Horse Racing Lay Betting Guide

We’re going to look at how lay betting works in today’s horse racing betting guide. This type of wager allows you to win money on betting against horses to win a race.

You don’t need to predict the winner of a horse to profit with lay betting. You just have to handicap races and predict which horses won’t win a race.

Best Online Racebooks

What Is Lay Betting in Horse Racing?

In horse racing, lay betting is a wager that goes against one or more horses winning the race. You turn into a horse race bookie for a specific race in the daily card. The horse betting exchange allows you to offer odds on that horse and other customers can bet on those odds.

If the horse does not win the race, you keep the stake on those odds. If the horse does win the race, you are liable for the customer’s odds and the money. Some use lay betting in horse racing as the bookie for the race, covering the odds on all the contestants. Only one horse can win, so you have a probable outcome of a profit if the right horses lose.

Other horse betting participants of the exchange will pick and choose an individual horse (or horses) that cannot win the race. You have a better chance of picking a horse (or horses) that can’t win the race than picking the horse that will.

How to Bet on Horse Races

Lay betting in horse racing is an attempt to profit on other customer’s wrong picks in the particular race. If you want to capitalize on all the selections in a race, you have to know which horse is probably going to win and which of the other horses are probably going to lose.

The UK and Europe is more familiar with lay betting for horse racing. The US is relatively new for lay betting on horses. Betfair’s exchange wagering system in New Jersey has the right access for horse racing in the daily card. Betfair is an easy way to wager on horses and a popular choice for lay betting.

For example, you offer the favorite at 9-5 odds to win their race. If the other horse betting customer (or customers) accepts your odds, you are acting as the bookie for that particular horse race. It is up to you to accept how much betting action you want for that horse race.

Pick 4 Betting

Best Horse Races for Lay Betting

If you want to maximize your lay betting in horse racing, you have to know the odds on all the horses in the field. The lower the odds on the favored horses, the less you have to pay if they win. Undoubtedly, the favorites are more likely to win the race.

If you want to go with higher odds for some of the horses, the risk of paying on those odds is remote. However, the horses with high odds are going to take a sizeable piece of your overall gain.

Pick 6 Betting

Ideally, you want to have a horse race that is unpredictable and also has multiple contestants with short odds as favorites.

Sprint races are hard to call and often times produce favorites that do not win. Non-graded events are even tougher to call with horses that are unproven. Unpredictable horse races are the best scenario for lay betting.