here it’s the First 5, still in the correct order. But this bet type can secure the mother of all payouts, particularly when the starting price of the winner of the race is a big one. 

Nowhere was this more of the case than when Rich Strike won the 2022 Kentucky Derby at odds of 80/1, resulting in a payout of $741,018.90 for a Kentucky-based punter who had it as the winner in his Super Hi-5. 

It should be noted that this type of horse bet is generally only available in the USA and Canada, not in the UK or the rest of Europe.

How Do Pick Bets Work Across Multiple Races?

A Daily Double involves picking the winners of two consecutive races which will take place at the same track. The two races are picked by the management of the track itself and are generally the first two races of the day. A ‘late Double’ is a relatively new addition to racing betting and applies to the last two races of the day.  

Pick 3, Pick 4, Pick 5 and Pick 6 work the same way and just involve more races, but always from the same race meeting. 

All these bets are based on mutuel pools (see section below) so if no-one in the pool manages to win it that day (whether the Daily Double, the Pick 3 or one of the others) then the money in the pool rolls over to the next day or the next race meeting at that track in what is known as a ‘carryover jackpot’, similar to rollovers with lotteries. 

Occasionally, the track will pay out a consolation payout to the punter who didn’t win but came closest to doing so on the day, though the value of the prize is only a fraction of the actual Jackpot.  

Whereas the bet types in the table below are generally only available in the US and Canada, the UK has the Scoop 6 and works in almost the same way as a Pick 6. 

Even though it’s also a mutuel pool system of betting, a key difference is that the Scoop 6 is generally only offered once a week (normally on a Saturday) nationwide, although when the likes of the Cheltenham Festival come about, there could be an extra midweek one. 

A key difference between the Scoop 6 and the Pick 6 is that the Scoop 6 is made up of six races from across the country, not always the same racetrack. The Scoop 6 also rolls on to the following week if it’s not won that week. 

What Are British-Style System Bets?

So far the accas/multiples we’ve looked at and which are mostly on offer in the US all have- in addition to being racing-related and being made up of at least two selections- one thing in common: all the selections have needed to succeed in order for the bet as a whole to win. 

In a bid to avoid the overly-risky nature of such bets that may put some punters off, system bets developed in the UK were created to make it less of an ‘all or nothing’ scenario. That’s because system bets allow you to combine selections and win even if one leg of the bet doesn’t win.  

System bets are a sophisticated betting system that are likely to appeal to the more experienced punter who understands that the all-or-nothing approach of accas are fraught with danger, as you could lose a big stake on just one bet, if something goes badly wrong. 

System bets, in turn, allow you to still make a profit or at least recover some of your losses if you were ‘mostly’ right, which offers a level of insurance; but you can still make a huge profit if you were ‘completely’ right. 

What Are System Bets in Horse Racing?

Just like there are plenty of exotic bets in the US with different numbers of legs to them, varying levels of sophistication and difficulty to them, the same applies to the UK’s system bets for horse racing. 

It’s worth reiterating once more. The key difference between US exotic bets and UK system bets is that the latter allow you to recover some of your stake or even make a profit without all selections winning. With exotic bets, there isn’t room for a single mistake.  

Here are some of the different types of bets considered system bets. 

Popular System Bets

• Trixie 

The simplest of them. A punter picks three selections (let’s call them A, B and C) and uses them to form three doubles: 

• A/B
• A/C
• B/C

And a treble:

• A/B/C

Meaning four bets in total are placed. 

If two of them win, you’ll have one winning double. If all three win, all three doubles will be winners, as will the treble. If none or just one wins, all four bets are losers. 

• Yankee 

Similar to the above but with four selections in it. The extra selection means there are now 11 bets in total: six doubles, four trebles and one four-fold acca. Two correct selections guarantees one winning double, while getting all four right means you'd collect on all 11 bets.   

• Lucky 15 

Everything that’s true of the Yankee bet and its 11 different wagers is also true of the Lucky 15 bet. The difference is that you also add four singles to the equation, so A, B. C and D are all each a selection in their own right. 

