Horse racing spread betting
Hopefully, the worked examples in the
football spread betting should give you a basic understanding
of how the markets work and some grounding for thinking
about what makes for an appealing bet.
Nonetheless, it is not necessarily easy to apply that
knowledge to the use of spread betting in a completely
different discipline. For this reason, we will briefly
run through the use of spread betting with four other
sports: horse racing, greyhounds, cricket and golf,
as well as with the financial markets.
Firstly, horse racing, which accounts for approximately
a quarter of all spread betting activity. This form
of betting is very different to trying your best to
back a winner, or a selection of winners, as would normally
be the case with fractional odds betting. With horse
racing spread betting, you are normally looking at the
meeting as a whole, rather than at the individual races,
so for many the appeal is limited (there is little to
match the excitement of cheering on an outsider to victory).
Winning SP’s (Starting prices)
The winning SP market is a spread of the total odds
on all the winners on a race card.
As an example, if you are offered an SP quote of 27
–30 at the beginning of a six race card, you can
work out how this quote was reached by dividing the
mid-point of the quote (28.5) by the number of races
(6). The rough average of the odds on the winner of
each race is 4.75-1.
If the SP’s of all the favourites are 2/1 then
the smallest make up on the SP’s market on a six
race card must be around 12 (six races x SP make-up
of two per race.
In a nutshell, if you think it is going to be a good
day for the favourites, and that people are going to
heavily back the favourites when the betting opens,
then you could consider selling (going low on the SP
index). Bear in mind though, that the majority of the
runners and riders are going to be against you, and
it will only take a couple of outsiders to win and you
could be in for an expensive day.
Winning lengths
This is as straightforward as it sounds. Total winning
lengths refer to the aggregate winning distances (distances
in lengths between the horse finishing first and second).
For distances below half a length the following decimals
apply: Head/Nose = 0.1; Head = 0.2; Neck = 0.3.
Double card numbers
Each horse in a race is assigned a number that is
found printed on the cloth beneath its saddle. The double
card numbers market requires a prediction on the total
numbers of the winners. The fact that they are doubled
simply makes the betting more heavily geared and volatile.
So if, for example number 6 was to win every race at
a six race meeting, the total for each race would be
36. this total would then be doubled to make 72.
Favourites index
This is a popular type of bet whereby 25 points is
added to a winning favourite, 10 for second place and
5 for third.
The betting here is as you would bet on a favourite
at the bookies. The difference from traditional odds
betting is the way in which points are assigned.
There are many who would argue that selling the favourites
index is a good long-term policy. Profit can be gained
from the fact that the favourites index makes-up lower
than the initial quote on roughly 10% more occasions
than it makes-up higher, resulting in a small profit.
On the other hand, one of the possible pitfalls of
the favourites index lies in the treatment of joint
favourites. Whereas the bookmakers would simply split
the quote, the spread companies simply state that the
horse with the lowest card number is the favourite.
This could create problems if you had a definite favourite
in mind to bet on.
Backing individual horses
Straight forward as it may be, a word of warning should
be given. About spread betting in relation to the backing
of individual horses (particularly at high prices.
If you wish to bet on a horse that is un-fancied in
the market then the simple advice would be to go for
the SP’s quote. With this, if your horse is rated
at 16/1 in a race where the favourite is 16/1 you can
expect a profit of about 12 points. Proportionally,
you will probably find the rewards to be greater down
at your local betting shop.
Another unsavoury aspect of spread betting in horse
racing is the lack of options to make place bets. Apart
from the big race indices, there is no equivalent to
place betting on the spreads because everything revolves
only around the actual winner.
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