How does the payoff work in Horse Racing when you place a $2.00 bet?

Question

say on a $2.00 bet on horse no. 1 to win that paid $8.00

Answer 1

There are different kinds of bets.

Win, place and show - with a win ticket you have to pick the horse that wins, place ticket will pay on a horse that comes in first or second, a show ticket pays if the horse comes in first, second, or third.

There are also many types of multiple bets, like the daily double (pick the winning horse in two consecutive races), the exacta (pick the first two horses in a race) and the trifecta (pick the first, second and third horses in a race), and there are variations on these and on how to place bets.

The amount that a horse pays is based on how much money is bet on each of the horses in the race, odds are developed from that. If a horse is a long shot (high odds) most people do not think he will win, so they do not bet on him. You are always playing against the other bettors in a race.

The way the odds are displayed on the tote board are an estimate of the payout, which change as people place their bets before the race. 2 to 1 means that you get $2 for every $1 bet plus your original $2 bet back, so you would get approximately $6 if this horse wins. You sometimes see numbers like 4 to 5, which means you get back $4 for every $5 bet plus the amount of your original bet. High odds like 50 to 1 means that on a $2 bet you would get $102.

Hope this makes sense, it is not as difficult as it seems when written down.

Most of all, have fun with it, learn about odds and risks, and play with those numbers.

The payout numbers on the tote board after the race are the payouts on $2 bets, with the more complicated bets (exacta, etc.) showing at the bottom, also based on a $2 ticket.

Answer 2

A $2 bet on a horse that paid $8 to win went off at 3 to 1 odds. The way to calculate a win bet is to multiply the odds times 2 then add 2.

Answer 3

its all done by the odds at the time betting is closed.you gave the example 2.00 bet paid 8.00 on a to win bet. that bet had odds of 4:1 so in other words it paid 4.00 for every 1.00 bet.so 2 x4 would be 8.

Answer 4

The total win pool minus the track take out and state taxs this is about 18%, is divided between the bettors with winning tickets. example 100,000.00 bet on all the horses in a race to win, 10,000.00 bet on the 1 horse who does win  would be 100.000.00 -minus take out 18,000.00 that leaves 82,000.00 to the winning tickes , or about 16.00 for each 2.00 winning ticket.