Betting on Horse Races

There's nothing more satisfying than betting on a horse, watching your chosen horse romp home and then seeing the online bookies dishing out loads of money! When you think about it betting on horse racing is a bit like playing a game of chess with the bookies.

Online bookies always set a margin that's in their favour, which is a bit like always starting out with the white chess pieces. Then an online bookies first move is to set their opening prices, and yours is then placing a bet at these odds.

The online bookies then take more bets and adjust their odds accordingly - and then they usually come out on top - unless you're using free bets to bet with!

Another welcome addition to betting on horse races is the Grand National sweepstake kits that always pop up in all the tabloids around a week before race day. Not only are they great fun but they also allow people who don't bet regularly to have a punt on a horse race.

Betting On Horse Races

People think that betting on horses is based mainly on luck and that the only way of winning regularly is through inside information or a great horse racing betting strategy.

This may have once been true once, but in today's modern world where gambling is scrutinised and monitored daily, this sort of thing rarely happens.

So how do make sure you win more than you lose? Should you go on hunches and horses with interesting names and hope for the best? There's definitely a better option.

Make sure you base your bets on information that you've personally collected about the runners and then make a calculated guess and your more likely to make a profit from using free bet offers on horse racing events.

Betting on Horse Races

We've listed some suggestions below that you should help when deciding how good a particular horse is likely to fair in the horse race you're thinking of using your free bet on and then hopefully you'll be able to win the free bets you place on horse racing.

1. Check the weather out and then compare how the horses fared in previous races in similar conditions. Certain horses tend to outlast others in the rain, while other horses charge unstoppable to the finish line when it's cloudy.

2. Don't be fooled into thinking that older horses always run slower than three-year old ones towards the end of a season. This is just not true. It useful to check how many races each horse did run. Sometimes horses just compete in too many horse races and this tends to slow them down irrespective of their age.

3. Check the horses pedigree. You can usually buy this kind of information on certain horses at local bookshops. After you've gathered all the relevant information bear in mind that a colt doesn't need to be as much of a pedigree as a filly does to run fast.

4. Don't rely too heavily on the horses pedigree in lower class races. These are usually the races in which those horses with a weak pedigree tend to perform better than expected.

5. You may think that there is a direct connection between the weight of the jockey and how fast the horse is capable of running, but this isn't true. Most jockeys tend to weigh approximately the same and its actually the slightly heavier ones who manage to win more often.

6. Similarly, heavier horses can actually run faster than lighter horses, but only up to a certain point. A colt usually weighs about a hundred pounds more than a filly and so on average are more likely to win over long distances.

7. Watch out for odds dropping in the early-price market with two or three bookies only and aren't obvious bets from the horses' previous form. Back the former and avoid the latter.

Basically in any bet the winning strategy is usually to do what bookies don't want you to do. It's not always easy working out what this is, but even the best bookies tend to give away little clues, especially when for horse racing. One of them is the type of bets being offered.

For example each-way bets that are refused with 'win only' or 'half stakes on the place' mean you're probably betting in a market where the place terms make the place book well under 100% and therefore in your favour.

Most likely a book with a long odds-on favourite, a very clear second favourite between 6/1 and 9/1, and large odds for the rest with three places available each way. Just back the second favourite each way in these instances.

Article 'Betting On Horse Races' courtesy of British Bookmakers.