Pick 6 Horse Racing Betting: How Pick 6 Bets Work

The Pick 6 bet is the king of high-paying horse racing wagers. It is one of the longest of long-shot wagers, but its payouts can issue life-changing amounts of money.

Bettors looking for the one wager that can send them into a comfortable retirement need look no further than the Pick 6. Occasionally, horse racing Pick 6 payouts extend well into seven-figure range.

As the name suggests, the Pick 6 horse racing bet involves picking the winners of six consecutive races. That means the bettor needs to correctly predict the first-place finisher of race one, the first-place finisher of race two, and so on.

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To win, the bettor must get every prediction correct. If just one of the bettor’s selections finishes in second place or worse, the bet is lost. The Pick 6 only pays if the bettor nails every single pick. Racetracks offer consolation prizes for bettors who correctly predict five of the six winners, but the bettor must be perfect to claim the full Pick 6 payout.

The only other horse racing bets that approach the Pick 6 in terms of difficulty and payout potential are the superfecta or Pick-5, but even those pale in comparison on both counts. The Pick 6 is by far the most challenging and rewarding wager in parimutuel horse racing betting.

How The Pick 6 Bet Works

The Pick 6 is a simple bet in practice. Most tracks enforce a minimum $2 bet, which allows the bettor to pick the winners of six races. When betting on the Pick 6 online, the same minimum wager decided by each track applies.

A single $2 Pick 6 bet might look something like this:

$2 Pick 6: 4/7/2/3/4/1

In this example, the bettor has chosen one horse to win each “leg” of the bet:

• Race 1: Horse #4 to win
• Race 2: Horse #7 to win
• Race 3: Horse #2 to win
• Race 4: Horse #3 to win
• Race 5: Horse #4 to win
• Race 6: Horse #1 to win

Bettors can also make multiple selections in one or more races to improve their odds of winning, but the costs scale up quickly because there are so many winning combinations. We’ll discuss costs in more detail shortly.

The Pick 6 betting pool is independent of all other wagers at the track. As bettors place Pick 6 bets, all money is placed into a single pool to be paid out later when someone submits a winning ticket.

Pick 6 Carryovers

Because the Pick 6 is so difficult to win, weeks can go by without a Pick 6 winner. If a race card finishes without a Pick 6 winner, the track deducts its takeout from the pool and carries it over to the next day. As days pass without winners, the betting pool grows larger and larger until someone wins it all.

It is not uncommon for race tracks to generate six or seven-figure Pick 6 pools by the time someone places a winning Pick 6 bet.

Bettors who place their wagers online can view this handy carryover tracker by Equibase to find the biggest Pick 6 prize pools each day. Most online racebooks provide similar resources that customers can use to bet into the biggest Pick 6 pools.

Pick 6 Will-Pays

Pick 6 will-pays tell bettors how much winning wagers will pay at the conclusion of the next race. Bettors can find Pick 6 will-pays by opening the race and selecting the “Pools” tab and then choosing “Will Pays.” Additionally, bettors can visit the Equibase link mentioned above for a list of current carryovers around the country to get an idea of the current Pick 6 betting pools at various tracks.

Unlike most pool information you’ll find on a race card, will-pays tell bettors with certainty how much winning wagers will pay if won. The will-pays table provides the exact payoff for each horse in the final leg of the bet, which can add a considerable amount of anticipation if you have a ticket that’s one win away from generating a massive payout.

Consolation Pick 6 Prizes

If no one wins the Pick 6 on any given race day, the track will award a part of the pool as a consolation prize to anyone who correctly predicted five of the day’s six races.

Consolation prizes vary in size but can be significant in their own right. For example, some tracks set aside 25% of the pool for consolation prizes and reserve 75% for the next person to place a perfect Pick 6 wager.

It is not uncommon for consolation prizes to extend into four and five-figure territory as the larger pool grows. If multiple bettors place winning tickets or qualify for consolation payouts, the prize pool for each is divided equally among all winners.

Rainbow Pick 6 Bets

The Rainbow Pick 6 is a variant of the standard Pick 6 and functions similarly. Both wagers involve picking the winners of six consecutive races, but the Rainbow Pick 6 offers an even higher payout potential because it only pays the jackpot if there is a single, unique winning ticket.

First, most tracks offer the Rainbow 6 for much lower minimum wagers, typically $0.10 or $0.20. As we will discuss in the next section, Pick 6 bets can get expensive very quickly when bettors begin making multiple selections in each race. The Rainbow 6 allows bettors to play more combinations without breaking the bank.

