Your Guide to Horse Racing Betting, Types of Bets, Betting Offers and more

Our Guide to Horse Racing Betting with Online Bookies

Horse racing and betting have been around for centuries, but like all gambling, they’ve evolved and become accessible to the masses as online betting has grown into what it is today. Now that online betting is so huge, UK punters can bet on horse races around the world with a simple tap on their phone, but it can be confusing if you don’t fully know what you’re doing. So, in this guide, we’ll walk you through horse racing betting so you can understand the jargon and bet types, the offers available, and everything else you’ll need to place educated bets.

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Types of Horse Racing Bets

When horse racing first started, it was a fairly simple process: you picked the horse you thought would win the race and simply bet on it. Although that principle has stayed the same, betting on the horses has evolved, and now there are many different types of bets you can place on the geegeez. In this section, we’ll be going through all the different types of bets you can place so you know exactly what you’re doing, and importantly, what your bets are.

Win Bets

This is a fairly obvious bet, and it is exactly what you would imagine. Here, you simply bet on a horse to win the race. You just need to pick your horse, place your stake and accept the bet. For example, if your horse is 3/1 and you place a £10 win bet and it wins, you’ll win £30 plus your £10 stake, but if it doesn’t win, you lose your bet.

Each Way Bets

Each-way bets are similar to win bets, but they give you another way of getting a return because, in reality, each-way bets are 2 separate bets. With an each-way bet, you place 2 separate bets: one for the horse to win the race, and the other for it to finish in the places, which depends on the number of runners in the race.

These are popular horse racing bets because if the first part of the bet (the win part) doesn’t win, you still have a chance to win the 2nd part. The important thing to know about the 2nd part of the bet is that, to finish in the places, you usually get 1/4 or 1/5 of the odds to win the race.

So, for example, if you decide to place an each-way bet on a horse at 10/1 with a total stake of £10, you call the bet stake £5 each-way. You then have £5 at 10/1 to win and £5 for it to finish in the places (we’ll say 1st 3 places at 1/5 of the odds). If your horse then wins the race, both parts of your bet win: you win £50 and get your £5 stake back, plus £10 winnings and your £5 stake back for the place part of the bet. So, in total, you win £60 in winnings and get your £10 bet stake back. However, if your horse finishes in the places, say 3rd, then this is where the benefit of an each-way bet comes in, as although the win part of the bet has lost, you still get £10 winnings and £5 stake back for the place part of the bet.

Doubles, Trebles, and Accumulator Bets

If you regularly bet on sports, you may be familiar with these types of bets, but we still explain them for newer racing bettors and differentiate them from other similar bets unique to horse racing.

These bets combine multiple outcomes into a single bet with combined odds. They work by letting you select 2 or more horses to win and combine them into one bet. They are harder to win than single bets, but they can offer generous odds if you do win, and you can also bet them each-way to win on the places.

Again, we’ll quickly explain them, as horse racing has some very similar bets that cost you a lot more, so it is important you know the difference. As you would expect, no doubt, a ‘Double’ is when you pick 2 different horses to win their races, either as a win bet or each-way, but they both have to win or at least get in the places if it’s an each-way double for the bet to win. A ‘Treble’, or 3-fold, is the same, but with 3 different selections, all of which must win or place. Anything with 4 or more selections is classed as an accumulator, with the same premise: all legs must win or place for you to collect any winnings. We have to say, these bets are hard to get right, but if you do, the rewards will be much better than betting them as singles.

A good strategy we have found is maybe pick 3 or 4 horses for your days betting and have your normal bets on them to win, but add a small £5 win multi combo bet as well, just in case, as you never know.

As mentioned above, these are simple bets, but we felt they needed explaining, as some similar bets also include ‘crossover’ bets that, if you don’t notice and make a mistake, can make your stake much larger than you thought. We’ll explain those bets below as well so you are as informed as possible about the different bets you can place.

Trixie Bet

This is where things start getting interesting, if not a little confusing for the newcomer. With the name ‘Trixie’, you may think it involves 3, which it does when it comes to selections, but it actually involves 4 bets altogether.

Here’s how these bets work: first, you need to pick 3 different horses in 3 different races. If you decide to place a Trixie bet, it gives you 4 different bets: 3 doubles and a treble. So, bet 1 will be horse 1 and 2, bet 2 will be horse 1 and 3, bet 3 will be horse 2 and 3, and bet 4 will be horse 1, 2, and 3.

