UK horse racing, explained from the first bet
A Horse Betting Guide for UK Beginners: How to Bet on Horses Step by Step
How to bet on horses in Britain, from the first single to a Lucky 15: what the odds mean, which bet to put on, how each way pays and what happens when a horse is withdrawn.
A horse betting guide for UK beginners, in the order you need it
Most people learn how to bet on horses the hard way: a slip filled in at a festival, a price they half understood, and a return that came out smaller than they expected. This horse betting guide goes in the order the questions actually come up. First what a bet pays, then how to read a price, then which bet to choose, and only then the harder parts, such as tote pools, withdrawn horses and dead heats.
Every example uses real stakes and real prices, so you can check the arithmetic with a pen or with the bet calculator. It is written for beginners, so none of it assumes you have been to a racecourse or a betting shop before.
It is a horse racing betting guide for beginners, built around the working knowledge that lets you read a racecard, write a slip and know what should come back. The choice of horse stays yours; the pages make sure you know what that choice costs and pays.
How a horse race bet works: stake, odds and returns
Every bet in British racing is settled the same way. The odds tell you the winnings per unit staked, and the stake comes back on top. A horse at 5/2 wins you £5 for every £2, so a £10 win bet returns £35: £25 of winnings and your £10 back.
That is the whole of a win single. Everything else in this guide, each way, doubles, a Lucky 15, is built from that one sum repeated.
Two words are worth pinning down early. The return is everything you get back. The profit is the return minus the stake. Bookmakers' slips and most calculators show the return, and it is easy to read a £35 return as a £35 win. It isn't. You are £25 up.
The price is fixed when you take it. If you back a horse at 5/2 in the morning and it starts at 6/4, you are still paid at 5/2. If you don't take a price, you get the starting price, or SP, which is the price the horse was at when the race began. More on that further down.
Win single
- Stake
- £10.00
- Odds
- 5/2
- Winnings
- £10 × 5 ÷ 2 = £25.00
- Stake back
- £10.00
Returns£35.00
Reading the odds: fractional, decimal and the favourite
British racing quotes fractions. Decimal odds show the total return per £1, stake included, so 5/2 and 3.50 are the same price written two ways. To turn a fraction into a decimal, divide the top by the bottom and add one.
The favourite is simply the horse with the shortest price, the one the market expects to win. A price shorter than evens, such as 4/6, is odds-on: you win less than you stake. A price longer than evens is odds-against.
Every price is also a claim about a horse's chance. Divide 100 by the decimal odds and you get the percentage the price implies. 5/2 implies about 28.6%, evens 50%, 4/6 about 60%. Add those figures up for every runner and the total always comes to more than 100%. The extra is the bookmaker's margin, and it is the first thing to understand about why betting is hard to win at over time.
A favourite at 6/4 is still more likely to lose than to win, on the market's own view. Horse racing odds explained covers the starting price, prices that shorten and drift, and what the percentages really mean, and the odds converter does the conversions.
Should you take a price or wait for the SP? A price taken in the morning is a fixed deal: if the horse is backed and shortens, you keep the bigger price, and if it drifts, you are stuck with the smaller one. Nobody knows in advance which way a price will move. What you can say is that taking a price means you know exactly what the bet will pay before the race, and waiting for the SP means you don't.
- Evens2.00
- 6/42.50
- 5/23.50
- 4/15.00
- 8/19.00
- 20/121.00
Win, place and each way: the three bets for beginners
A win bet pays if the horse wins and nothing if it doesn't. It is the simplest bet in racing and, for most short-priced horses, the right one.
A place bet pays if the horse finishes in the places, usually the first two, three or four depending on the race. Some firms and the tote offer place-only bets. At a fixed-odds bookmaker the place is more often bought as half of an each way bet.
An each way bet is two bets of the same size: one to win and one to place. If the horse wins, both halves pay. If it only places, the win half loses and the place half pays at a fraction of the odds, usually a quarter or a fifth. £2 each way at 6/1 with 1/4 terms costs £4. A winner returns £19, and a placed horse returns £5.
That last figure is the point to take away. Each way doesn't make a placed horse a profitable one unless the price is big enough. At 1/4 terms, a horse has to be at least 4/1 for a placed finish to get your stake back. Change the price on the slip and you can see where the line falls. The each way bet guide covers the rules, including how many places each race pays.
Each way single
Win part£45.00
Place part£13.00
Total staked£10.00
Returns£58.00
£5 each way at 8/1 with 1/5 odds a place: the win part pays at 8/1, the place part at 8/5.
