Horse Racing & Its Bets

When you bet on horse racing, there are two broad categories:

• Exotic Wagers
• Straight Wagers

Exotic wagers are horse racing bets that give you the freedom to bet on many horses with one wager. This means your profit potential is more. That said, they are much more complicated than straight wagers. If you do not have knowledge of horse racing or don’t have the skill for it, exotic bets can turn out to be very expensive for you.

So, the trick is to first bet with straight wagers and when you have sufficient experience, switch to exotic wagers. With this in mind, let’s understand what straight wagers are.

What Are Straight Wagers In Horse Racing?

Straight wagers are simple horse racing bets. You basically choose which horse will place first, second or third. The minimum amount for a straight wager on most tracks is two dollars. It makes straight wagers not only simple but also affordable.

Here are the bets you can place on a single horse:

• The horse will win.

The horse racing bet means you wager that your horse will come first. If the horse does place first, you get to collect your pay out.

• The horse will place.

In this horse racing wager, you bet that your horse will place either first or second. If your horse does come first or second, you get to collect your pay out. While the security of you winning a place bet is higher, the pay out is less than a win wager.

• The horse will show.

In this horse racing bet, you put money on your horse coming first, second or third. Because your bet hedges on three places, the probability of winning is much higher. But the pay out you get to collect is much less.

Other Straight Wager Horse Racing Bets

There are two other straight wagers – across the board and win/place or place/show.

In across the board, you wager that your horse will win, place and show. These are also called combo straight wagers because they combine all 3 straight bets in one. They are more expensive than simple straight wagers as you pay for all three bets – win, place and show.

• If the horse finishes first, you collect all the win, place and show payouts.
• If the horse comes 2nd, you receive only a place and show pay out.
• If the horse comes 3rd, you collect only show pay out.

These horse racing bets are expensive for you and don’t have great profit potential.

In win/place or place/show horse racing wagers, you place multiple bets in one.

• Win/place wager means you bet your horse will win and place. You get a win and place pay out if the horse comes first. If the horse finishes 2nd, you get only place pay out.
• Place/show wager means you bet your race horse will place and show. In case the horse finishes 2nd, you collect both pay outs. But if the horse comes 3rd, you get only show pay out.

Like across the board wagers, win/place or place/show horse racing bets are also expensive. You have to pay for both win and place or place and show.

These were the straight wagers you can place on horse racing. As we said before, if you are new to the game, it is best to start with these simple horse racing bets and later move on to more complicated wagers.