As mentioned, these are 4 bets in total, so be aware when you place your stake: if you stake £5, that is 4 £5 bets, which makes your total bet stake £20. Also note that, because your bets are doubles and a treble, at least 2 horses must win for you to win any money with this bet.

Patent Bet

A Patent bet consists of 3 selections like a Trixie bet, but includes 7 different bets instead of the 4 in a Trixie. It has 7 bets because a Patent bet also covers the single bets as well. Because it also includes single bets, you only need 1 winner to get some sort of return.

As with the Trixie above, remember that when you place your bet, it covers 7 different bets; if you stake £5, your total stake will be £35, so adjust your initial stake accordingly.

A Yankee Bet

A Yankee bet was actually the first time, many moons ago, I learned a lesson about using these types of bets and how much the stake can be larger than you first thought, especially if you bet each-way.

Yankee bets involve picking 4 selections, and they include 11 different bets. Yankee bets don’t include any single bets and are made up of 6 doubles, 4 trebles, and 1 4-fold accumulator, so to get any return, you need at least 2 selections to come in.

You do need to remember that because there are 11 different bets, your stake will multiply by 11, so if you stake £1, your bet will cost £11, or if you have it each-way, it will be £22, which is exactly what I found out when I first placed a Yankee bet all those years ago.

Lucky 15 Bet

A Lucky 15 bet is similar to a Yankee bet, but it includes 15 different bets instead of 11. Like the Yankee bet, a Lucky 15 has four different selections and has 6 doubles, 4 trebles, and a 4-fold accumulator, but unlike a Yankee, it also has 4 singles as well, so the single bets are covered.

Lucky 15s are fairly popular with horse racing enthusiasts because the returns can be very generous if you hit it, but remember this bet has even more bets, so adjust your stake accordingly. So, if you place a £1 Lucky 15, the total stake will be £15, and if you have it each-way, it will cost a total of £30 to place the bet.

Canadian Bet

A Canadian bet is sometimes called a ‘Super Yankee’, and is a bet that requires you to pick 5 different selections. A Canadian bet does have a very similar feel to a Yankee, but because it has 5 selections, there are 26 different bets.

It is similar to a Yankee and often called a ‘Super Yankee’ because, like the Yankee, it doesn’t cover any single bets. A Canadian bet is made up of 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 4-folds, and 1 5-fold accumulator bet.

We’re starting to get down to the bigger end of the scale of bets now, so it becomes really important to be aware of your stakes. A £1 Canadian bet will cost £26 just to win, and if you want a £1 each-way Canadian, it will cost you £52.

To give you an idea of the returns you can be looking at, we put 5 bets with even odds (1/1) into a calculator, and a £1 each-way Canadian would return a profit of £224.54. So as you can see, the returns can be extremely good, but if you make a mistake with your stakes, it could be very costly, so please be careful.

Lucky 31

The next bet in the size scale is a Lucky 31, which, as you might guess, has 31 different bets. It is similar to a Canadian bet as it covers 5 different selections, but it also covers single bets.

A Lucky 31 consists of 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 4-folds, and 1 5-fold accumulator bet, like the Canadian bet, but it also includes 5 singles, so even a single winning selection can pay out.

You’ve probably got the idea now but it is still worth mentioning that as there are 31 different bets, a £1 Lucky 31 bet will cost £31 for a win bet, and £62 for a £1 each-way bet, so keep an eye on your stakes so you don’t bet more than you were thinking you were.

Heinz Bet

Next up, we have the Heinz bet. This bet type needs 6 selections and covers 57 different bets. It is called a Heinz bet because the number 57 was a famous number the Heinz food company used over a hundred years ago, saying they had “57 pickle varieties”.

A Heinz bet has 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 4-fold accumulators, 6 5-fold accumulators, and 1 6-fold accumulator. That covers 57 different bets; without sounding like a broken record, a £1 Heinz win bet costs £57, and an each-way bet costs a whopping £114.

We put 6 different selections at Evens (1/1) into a bet calculator, and even though a £1 Heinz would cost £57, it made a profit of £901, so the returns for these types of bets can be huge, but let’s be honest, they are seriously hard to land, especially when we are talking about horse racing.