Each way place terms at a glance
The standard UK terms. The number of runners and the type of race decide how many places pay, and at what fraction of the odds. Many firms pay extra places on big races, so always read the terms on your own slip.
These are the terms most UK bookmakers apply by default. Some firms pay extra places on big races as a promotion; the terms on your slip at the time of the bet are the ones that count.
Multiples and full-cover bets, from a double to a Goliath
A multiple ties several horses into one bet. In a double, the winnings from the first horse are staked on the second, so £5 on a double at 2/1 and 3/1 returns £5 × 3 × 4 = £60. Both have to win. A treble adds a third horse, and an accumulator can run to eight or more.
Full-cover bets take a handful of horses and back every combination of them. A Trixie is the doubles and the treble on three horses, four bets in all. With two of the three winning at 2/1 and 3/1, a £1 Trixie still returns £12 from the double, even though the treble lost. That is what full cover buys: a return when not everything goes right, at the cost of more lines. On four horses, the Lucky 15 goes furthest: fifteen bets, including a single on each horse, so one winner on its own still pays something back.
The big prices on multiples are real, and so are the odds against them. Four horses at 2/1 in a four-fold make 80/1, because the decimal odds multiply: 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 = 81. On the market's own figures, each of them has about a one-in-three chance, and all four together about one in 81. The price isn't generous. It is simply what four things all going right is worth.
| Bet | Horses | Bets | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Double | 2 | 1 | Both must win |
| Treble | 3 | 1 | All three must win |
| Trixie | 3 | 4 | 3 doubles and the treble |
| Patent | 3 | 7 | A Trixie plus 3 singles |
| Yankee | 4 | 11 | 6 doubles, 4 trebles, a four-fold |
| Lucky 15 | 4 | 15 | A Yankee plus 4 singles |
| Canadian | 5 | 26 | Every multiple of 5 horses |
| Heinz | 6 | 57 | Every multiple of 6 horses |
| Super Heinz | 7 | 120 | Every multiple of 7 horses |
| Goliath | 8 | 247 | Every multiple of 8 horses |
At £1 a bet, the cost in pounds is the number of bets. Each way doubles it.
Pick a bet below and see every line it contains.
Yankee: 11 bets on 4 horses. At £1 a line it costs £11. Yankee explained
Doubles 6
Trebles 4
Four-folds 1
Tote bets: pool betting and the Placepot
Everything above is fixed-odds betting: the bookmaker offers a price and that is what you are paid. The tote works differently. All the stakes on a race go into a pool, a deduction is taken off the top, and what is left is shared among the winning tickets. You don't know the dividend until the race is over, and it depends on how many other people backed the same horse.
The best-known tote bet is the Placepot. You pick a horse to be placed in each of the first six races at a meeting, and all six have to place. It is a cheap bet to play with several horses per race, because the cost is the stake multiplied by the number of combinations, and a single unit can be small. The dividend is declared to a £1 stake after the sixth race. On a day when favourites keep placing it can be tiny, and on a day of shocks it can run to thousands.
The cost adds up quickly with more horses. Two horses in every one of the six legs is 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 64 lines, so at 50p a line the bet costs £32. Three horses in each leg is 729 lines. Most people mix it: one strong fancy in the races they feel sure about, and two or three where they don't.
A tote dividend can be bigger or smaller than the fixed-odds price on the same horse, because it depends only on how much was staked on it in the pool. The dividend on a well-backed favourite can come out below its SP, and on a horse few people backed it can come out well above. The two prices are simply measuring different things.
The Quadpot is the same idea over races three to six. The Jackpot asks for the winners of six races rather than placed horses, which is far harder. Bigger pooled bets across six selected races, such as the Scoop6, run on some Saturdays. On course, the tote has its own windows. Off course, it is sold through betting shops and online.
How to pick a horse: what the racecard tells you
One line of a racecard holds a horse's recent runs, its weight, its age and who rides it. The form figures read left to right, oldest first, so the digit nearest the name is the latest run. A 1 is a win, a 0 means it finished tenth or worse, and letters mark runs that didn't finish: F for fell, P for pulled up, U for unseated rider. A dash separates one season from the next.
Form is only half the story. The going, the state of the ground, matters to many horses: some only show their best on soft ground, others need it good or firm. Course and distance are flagged with a C and a D, and CD means the horse has won over this exact trip at this track. The trainer and jockey tell you who is in charge, and a trainer whose horses are running well this month is worth noting. In handicaps, the official rating set by the British Horseracing Authority's handicappers decides the weight each horse carries.