• Canadian/Super Yankee 

This one is made up of five different selections and is used to form: 10 Doubles, 10 Trebles, 5 four-folds and one five-fold, which is 26 bets in total. Unlike with the Lucky 15, what it doesn’t include are the five selections as singles. Any two of the five winning guarantees you one win and the more of the five selections that win, the more of those 26 bets would be winners, of course. 

• Lucky 31 

Similar to the above but this time the five selections are also used to form five singles so 31 bets in total. As a result of that, even just getting one selection right will result in one winner because inevitably it means one of the singles has come in. 

• Heinz

Named after the maker of ketchup and other condiments which is associated with the number 57, it’s predictably made up of 57 different bets, created by picking six selections:

• one six-fold accumulator
• six five-fold accumulators
• 15 four-fold accumulators
• 20 treble bets
• 15 double bets

As you can see, this one doesn’t include any singles, so you’d need at least two of the six to come in to guarantee that at least one of the doubles won. 

That means that if you were placing a Heinz based on a £1 stake per bet, it would cost you £57 to place the Heinz bet, though most customers may play this type of bet for as little as 20p for each of the 57 wagers.  

Though many racing punters place these bets every day, they’re particularly popular during the likes of Royal Ascot and the Cheltenham Festival which typically have six or seven races within the meeting, meaning customers can have an interest in all the races that day, and only have to focus on one racetrack.

Forecast and Tricast Betting

Sometimes the same bet is known by a different name in different countries and that’s the case with the forecast bet in the UK, which is precisely the same as the exacta bet in the US terms of picking two horses to finish first and second in the correct order. 

However, in the US, exacta betting is done through the pari-mutuel system, whereas in the UK it can be a fixed odd bet with a bookie. 

That means you know the exact odds of it when you place the bet and therefore the potential winnings if it comes good, whereas with a US exacta bet, you don’t know how much you will win until the race finishes. 

Following on from that, tricast betting in the UK is the same as Trifecta betting in the US (see above) meaning you need to pick first, second and third in the correct order. 

If Forecast and Tricast are preceded by ‘reverse’ it just means that it doesn’t matter the order in which the horses finish, as long as the 2 or 3 in your bet finish in the Top 2 or Top 3 in the race. 

As far back as 1977, computers were used to try and predict the first and second-placed horses in a race in the correct order in what is known as a computer straight forecast (CSF). This was done by the computer being fed factors such as the draw, the going and recent form. Over the years the formula fed to the computer has changed significantly, with varying degrees of success.

Accumulator and Multiple Bets

These are the bets where all your selections need to come good for you to win. A double is made up of two selections, a treble of three, a four-fold of four and so on. 

The selections don’t necessarily have to be on a horse to win. You could have a double where you need Horse A to win Race 1 and Horse B just to finish in the Top 3 in Race 2, for example. 

This is how to do the odds calculation on accumulator bets. Let’s assume it’s a treble with horses A, B and C all needing to win. 

A (odds of 1.8) / B (2.0) / C (2.2)

To calculate the odds you just multiply 1.8x 2.0 x 2.2 = 7.92. 

The main reason for the popularity of acca bets such as the above is that a bet for small stakes can guarantee huge returns, so is low risk/potentially high reward.

How Do Tote and Pool Bets Work?

Tote betting or pools betting adopts a very different system to betting with bookmakers. With Tote betting, in any race, there are no odds on any of the horses. Customers just pick who they think they will win and how much they want to stake on it. 

All the money wagered on the race then goes into a…pool. A key difference between Tote betting and betting with bookies is that with the latter you know how much you’ll win if the horse wins at the time you placed the bet. If you backed Black Beauty at 6/1 with a bookie, then you’ll get paid out at 6/1 if it wins. 

But if you backed Black Beauty with the Tote, you won’t know your potential winnings. Yes, the Tote may give you a rough estimate, but not an exact one, because the size of the pool and who’s betting on what and for how much, is constantly changing.  

Assuming Black Beauty wins, only at the end of the race will you know how much you win yourself, known as dividend payments. 