Lucky 63

A Lucky 63 bet is the same as a Heinz bet with 6 selections, but it also covers the singles, so it includes 63 different bets. This bet includes 6 singles, 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 4-fold accumulators, 6 5-fold accumulators, and 1 6-fold accumulator.

A £1 Lucky 63 will cost £63 for a win bet and £126 for a £1 each-way bet, so keep an eye on your stake. However, you only need 1 selection to come in to get some sort of return from your bet.

Super Heinz

A Super Heinz bet is now at the upper end of the scale when it comes to bet size, although we aren’t finished yet. This bet has 7 selections and a huge 120 different bets involved. A Super Heinz has 21 doubles, 35 trebles, 35 4-fold accumulators, 21 5-fold accumulators, 7 6-fold accumulators, and 1 7-fold accumulator.

You no doubt get the idea now, but a £1 Super Heinz will cost a mammoth £120 whilst a £1 each-way bet would cost £240, so most people would want to adjust their stakes accordingly. This type of bet doesn’t land for many people often, but when it does, the returns can be fantastic. We chucked 7 Evens (1/1) selections into a betting calculator, and although the stake was £120, if it all came in, it would return a cool £2052 in profits.

If you want a bet like this with singles added, honestly, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bookie offering it. It is called a Super Heinz with Singles, and when we checked, we couldn’t even find a bookmaker offering one.

Goliath Bet

As the name suggests, a Goliath bet is huge. To start, you need to pick 8 different selections from different events, and the bet then includes 247 different outcomes. The bet consists of  28 doubles, 56 trebles, 70 4-Folds, 56 5-Folds, 28 6-Folds, 8 7-Folds, and an 8-fold Accumulator.

This bet is huge, and a £1 Goliath bet would cost a massive £247 to place, so scaling it back is probably more realistic for most people. However, if you placed a £1 Goliath bet, all 8 selections had odds of Evens (1/1), and all bets came in, it would return a huge £6544, for a profit of £6297.

Forecast Bet

Forecast bets are slightly different from the bets we’ve discussed above. A Forecast bet is where you look at a race and pick which horse will finish 1st and which will finish 2nd. When you pick the 1st and 2nd finishers, this is called a Straight Forecast.

You get a little more flexibility with a Reverse Forecast. Here, you pick 2 horses to finish in the top 2, but in either order. This is because you actually have 2 different bets here to cover both possible outcomes.

Tricast Bet

A Tricast Bet is like a forecast bet, but instead of picking which horses will finish 1st and 2nd, you select which horses will finish 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

As with a reverse forecast, you can also bet on 3 horses to finish in the first 3, in any order; this is called a Combination Tricast. This takes 6 different bets to place this bet, though, so be aware that if you place a £1 combination tricast bet, it will cost you £6 in total.

Tote Betting

Tote betting, or betting on the Tote as many know it, is a slightly different way of betting than with a traditional bookie, as this is ‘pool betting’. When you bet on the Tote, you aren’t taking on the bookmaker’s odds; your money goes into a central pot, or pool, with everyone else who’s bet on the race. Once the race has been run, the Tote takes its deductions out of the pot, then shares the winnings with all the winning punters. People like betting this way because the returns usually beat what the bookies offer. However, Tote punters get a nice little sweetener: if the final dividend paid out by the Tote is lower than what the SP would have been with the bookies, they top it up so you never miss out.

The Tote also offers some different bets that can be fun and very profitable if you win. These are available for each race meeting and are basically an accumulator, as you pick a horse in the first 6 races of the meeting to finish in the places; this is called the Tote Placepot. This works on the same premise as the normal Tote bets we mentioned above: all the money bet goes into one pot, and after Tote deductions, the winnings are shared among the winning ticket holders.

Although the Placepot is a fun bet and offers great excitement and entertainment (unless you’ve lost on the first leg), it remains a hard bet to win. With that in mind, the Tote offer another bet for each UK and Ireland race meeting, just like the Placepot but with 4 selections instead of 6: the Quadpot. This bet will ask you to pick a horse to finish in the places in races 3, 4, 5, and 6 of any UK or Irish meeting. On their website, the Tote claims that over the last 5 years the average £1 winning stake has returned £442.90, so it is a great way to win big while still betting small.

