The oldest betting market and the one with the most rules of its own. What each-way really pays, why best odds guaranteed matters, how a non-runner changes your price, and where the exchange beats every bookmaker.
Win. The horse must win. Each-way. Two bets: win and place, the place part paid at a fraction of the win odds for a set number of places, usually a quarter for three places in fields of eight or more, a fifth for four places in big handicaps. Place only and forecast bets exist but are priced expensively. Ante-post. Bets placed days or weeks before a big race at bigger prices, with the stake lost if the horse does not run.
If you take a price in the morning and the horse starts at a bigger price, a bookmaker offering best odds guaranteed pays the bigger one. Starting prices drift on a third of runners, so the guarantee is worth a real percentage of turnover to any bettor who bets early. Most British and Irish books offer it on UK and Irish racing, often with conditions on the time of the bet; few offer it abroad.
When a horse is withdrawn after you have bet, the market is re-formed and a deduction is taken from your winnings in proportion to the withdrawn horse’s price: a few pence in the pound for an outsider, up to 90 pence for a short favourite. The deduction applies to early prices, not to starting-price bets, and it is the reason a morning price can pay less than it read. The table of deductions is in every operator’s racing rules.
The starting price is the market’s closing consensus and is, over time, an accurate estimate of a horse’s chance; bettors who consistently beat it are winning. Early prices carry more error and more value, and the guarantee removes the downside of taking them. The exchange, meanwhile, trades every horse continuously at prices set by other bettors, usually bigger than any bookmaker’s after commission for horses at 10.00 and above.
Form (recent finishing positions, read with the class of race), the going (soft ground changes everything), the draw (on some tracks a low stall is worth lengths), the trip (distance) and the jockey booking. Handicaps are races where the weight carried is adjusted to equalise chances; the value is in horses improving faster than the handicapper rates them. None of this is quick to learn, and the market contains people who have spent their lives on it.
The exchange for prices and for laying; William Hill, bet365 and Betfair’s sportsbook for best odds guaranteed, extra places and streaming; Betway and Unibet for the same in some markets. The international platforms cover racing thinly and without the guarantees. Australia and the United States have their own operators and their own rules, on our country pages.
The place part of an each-way bet pays at a quarter of the win odds if the horse finishes in the first three.
A deduction from winnings when a horse is withdrawn after you bet, sized by the withdrawn horse’s price.
Yes; starting prices drift on a large share of runners and the guarantee pays the bigger price.