Horse Racing Bet Types

Published on: 2025-05-26

Written by Colin

** DISCLAIMER: Don’t bet any real money based on anything in this post. It’s not financial advice… duh. **

Introduction

This is a rundown of all the different types of bets in horse racing and what they mean.

Straight Bets

• Win: fun dipped in tears. Your pick has to win the race in order for you to win the bet. It hardly ever happens.

• Place: less tears, but slightly less fun. Your pick has to win or finish second to win the bet. The payouts are usually worse compared to win bets.

• Show: are you sensing a trend here? Your pick has to finish first, second, or third in the race to win the bet. This will have the lowest payout of the three straight bets.

• Across the board: this bet is actually three bets combined: a win, place, and show bet.

  • If your pick wins, your payout is that of the win bet, but you lose your place and show bet.
  • If your pick gets second, you lose your win and show bets, and get paid out for the place bet.
  • If your horse finishes third, you lose the win and place bets, but get paid for the show bet.

  If you want to pay more for a better chance of getting paid, you can strike a balance with this bet. Keep in mind that if you’re bad at picking good horses, you’ll just lose even more money using this one. Tread lightly.

Exotic Bets

There are two versions of exotic bets: vertical and horizontal. I recommend staying away from these bets if you want to get paid. They are hard to hit and can drain your bankroll fast. Ever bought a scratch off ticket? It feels the same way sometimes. On the flip side, there might be a time and place to try for them (those days where everything is going your way already).

IMO: I like having fun and trying to win exotic bets occasionally, but I tend to stick to the straight bets (especially just a simple win bet). Eventually I’m going to try to win every bet type there is. For now, I rarely touch these.

For horizontal bets on big race days (and some days with larger carryover pools), the pool of money that’s up for grabs can be six or seven figures, so it’s very enticing; just nearly impossible.

Vertical Bets

Vertical bets in horse racing are contained within one race; i.e. you will know if you won or lost the bet by the end of the race. If you have extra bankroll and want to increase your chances of winning the bet, add multiple horses in multiple spots of the bet. If any of the combos you selected are right, you win. However, the price of the bet can increase quickly the more combos you include.

• Exacta: a bet on the first and second place finisher in order.
• Quinella: similar to an exacta bet, except they can finish in either order.
• Trifecta: a bet on the first, second, and third place finisher in order.
• Superfecta: (here comes the trend again) a bet on the first, second, third, and fourth place finisher in order.
• Pentafecta / Super High Five: finally, picking the first five horses to finish in the correct order.

It is worth mentioning these strategies for horizontal bets:

• Box: your picks for the race can finish in any order and you still win the bet.
• Key: You “key in” a winner by picking only one horse to win, and pick one or more horses to finish second place.
• Key Box: similar to a key bet, except your key horse can finish in any position of the bet. For a trifecta key box, that leaves only two other slots left for your other picks to go into. It lowers the cost of the bet by reducing the number of combinations that can occur (I think…).

I genuinely have never played these bets because I never understood how to do them right. Give them a shot if you trust your own mind, I’ll stay away for now.

Horizontal Bets

Horizontal bets in horse racing tempt you to pick the winner of multiple races in a row. You will have to place this bet before the first race of the ticket, so once that one goes off, you have no control anymore. The more races on the ticket, the lower your chances of getting these right. Have you ever won a pick 6? No? Me either, but we are gonna keep trying. Similar to the vertical exotic bets, you can add multiple horses to your ticket for each race to have a better chance of staying alive. You will most likely have to single in one or two races to keep the ticket price reasonable rather than spreading out too much and picking lots of horses each race.

• Daily Double: Easy peasy, pick the winner of two races in a row.
• Pick 3: Pick the winner of three races in a row.
• Pick 4: Pick the winner of four races in a row.
• Pick 5: Pick the winner of five races in a row.
• Pick 6: Pick the winner of six races in a row.

Conclusion

I think we covered everything, so get ready to shred all your tickets (if you’re actually betting at the window, that is). If you manage to build a bankroll from gambling on horse racing, I think you are a rare breed.

This is a simple run down of the bet types in horse racing, but there are lots of other resources online if you want to dive into how to structure your exotic tickets in a way that maximizes your ROI. Let’s be real though, the people that write those pages probably already lost their shirt.

Have fun out there and don’t lose your shirt.