Horse Racing Odds
That small time investment — repeated across every bet you place — is the most reliable edge available to the average punter. If you are betting early in the day and BOG is on offer, take the best available bookmaker price. If the exchange back price is 8.0 and the best bookmaker is offering 6/1, the bookmaker is taking a significantly wider margin on that horse. Here is the workflow that experienced punters follow, stripped of anything unnecessary. And some operators apply BOG only to bets placed after a certain time in the morning, which means very early ante-post-style wagers do not qualify. Most bookmakers cap BOG payouts — some at a maximum enhanced payout of 500 pounds, others at a maximum uplift of a certain number of odds points.
On horses that drift — less money than expected, price lengthening — BOG gives you the benefit of the higher SP. On horses that are supported in the market — money coming in, price shortening — BOG adds nothing, because the SP is lower than the price you took. Best Odds Guaranteed is one of the most powerful tools available to horse racing punters, and it is routinely undervalued. Using the exchange as a benchmark — even if you ultimately bet with a bookmaker — is one of the most effective habits a punter can develop. The practical approach for most punters is to use both.
Forget the days of tireless past performance analysis, PDF downloads, and digging for angles or professional picks. This website assumes no responsibility for the actions by and makes no representation or endorsement of any activities offered by any reviewed racebook or ADW. Log into your account and you will find a rebate of up to 10% from the previous days horse wagers. “We trust US Racing to provide accurate and thoughtful coverage of racing. They are the best source for horse racing odds.” The horse racing betting odds for each horse are displayed on a tote board at the track or on the betting ticket online. Betting on the outcome of horse racing can be fun and profitable, and if you know what you’re doing, you might even be able to beat the odds.
At the upper end, you find big-field handicaps with 20 or more runners, where each horse price can be inflated by a few ticks without any individual punter noticing the difference. The individual difference may be small — perhaps online betting not on gamstop 5/1 versus 11/2 — but across hundreds of bets over a year, that cumulative margin is the difference between a profitable punter and a losing one. The take varies from state to state and the money is used to pay taxes, purse money for the horsemen, expenses at the track, and the track’s profit. If the exchange is at 7.0 and the bookmaker is at 6/1, the prices are closer, and after exchange commission the bookmaker might even be marginally better.
If you back at 6.0 (5/1) and pay 5 per cent commission on your winnings, your effective odds are 5.75 (approximately 19/4). On a Monday afternoon novice hurdle at a minor track, liquidity is thin. Over time, backing at exchange odds rather than bookmaker odds produces a measurably higher return on investment, assuming you can find liquidity on your chosen market. The exchange takes a commission on the net winnings of the winning side, typically between 2 and 5 per cent depending on the user’s activity level.
Small-field races with well-fancied favourites tend to carry lower overrounds (closer to 110 per cent) because the market is more efficient and bookmakers compete harder on the headline price of the favourite. The difference between 5/1 and 6/1 on the same horse in the same race is a 20 per cent increase in profit — free money, essentially, for the 30 seconds it takes to check a second bookmaker. Odds expressed in decimals are meant to show the total payout the punter receives, which includes the winnings and the stake. In today’s day and age where automobiles have substituted the four legged animal, horses still retain importance. Dave Massey previews Saturday’s action at Aintree, selecting his best bets for the races at 1.15, 1.45, 2.25 and 3.00. Dave Chisnall spoke to kwiff on Friday afternoon just before he kicked off his Grand Slam of Darts qualifying campaign
Oddschecker is the most widely used in the UK and shows prices from all major bookmakers side by side, updated in near-real time. If the exchange offers 7.0 and the bookmaker offers 5/1, the bookmaker is taking a significantly larger margin on that runner, and you should either back on the exchange or find a bookmaker whose price is closer to the exchange level. On short-priced selections — odds-on or evens — the exchange commission can actually make the bookmaker price competitive or even better, because the commission is a fixed percentage of the profit regardless of the odds. The commission you pay on an exchange winning bet reduces your effective odds.
Manchester United host Aston Villa in Sunday’s featured Premier League clash, with both sides looking to build momentum. Hector Crouch heads to Southwell for three final rides on Saturday before jetting off to Dave Massey previews Friday’s racing at Cheltenham, with four selections across the card. But check the cap on the maximum stake, because enhanced odds are almost always limited to small bets — one or two pounds, occasionally five. Second, the exchange price reflects pure market opinion without any built-in margin, which makes it a more accurate indicator of the horse’s implied probability.
On feature races — the Champion Hurdle, the Gold Cup, the Grand National, Saturday afternoon handicaps at major tracks — the exchange market is deep enough that you can back at the displayed price without difficulty. Where a bookmaker might offer 5/1 on a horse with a 120 per cent book, the exchange might show 5.5 (or 9/2 in fractional terms) on the same runner with a total market overround of 103 per cent. When bookmakers extend place terms on big handicaps — paying five or six places instead of four — they compensate by widening the margin on the place element of each-way bets. At the lower end, you find small-field Flat races — Group 1 contests with five or six runners where the form is well established and bookmakers compete aggressively on the headline price of the favourite. The difference between 3/1 and 7/2 is not dramatic on a single bet, but across 200 bets over a season it represents dozens of units of profit or loss. Checking the overround before you bet is not something most punters do, but it takes less than a minute with a calculator or an odds comparison site.
