Top Horse Racing Betting Markets or Types Explained

Horses racing betting types are quite overwhelming when first looked at but that shouldn’t deter you from understanding some of these betting markets.

Some of the most common horse racing betting types consist of the following 

Win bet  

The outright winner bet is very much straight forward with a bettor required to choose which horse will finish first or go home first at the race track. This is the most simple horse racing bet type and it's sometimes referred to as the on-the-nose bet.

Place bet

With a place bet you are given the option to bet on a horse to finish first or second or third and fourth in a track race. You only win your wager plus the returns in the case where your selection comes in place of the above positions in the race.

Each way bet 

This is a combination of both the win and place a bet. Here you pick your selection to either win or come in place of a position like 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

In case your selection wins the race, you win both wagers and in case of no-win for your selection but the horse comes in place of one of the above positions, you win back the place wager and lose the winning wager.

In the case of a loss for both the win and place wager, you lose your entire stake.

Reverse Forecast 

This is an exotic wager and in the United States, it’s known as the quinella. This bet type is where you place bets on a selection of two horses that you think will finish in positions of top 2 but not in any exact order.

Dual Forecast (also known as Exacta in the US)

The dual forecast is a bet type where you wager on a selection of two horses to finish in the first two positions in order specifically pointing out for example horse A will finish first and horse B will finish second.

You only win your wager when you get each horse position correct and this can be quite difficult to predict making the odds quite high with a high payout more than they revere forecast.

You can also go ahead and place a bet on multiple combinations of horses in a single wager through exacta keys and exacta boxes.

Tricast 

This is another exotic and complicated horse racing betting type where you are to pick the first three horses to finish the race in the correct order.

This is quite difficult to predict but it also has very high paying odds. This betting type is known as the Trifecta in the USA.

First Four (AKA Superfecta in the USA)

The first four bets are almost the same as the trifecta but in this case, you are to place a wager on a selection of the first four horses to finish the race in consecutive order.

For example: you choose horse A to finish in the first place, Horse B to finish in 2nd place, horse C to finish in 3rd place and horse D to finish in 4th place.