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The Beauty of Horse Racing Betting: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Betting Journey!

For some people this might sound rather peculiar, but it is true that horse racing continues to be one of the most popular sports in many parts of the world, including the UK, Australia, the US, France and Malaysia. And even though more modern sports like eSports have started to capture the attention and interest of sports fans and bettors alike, horse racing continues to hold its strong position in the preference of people, in places where it is popular. 

As horse racing continues to drive fans’ interest, betting on horse racing continues to thrive. Horse betting sites in Malaysia and bookmakers offering horse betting online are experiencing a sustained growth in betting revenues and this actually verifies how popular it is. 

Horse racing betting is said to be unique in many ways. For one thing, betting on horse racing can be traced way back in the history of sports betting. In fact, modern sports betting has been born from wagering on horses. 

And then, also, it is the ultimate manifestation of live betting while an event is taking place. In horse racing the instant gratification has been the absolute betting experience long  before in-play or live wagering became a popular type of bet in other sports. And of course it is also the prestige and the touch of upscale sport, which just like other high-profile, valuable sports adds an extra layer of excitement. 

For those of you who are interested in starting your betting journey in horse racing, here’s everything you need to know. 

Before you place any bet on horse racing there are some things that you need to take into consideration and these are: 

First, favorites don’t have really high win rates in horse racing as they do in other sports. In fact, according to statistics, favorites get to win nearly 1/3 of the races, which means that the win rate is something above 30%. So, it is wise not to follow favorites just for the sake of being the favorites. Of course some horses have better potential in winning the race compared to others, but these chances do not always demonstrate realistic chances.

Second, horses are not machines or robots and this means that they can’t perform consistently all the time. So, it is wise to check on their past records, on possible injuries, on previous races and everything that can influence their performance before picking your bets. 

Third, the different tracks have a role to play in the result of any race and that’s because horses get to develop skills and competencies which sometimes are better suited in certain surfaces. Sometimes a high potential horse may end up performing not as expected simply due to unsuitability of the surface. 

So, before placing any bet on horse racing make sure to take into account the three things noted above. Now let’s see the most popular bets, amongst which you can choose when you decide to wager. 

Win, place, show bets

These bets are the straightforward bets in horse racing. A win bet is wagering on the horse that will win the race. A place bet is wagering on a horse to either win or finish second in the race. A show bet is wagering whether the horse is gonna be first, second or third. 

Horizontal bets

Bettors can pick a horse and place horizontal bets on this horse. They can wager on a horse to win two or more races in a row. There are choices among Daily Double (two races in a row) or Pick 3, 4, 5 or 6 (three races in a row, four races in a row etc). 

Vertical bets

These bets offer an extra layer of excitement as they add depth to the wagers. Instead of focusing on one horse (as it happens with horizontal bets), punters can focus on a single race and make predictions for that race alone. They can bet on the first two horses to finish the run (exacta bet), or the first three winners (trifecta) or even the first four horses to finish the race (superfecta). In these bets what matters is the order, which means that bettors need to choose which horse will finish first and which one will come second or third and so on. 

There is also an option to bet on the first two horses, without being bothered with which one gets to finish first and which one comes second. This is a quinella bet  and its difference is that the order does not matter. You get to win the bet as long as the two horses picked are the ones that finish in the first two positions.