If you are feeling more ambitious and optimistic, the Jackpot bet is available each day. This bet is available on 1 selected meeting each day, and you have to pick the winner of the 1st 6 races of that meeting. No mean feat at all. A slightly easier bet to win, however, is the Irish Jackpot, which is available for all Irish race meetings. Here you have to select the winner of 4 races in an Irish meeting: races 3, 4, 5, and 6.

What is more interesting about these bets is that you can create permutations, where you can bet on more than 1 horse in a race. If you do place permutations, though, it is important to understand how staking works. We’ll use a Placepot bet as an example. If you pick just 1 horse in each race and stake £1, that bet will cost you £1. If you add more horses, each extra horse creates an extra bet, so you multiply each selection by the others. So, if you decide to pick 2 horses in each race, that will be 2x2x2x2x2x2 = 64 bets, so a £1 stake would cost you £64.

Now, we can’t talk about Tote betting without mentioning the Scoop6 bet, which is the big daddy of them all. The Scoop6 is available every Saturday and on selected Festival days, covers 6 races (usually across different meetings), and usually has most races broadcast live on TV. This bet gives you 3 different chances to win, and the winnings can be huge. The first part of the bet requires you to pick the winner in the 6 selected races of the day, for a first huge payout. If you’re lucky enough to win, the returns are usually in the 6-figure bracket, depending on how many others have won and previous rollovers. Plus, if you do win, you get a free bet on the bonus race the following week, where you can add the bonus funds to your winnings. If you don’t pick all the winners, you can still win through a secondary pot for anyone who picks a place in all 6 races. Unlike other Tote bets where you can choose your stake, each Scoop6 bet is fixed at £2, so keep an eye on your stake if you are betting with permutations.

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Our Favourite Horse Racing Betting Sites

Almost every online betting site available to UK punters offers horse racing betting options, but not all are equally good. There can be numerous reasons why some bookies are better than others, so we’ve broken them down for you and will tell you which are our favourite sites for placing horse racing bets, and why. This could be the number of racing betting markets, the betting offers, or the odds offered, but we’ll break down each site and explain why it’s so good for horse racing.

BOYLE Sports

In our opinion, BOYLE Sports is one of the best betting sites for horse racing bets. Firstly, the sheer number of different race meetings they offer betting markets on is impressive. As you would expect, they cover all UK and Irish races with best odds guaranteed, plus an impressive number of meetings from abroad. Most bookies offer betting on races in France, Australia, South Africa, and the USA, but BOYLE Sports goes much further. We found that when we checked their betting site, you could also bet on horse races in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and the UAE. This is one of the most impressive options for racing around the world, so you’ll find no shortage of races to bet on.

As mentioned above, BOYLE Sports offers Best Odds Guaranteed on all UK and Irish races from 8am on the day of the race. That isn’t the only betting offer they provide, though, as they also offer great promotions and offers on horse racing. If you aren’t currently a customer with BOYLE Sports, you can sign up and get £40 in free bets by placing a 1st qualifying bet of £10, which you can use on horse racing. Once you start betting with them, you’ll find plenty of great offers, such as Extra Places on selected races and one of their favourite offers: Money Back as a Free Bet if 2nd to the SP Favourite, available on selected races. Another offer they have is their Lucky Bonuses, which apply to Lucky 15, 31, and 63 bets. Here, if only one bet wins out of the entire bet, they will double the odds on that winning horse, nice. On selected races, you can also choose different odds to get an extra place in the betting with their Pick Your Place offer, which can be very useful for each-way bettors, and you’ll find numerous odds boosts and Acca boosts on their ‘Smart Accas’, which are created for you using statistical data.

You aren’t limited to win or each-way betting with BOYLE Sports either. While you can bet on win or each-way markets, they offer much more. We’ve mentioned the Pick Your Place offer above, where you can bet with extra places, but you can also bet with fewer places to get better odds. You can also get better odds by betting on how many lengths your horse will win by, or just on the winning margin if you prefer. Some bookies also let you bet without the favourite; BOYLE Sports, however, goes a step further by letting you bet on a different horse of your choice, giving you even more options. They even let you bet on match bets, where 2 horses go head-to-head, and you bet on which will finish ahead of the other. On top of that, BOYLE Sports offers live win betting in-running.