On the Flat, check the draw as well, the stall a horse starts from. At some tracks, such as Chester with its tight bends, a low draw near the inside rail can be a real advantage, while at others it makes little difference. And the betting market itself is information: a horse that is heavily backed has people with money behind it, which isn't a guarantee but is worth knowing.
None of this makes picking winners easy, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. What it does is turn a list of names into information you can weigh. How to read horse racing form goes through every letter and symbol, and the going explained covers the ground.
An invented racecard line: the horse and rider are made up for the example.
- Number Saddle-cloth number and, below it, the stall the horse starts from on the Flat.
- Form 1-2F3: won, second, a break between seasons, fell, then third last time.
- Horse Name, age and the weight carried: 11-2 is 11 stone 2 pounds.
- Rating The official rating the handicapper uses to set the weights.
- Jockey A figure in brackets is a claim: a young rider’s allowance off the weight.
How to place a bet in the UK
Knowing how to bet on horses in practice comes down to three places you can put a bet on, and each has its own habits.
On the racecourse, bookmakers stand in the betting ring with their prices on boards, and each one can offer a slightly different price for the same horse. You tell the bookmaker the horse, the stake and whether it is each way, pay, and get a ticket. Keep it: you need it to collect. The tote has separate windows for pool bets.
In a betting shop, you fill in a slip. Write the meeting, the time of the race and the horse's name, then the stake and the bet type. Tick the each way box if you want each way, and write the stake per bet rather than the total, so "£1 each way Lucky 15" rather than "£30". If you want a price rather than the SP, write it on the slip, or ask for it at the counter. The cashier checks the slip, takes the money and hands you a copy.
Online and in apps, you open an account first. Firms licensed in Britain have to check your age and identity before you can bet, so expect to confirm your details. After that, a tap on a price adds it to a bet slip where you set the stake, choose each way and confirm.
Whichever way you bet, you can do it without an account on course and in a shop, with cash. Only online needs one.
Collecting is simple. In a shop or on course, bring the ticket back and the winnings are paid in cash. Online, a settled bet is paid into your account automatically. If a settlement looks wrong, ask for it to be checked straight away, and keep the slip until you are happy with it.
When a result isn't simple
Most races finish cleanly. When they don't, a handful of rules decide what you get back. It is the part of any horse racing betting guide that people skip, and the part that settles most arguments at the counter.
Non-runners. A horse withdrawn before the race is a non-runner. A single on it is void and the stake comes back. In a multiple, the bet carries on without that leg, so a double becomes a single on the other horse.
Rule 4. When a horse is withdrawn too late for the market to be re-formed, the other prices were too generous, and a deduction comes off the winnings on bets struck at a fixed price. The size depends on the withdrawn horse's price, from 5p in the pound for a 10/1 shot to 90p for a very short favourite. Rule 4 explained has the full table.
Dead heats. If two horses can't be separated by the photo, the stake is divided between them. £10 on a horse that dead heats for first at 4/1 is paid as £5 at 4/1, which returns £25.
The starting price and the price you took. A price taken before the race stands, however the market moves. A bet left to SP is paid at the starting price. Two offers change this. Best odds guaranteed means the firm pays whichever is bigger, your price or the SP, usually on races on the day. Non-runner no bet means your stake is returned if your horse doesn't run, usually on ante-post bets struck days or weeks ahead. Both vary by firm and by race, so read the terms.
Abandoned races. When a meeting is called off, because of frost, waterlogging or high winds, bets on the races that didn't take place are void and the stakes come back. In a multiple, the abandoned leg is treated like a non-runner and the rest of the bet stands.
The three meetings everyone bets on
Big fields, top-class horses and racing on every channel: these three are easy to follow and hard to win at. Each one has its own guide to the races, the betting and the each way terms that matter there. On each day, the tote Placepot is a cheap way to follow the first six races.
What they have in common for a bettor is big handicaps. Under the standard terms, a handicap with 16 or more runners pays four places at a quarter of the odds, which is the most generous each way term in British racing, and many firms add extra places on top for these meetings. That makes them the natural home of each way betting. The flip side is that the same big fields make winners harder to find, so a small stake spread across a few races usually lasts longer than one big bet on the headline race.
Betting safely
Betting is for adults only, and in Britain it is illegal to bet under 18. Decide what you can afford to lose before the first race and treat it as the cost of the day. Never chase a loss with a bigger bet. Keep a note of what you stake over a month, because it is easy to lose track of small bets.
If betting stops being fun, the National Gambling Helpline is free on 0808 8020 133, and GamStop blocks you from every online betting site licensed in Britain.