How to Bet on Horse Racing

There are a number of things to know and consider when betting on horse racing. From where to place the bets, to the terminology or how the payouts work. All of these things need to be in consideration and part of your knowledge base before you place a bet.

Where to Bet on Horse Racing

You can wager on horse racing either at the track in person, or you can do it online here at FanDuel Racing.

Horse Racing Betting Tutorial

For some quick tips on the basics and a tutorial on how to bet on horse racing, you can visit this link here.

Types of Horse Racing Bets to Know

Straight Bets:
Win
Place
Show

Horizontal Exotic Bets:
Daily Double
Pick 3
Pick 4
Pick 5
Pick 6

Vertical Exotic Bets:
Straight Exacta
Straight Trifecta
Straight Superfecta

A full explanation of horse racing bet types and payouts can be found here.

How Horse Racing Odds Work

Every morning a track will release its morning lines, which are the bookmakers' projection of odds for each horse in each race that day. However, as money comes in, the odds will shift accordingly, similar to sports betting, but with horse racing, you are locked in to whatever the odds close at when the race begins.

So even if you bet a horse in the morning at 10/1 odds for the afternoon race, if that horse's odds are at 6/1 by the time its race begins, then your bet will be valued at that 6/1 number. Granted this can also go the other way and you can end up getting better odds (higher payout value) than when you originally placed your bet.

For further explanation and details on horse racing odds, click here.

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David Kaestle is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, David also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username davekaestle. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.