How to Bet on Horse Racing

Get a 101 on How to Bet on Horse Racing Online

Horse racing is one of the oldest sports to bet on in the world. It has been around for hundreds of years, and actually peaked in popularity around 50 years or so. Despite not being as popular to bet on today as some other sports, there is still plenty of horse racing action that happens on a weekly basis.

Horse racing is such a fun sport to watch and bet on because there are so many different types of races, and no one race is the same as the last. There's also a lot of analyses and strategies that go into it, and it's possible to win some truly large payouts based on the types of bets you place.

If you're new to betting on horse racing, or the sport in general, follow the steps below to learn how to bet on horse racing. If you already know how to bet on Horse races, check out these 5 tips betting tips for betting on horse races!

Pick a Real Sportsbook with Horse Racing Events

If you want to bet on horse racing, you'll have to first find a real sportsbook that offers a wide variety of horse racing bets. Not every online sportsbook today will offer horse racing bets. Some don't because they think they don't get enough action on it to make it worth their while. Others simply don't have the experts on staff to set proper odds and take the bets.

So, the first step is to search through online sportsbooks that offer a wide selection of horse racing bets. You obviously don't want to sign up with a sportsbook that doesn’t heavily feature horse racing if that's a sport that you're interested in betting on. 

Once you've found a few that you like, you can whittle the list down further by looking for a real sportsbook that will give you a real chance to win, and will protect your personal and financial information in the meantime. The best way to do that is to make sure that the sportsbook has a legitimate gambling license from a reputable regulatory agency.

If the sportsbook does have this license, they will likely display all the proper information about it on the homepage of their website and mobile apps. If they don’t have it, you'll likely have a hard time finding any information about it. Avoid sportsbooks that don’t have a legitimate gambling license at all costs, as you could be cheated or have your information stolen or compromised while you're betting on horse racing.

Sign Up for a New Account

After you've landed on your final sportsbook choice, it's time to sign up for a new account. The sign-up process will be very similar at all sportsbooks, though the steps may vary slightly. The process should be relatively straightforward and take only a few minutes to complete.

The sportsbook will require you to enter your basic personal information into their site, including your legal name, address and an email address. Then, they may also require you to upload a copy of your photo ID, just to make sure that the information you entered matches with this legal photo ID. This is to ensure that someone else isn’t signing up for an account in your name fraudulently. 

This should only take a few minutes to complete. Once it's done, your account will officially be set up at the sportsbook that you chose to bet on horse racing.

Get Your Welcome Bonus

At this point, it's time to get your Sportbook Welcome Bonus. Most sportsbooks will offer a Welcome Bonus that will act like a match bonus on your initial deposit. This is done to attract new players to their site over their competition. 

The way it works is that the sportsbook will match the amount of your initial deposit 100% up to a certain amount, such as $500. This means that if you deposit $500 into your account, they will match that and give you another $500 to use when you bet on horse racing. If you deposit $700, your bonus amount will still be $500, since that is the cap of the bonus.

You may also qualify for a free bet or risk-free bet as part of the Welcome Bonus. Make sure to read all the details at the sportsbook to see what you'll be qualifying for and what you have to do to cash it out.
Transfer Money

To actually get the bonus amount, you'll need to transfer money into your sportsbook account. You want to make sure first that the sportsbook you choose offers the payment method that you prefer. Most will offer common payment methods such as credit and debit cards, direct bank transfers and third-party payment processors such as PayPal.

You'll need to enter your credentials into your sportsbook account or log in using a secure portal. Once you do that, you'll need to enter the amount that you want to deposit and click submit. The payment should only take a few minutes to process. After it does, the full amount as well as the Welcome Bonus amount will be available in your account to place a bet on horse racing.

Place Your Horse Racing Bets

Now it's time to search through the available horse racing bets and make your choices. You can see all of the available bets by navigating to the horse racing page on your sportsbook, which can be found through the navigation bar. Here, you'll see all the main upcoming events, as well as all the available bets on the races of those events.

Browse through all of the available options, and make your selections by clicking on them. Once you do, they'll be added to your bet slip. From here, enter in the amount that you want to bet. The bet slip will then automatically update with your potential payout based on the odds of the bet you have chosen.
After you review all this information, click submit and your bet on horse racing will be accepted. Now, it's just time to sit back and watch all the action on the track happen before your eyes.