You might think that’s enough to make BOYLE Sports one of the top bookies for betting on horses, but they offer one more thing that sets them apart: live streaming. They offer a vast number of live streams for horse racing, with races covered from around the world. When we checked the BOYLE Sports site, we found streams for all UK and Irish races, plus races from France, the USA, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. To make it even better, you only need to be logged in to watch UK and Irish races, although some foreign races require you to place a bet to watch.

Betway

Having recently reviewed the Betway online betting site, we found, almost a little surprisingly, that Betway had a really good betting service for horse racing. To start, they provide a large selection of races to bet on. Most bookies offer betting on UK and Irish racing, and Betway is no different, with selected UK and Irish races offering Best Odds Guaranteed from 9am on race day. Betway also offers an impressive selection of international races to bet on. It doesn’t seem that long ago that only the best bookmakers offered international racing, maybe just some French or American racing. Nowadays, bookies offering racing from America, Australia, France and South Africa is pretty much the norm, and Betway have these options covered. Beyond those options, we also found that Betway offers horse racing betting from Argentina, Hong Kong, Japan, and New Zealand, so you should always be able to find a race to bet on.

As you have seen above, Betway offers Best Odds Guaranteed on selected UK and Irish races each day from 9am, and they also offer other generous promotions that make betting with them worthwhile. One excellent offer for each-way betting fans is the Extra Places promotion, which offers extra each-way places on selected races. We liked that Betway offers it on many races compared to some other bookies, with nearly half of a race meeting’s races sometimes having extra places. Another offer that stands out is one that will appeal to bettors who like to place accumulator bets on racing, as they reward you with free bets if you place certain horse racing accumulator bets. With this betting offer, if you place an accumulator bet on horses with 4 or more selections, each with odds of 1/2 (1.5) or better, with a minimum stake of £20, Betway will credit you a £5 free bet the following day. To make this offer even better, Betway lets you claim it every day. You can also take advantage of the Betway Free Bet Club, where you can get £10 in free bets each week if you bet £25 or more on multiples with 3 or more selections the previous week.

Another reason we like Betway for horse racing is the range of bets it lets you place. When people first bet on horse racing online, they were limited to win or each-way bets. As with all online betting, horse racing has evolved greatly, and Betway weren’t going to be left behind. Beyond race winner and each-way betting, Betway offers extra options. Most, if not all, UK and Irish races have Special markets where you can bet on things like the winner without the favourite, or a top 2 or 3 finish. Each race is different, so check which special bets are available for the race you’re looking at. You can also bet on Forecast and Tricast bets, and many races also let you bet on the winning distance. We also noticed that Betway offers a great selection of Ante Post betting markets. Part of our review was to check odds comparison sites to see how they compared to others, and it was quite surprising. Bet365 and Paddy Power were the best 2 bookies for the number of Ante Post markets offered, but Betway weren’t far behind and were easily in the top 5 or 6 bookmakers for the number of markets offered.

Another area where Betway stands out is the live streaming they offer for horse racing. They offer live streams on all UK and Irish races, which is fairly standard now, to be honest, but where they stand out is with their international racing. While some bookies struggle to offer betting odds on international racing, Betway has live streams for much of it. When we looked at their site, they offered live streams for nearly all American, Australian, and French racing, and also offered streams from Argentina. Basically, when we reviewed their site fully, we found they live-streamed about 70% of international races. As a final nice touch, we didn’t need to place a bet on any of the races we watched, nor did we need a positive balance or to have placed a bet within the last 24 hours, as some other bookies insist on. We simply needed to be logged in to our account to watch those streams.

BetGoodwin

BetGoodwin are a relative newcomer to online betting, having launched their betting site in 2022. They are part of the Goodwin Racing group and have served customers since 1997 through betting shops and a strong telephone betting service. With a name like Goodwin Racing, you can tell they take horse racing betting seriously, and their BetGoodwin site certainly proves it.

The first thing we like about their betting site is that when you land on the homepage, horse racing is front and centre, so you can see straight away which races are next to start. All the day’s races are then neatly listed below so you can find all the races in one place without having to hunt around. It’s probably the most horse racing-focused betting site available to UK punters.