The amount you win is determined by the size of the pool and your contribution to it. The less popular the horse who wins is, the more you’ll win. The bigger your stake on it, the more you’ll win. Tote, by the way, make their money by taking a share of the prize pool so it’s never the total pool that’s divided among the winners but rather, a large portion of it, after the Tote’s deductions.  

So why would a customer bet with the Tote rather than a fixed odd bookie? The answer is that it’s possible that your dividend payout with the Tote is bigger than what it would be with a fixed odds bookie. Black Beauty may have been 6/1 with a Sportsbook but backing it with the Tote. especially if it wasn’t a popular selection among other Tote customers, could easily result in you being paid out at 9/1.  

That said, the reverse is also true and if it’s very popular with other Tote customers, you may be paid out a lower dividend than what you’d get with the bookie. This is especially the case if the pool wasn’t particularly big to begin with.  

The Scoop6 (mentioned above) and the Placepot are among the most popular forms of Pools betting in the UK.

In-Running and Live Betting Options

One of the biggest innovations with the introduction of online betting was the introduction of live betting, also known as in-running betting. 

It means that bookies can provide ever-changing odds (depending on how well the horses are each running and any fallers) pretty much until the winning horse crosses the finishing line. Part of the reason for the popularity of live betting on horse racing is that many bookmakers offer live streaming of all UK and Ireland races, meaning customers can watch events unfold, for free, and draw their own conclusions.  

In most cases, the bookies’ live odds on each horse are calculated thanks to complex software that takes into account numerous factors. But that’s not to say that the sophisticated and experienced punter can’t find betting value by picking horses who are running better than the live odds suggest they are. Or horses who tend to finish quickly and are underrated at the time the bet is placed. 

Then there’s Cash Out, a recent technological innovation that allows you to lock in profits before the event is over. If you backed Black Beauty at 6/1 and she was well ahead with just a couple of furlongs to go and trading at odds-on, you could Cash Out your bet, secure a profit and not have to worry about whether Black Beauty went on to win or not; the moment you Cash out, the money is yours. 

Across the Board and Combination Strategies

Across the Board betting means that you’re putting faith in a particular horse, three times over! 

You’re backing the horse, in three separate bets: 

• To win. 
• To Place.
• To Show. 

In a way, it’s a bit like a system bet in that the better it does, the more you’ll win. If it wins, you’ll collect on all three bets, if it places you’d collect on the Place and Show parts of the bet and if it ‘only’ Shows, you’ll at least win on that wager. 

The fact that if the horse wins, you’re paid out three times is the main appeal of this bet. But the other is that (similar to a system bet) you can still make a profit or at least not lose your whole stake, if the horse Places or Shows, without winning. Admittedly, this will only be the case with horses priced around 5/1 or higher. Backing a short-priced favourite who only Shows is likely to lead to an overall loss. 

How Do You Choose the Right Bet Types for Your Strategy?

There are no foolproof betting strategies when it comes to horse racing betting or else bookies would all be bankrupt, which they’re not! But there are some dos and don’ts. 

Beginners should mostly focus on placing straight bets, whether it’s to win, to place or each-way bets as it means they only need to focus on picking one horse. 

Value-seekers are likely to follow a similar approach but may find themselves being more discerning about the bets they pick or consider additional factors - such as whether the track is right--handed or left-handed -  before making their selections. 

Thrill-seekers or those looking for big payouts from small stakes are probably more suited to placing accas or if based in the US, Exacta or Superfecta bets; get a few of those right and they’re likely to end up in profit without needing a huge amount of knowledge. 

Then there’s the pro punter who will mix it up and for whom value is king. 

They could just as easily put a load of money on one horse to win as they could find a good each-way wager, decide that backing a horse to place is a better bet than backing it each-way or find good reasons to place a good four-fold acca, or a system bet. 

For example, remember that a Heinz bet will cost you 57x your stake so unless you have done immense research and have excellent reasons to include this horse or that in the system bet, it’s too risky a bet for the novice punter; unless they really are playing for nominal stakes. 

The pro punter is also far more likely to focus on price (odds), bank management and hedging opportunities than the novice punter, so these are additional considerations for them.