Second, the Rainbow Pick 6 only pays the full prize pool if there is a single winning ticket. If two or more bettors manage to pick the winners of all six races, the bet pays a portion of the prize pool to both winners and carries the rest over to the next day’s Pick 6 betting pool.

How to Place A Pick 6 Horse Bet Online

High quality horse racing betting sites make it easy to find and place Pick 6 wagers. Browsing a long list of races to find open Pick 6 bets is an exercise in frustration, but the best racebooks highlight available Pick 6 wagers so bettors can log in and quickly find which tracks and races are open for business.

Most horse racing betting sites provide an area where bettors can view all large jackpots, upcoming pick 6 wagers, and carryovers. Additionally, the main list of upcoming races may also highlight any tracks that have significant carryovers and jackpots.

For example, the navigation menu at TwinSpires includes a link to a page where customers can view the day’s carryovers. Once there, bettors can see the day’s biggest multi-race bets, including pick-6 wagers with large potential payouts, and jump straight to the appropriate race:

Once you have identified a race with an open Pick 6 wager, you can view the racecard and use the betting menu to select the appropriate wager. Next, it’s just a matter of using the tabs near the top of the card to make a selection in each of the six relevant races:

Horse Racing Pick 6 Betting Costs

The straight Pick 6 is an inexpensive wager, but its price increases exponentially if bettors wish to make multiple selections in one or more races.

At most race tracks, bettors can place a single Pick 6 bet for as little as $2. A single wager allows bettors to make one prediction for each of the six races, which means they need to be perfect to win the bet.

Bettors willing to spend more money may also make multiple selections for one or more legs to increase their odds of winning. However, the costs for doing so scale up very quickly due to the race having so many possible winning combinations.

For instance, making two selections for every race in a $2 Pick 6 increases the total cost from $2 to $128. Bump that up just once to three selections for every race, and the price jumps to $1,458. It only gets more expensive from there.

Bettors can find free Pick 6 calculators online to figure the cost of any Pick 6 combination or use the following formula to calculate the cost manually:

(H x H x H x H x H x H) x P

H = Number of horses in each leg

P = Base wager price

For example, if the bettor wishes to place a $2 Pick 6 with three selections in the first race, three selections in the second race, and one selection in each of the remaining races, the calculation for that wager would look like this:

(3 x 3 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1) x $2

9 x $2 = $18

Bettors can keep the price of the Pick 6 under control by doing their best to make just one selection in as many races as possible. Pick 6 pricing remains fairly reasonable if bettors only make multiple selections in one or two races.

Record Pick 6 Horse Racing Payouts

The Pick 6 bet is responsible for most of horse racing’s biggest recorded payouts. Below we detail some of the biggest Pick 6 jackpots of all time, but this is only a partial list. Many bettors have won large Pick 6 payouts over the years.

Sometimes, the Pick 6 betting pool grows so large that it attracts a surge of betting interest from around the country. During these instances, it is not uncommon for multiple tickets to hit the Pick 6 and split the prize equally, resulting in a smaller payout for each winner.

$15,285,707 Pick 6 Payout in 2016

Gulfstream Park’s 20-cent Rainbow 6 shattered all previous records in March 2016 when the betting pool ballooned past $15 million. The size of the jackpot and news of a mandatory payout prompted bettors to pump more than $10 million worth of wagers into the pool in one day.

In the end, 147 tickets correctly predicted all six winners. After track takeout, each $0.20 ticketholder received an $89,456.54 payout.

$10.8 Million in 2007

The second-largest recorded Pick 6 payout occurred at Hollywood Park in July 2007 when 13 bettors submitted perfect tickets to spit a then-record pool of $10,870,852.60. Each winning ticketholder received more than $576,000 while 807 consolation prizes for tickets that predicted five winners received $2,240.40 each.

$6.7 Million in 2014

In May 2014, a Gulfstream Park bettor won the Pick 6 for $6,678,939.12, which remains one of the largest payouts ever issued to a single ticketholder. The bettor was a longtime thoroughbred owner whose ticket covered many combinations and cost more than $7,600.

His winning ticket:

• Race 3: All horses
• Race 4: All horses
• Race 5: All horses
• Race 6: Horse #1 and Horse #4
• Race 7: All horses
• Race 8: All horses

$3.6 Million in 2013

Gulfstream Park set a new record in 2013 when its Rainbow Pick 6 paid $3,591,245.44 to a single bettor. The big win came after nearly two months of buildup, during which no one managed to win the Pick 6 jackpot.

Pick 6 Horse Racing Bets FAQ