Given their focus on horse racing, it’s no surprise they offer so many races to bet on from around the world. Betting on all UK and Irish racing is something all UK-facing bookies do these days, and BetGoodwin offers it, with Best Odds Guaranteed on all UK and Irish races from 10am on the day of the race. We mentioned before that it wasn’t too long ago that only the best online bookmakers offered betting on international racing, with races from America, Australia, France, and South Africa about as much as most bookies offered. These are now much more common on many betting sites, but BetGoodwin has taken the offering to a new level, right up there with the biggest and best bookies. The amount of international racing they offer is nothing short of impressive, and we also like that they list race meetings by country, so you don’t have to guess where they are being run, like, say, Bet365 does. When we checked their site, they offered races from all the usual places, like the UK and Ireland, America, Australia, France, and South Africa, along with Hong Kong and New Zealand. They also offered bets on races from Argentina, Canada, Chile, Germany, Italy, Uruguay, and even Panama. We’re also pretty sure they’ll offer markets for racing from the Middle East and Japan, so we’ll check back when racing from there starts to confirm and update this.

Given the sheer number of races they offer to bet on, it was no shock that they also have some really good betting offers and promotions for horse racing. We’ve already mentioned that they offer Best Odds Guaranteed on all UK and Irish horse races from 10am on the day of the race, and you can benefit by up to £1000 with that offer. If you look further down in our betting offers section, you’ll see that many bookies offer some form of Money Back if your horse finishes 2nd. With their money-back if 2nd offer, BetGoodwin simply wipe the floor with the competition, and it isn’t even close, to be honest. To start, you can get your money back in 3 different ways as a free bet if your horse finishes 2nd. These are 2nd but beaten by less than half a length in a chase, 2nd and beaten by a nose, or 2nd and beaten by a horse with odds of 50/1 or greater. Also, if your horse is winning the race but falls at the last fence or hurdle, they will refund your losing bet as a free bet. To make it even better, BetGoodwin will refund your losing win or win part of an each-way single bet up to £100, while most bookies cap it at £10, and the closest only goes up to £25. One final offer can also be very beneficial: they always pay first past the post. That means if your horse crosses the line 1st but a Stewards’ Enquiry changes the result, you’ll still be paid as a winner, and you can benefit up to £5000 per day with this promotion. Please note, these offers are only available on UK and Irish races.

When it comes to the different types of bets you can place with BetGoodwin, it does need to be said that they don’t offer as much variety as some bookmakers, but that doesn’t mean they have completely fallen short; there is still something of interest we like. You can obviously bet on win and each-way singles and multiples, plus forecasts and tricasts, but they don’t seem to offer bets like without the favourite or winning distance. What we did find interesting, though, was that they offer many different markets on finishing in the Top 2, 3 or 4. When we checked their site, we found a 16-horse race at Clonmel, Ireland where you could bet on a horse to finish as far down as in the Top 7.

They also provide a great live streaming service, which, again, ranks among the best betting sites. They stream just about all UK races with a great choice of Irish races according to their website, but we haven’t found a meeting so far that they aren’t streaming from the UK or Ireland. The number of streams available for their international races impressed us most, though. You can watch races from around the world with BetGoodwin, and although that number changes daily, we’ve found they stream between 60% and 80% of races each day. Even better, you only need to be logged in to watch their live streams; you don’t need to have placed a bet or have a funded account, which is a nice bonus.

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Types of Bookmakers’ Horse Racing Betting Offers

When it comes to horse racing, online bookies still take a large number of bets each day, so they know they have to offer something to keep customers betting with them. It doesn’t seem long ago that it was huge news for bookmakers to offer any sort of racing offer or promotion, but those days are long gone. Nowadays, plenty of betting offers are available, so we’ll run through the most popular ones so you can see what they are, who offers them, and how to use them to get more from your racing betting.

Best Odds Guaranteed

This is one of the most popular offers with punters and probably the most offered by the bookies. Many moons ago, before the days of online betting, most people who weren’t at the racetrack placed their racing bets in a betting shop. In those days, if you placed a bet, you could take the odds there and then, or leave it for the Start Price, or SP (the odds of the horse when the race started). This could be beneficial, but also have drawbacks. If you placed your bet at 8/1, took the price, and it won with a start price of 6/1, you’ve done well and got better odds. However, if you took the price at the time but the horse drifted out and won at odds of 12/1, you’ve obviously lost out. The same scenario could happen in reverse if you took the SP.

When online betting started to kick off, the same problem existed until a few bookies offered ‘Best Odds Guaranteed’ on some races. More and more betting sites latched onto it, and fast-forward to where we are now: it’s an extremely popular betting offer.

It is a very basic offer, but it removes doubt and risk for you, as the bookie will give you the best odds between the price when you placed your bet and the starting price. So, if you placed a bet at 6/1 and the SP was 4/1, you get paid out at 6/1; if the horse drifted to 8/1, you get paid at those better odds.

Our 3 favourite bookies for Best Odds Guaranteed

Betfred – Betfred has a great BOG offer, as you don’t have to check whether it applies to your race. They offer Best Odds Guaranteed on all UK and Irish races, all day, every day, from 8am on the day of the races

BOYLE Sports – BOYLE Sports is another bookie that offers Best Odds Guaranteed on all UK and Irish racing. The offer goes live from 8am on race day; it also includes multi bets such as doubles or trixies.

Ladbrokes – Like the 2 bookies above, Ladbrokes also offers Best Odds Guaranteed on all UK and Irish racing. Unlike the other bookies, you only need to opt in once, and then you always qualify for this offer, available from 8am on the day of the races.

Losing Bet Money Back if 2nd

This is one of our favourite horse racing betting offers, although it varies greatly between bookmakers. We’ve all been there: we really fancy a horse, watch it run and be in contention, only for it to fall short and finish 2nd.

This is where this offer comes in. If your horse finishes 2nd, your losing bet will be refunded as a free bet. This offer isn’t available across all betting sites, and each site offers it differently. For example, most bookies offer this only on selected races each day, so you will need to check their site to see whether your race qualifies. Also, finishing 2nd doesn’t always trigger the bonus: BOYLE Sports pays if you finish 2nd to the SP favourite, whereas Betfred pays simply for finishing 2nd. So make sure you check each bookie to know what is required to qualify.

It is also worth mentioning that the maximum refund free bet can also vary greatly

Our favourite 3 bookies for 2nd place losing bet refunds

Sporting Index – Sporting Index allows this promotion on all UK and Irish races, which makes it more appealing than many other bookies that offer it only for selected markets. Although you have to be beaten by a horse with odds of 33/1 or greater to qualify, if you regularly bet on the horses, this may come into play more than you think. They also refund your stake up to £25 as a free bet, which is a fair bit more generous than most bookmakers who only refund up to £10.

BetGoodwin – As BetGoodwin really strives to be one of the best betting sites for horse racing, it is no surprise that they offer this betting offer, and it’s probably our favourite. First, it is available on all UK and Irish races, and you can qualify in 3 different ways. If your selection finishes 2nd in a chase (over fences) by less than half a length, 2nd but beaten by a 50/1 or greater horse, or 2nd but beaten by a nose, it qualifies for this offer. And just to top it off, they will refund your stake as a free bet up to a huge £100, which is £75 more than the nearest bookmaker.

Betfred – Although Betfred only allows this offer on selected races, we still like it, as there are few obstacles to overcome apart from finishing 2nd. So, to get your losing bet refunded, you just need to finish 2nd with a win single bet, or the win part of an e/w bet. Your losing bet will then be funded as a free bet up to £10. It really is nice and simple.

Compare the online bookies that offer money back if your horse finishes 2nd

Extra Places

This is another horse racing betting offer that’s simple but can be extremely beneficial, especially if you like place each-way bets on bigger-priced horses.

To fully understand this offer, you need to know what ‘Places’ means in horse racing betting and what changes the number of places in a race. A place is finishing in a certain position in the race where the bookies will pay out on an each-way bet, most commonly 1st, 2nd or 3rd. However, the type of race and number of runners will change this.

Just looking at the standard place terms for your each-way bets shows how frustrating it is to miss out on a winning bet. That is why it’s now important to check whether any online bookies offer extra places on the races you want to bet on.

Most online bookmakers now offer extra places as a betting bonus in one way or another. The best ones, such as Betfred, BetVictor, and Livescore Bet, make it easy to see which races they are offering extra places on each day. We always recommend taking advantage of as many offers as possible, but checking every bookie for extra places on each race can be time-consuming. So, if you want to take advantage of extra places in the races, head to our homepage and sign up with as many bookies as possible to get great free bets to start you off. Once you have accounts with all the best betting sites, you are good to go. Whenever you are looking to back a horse in a race, make sure you have a betting account with the bookies, then head here to Oddschecker, where not only can you see which bookies have the best place terms and payout on extra places, but you can also find the best odds at the time for your bet.