Straight bets in parimutuel horse racing are a category of simple wagers that involve exactly one horse competing in one race. Straight bets are a natural starting point for beginners and an old standby for veterans due to their simplicity and straightforwardness.
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The three straight bets in horse racing include:
- Win Bet: Select one horse to win the race – pays only if the selection finishes first
- Place Bet: Select one horse to finish in first or second place
- Show Bet: Select one horse to finish in first, second, or third place
In addition to the three individual straight bets, there are across the board bets that involve placing a win, place, and show bet on a single horse.
Win Bets In Horse Racing
- Wins if your horse finishes in first place
- Loses if your horse finishes in any other position
- Easy bet to understand, often pays well, more difficult to win than place or show bets
- Detailed discussion: Win Bets
The win bet is the simplest wager in all of horse racing. When placing a win bet, the bettor selects a single horse and collects a payout if the selection finishes the race in first place.
Win bets provide the highest payout potential among the straight bets in horse racing, but they are also the most difficult of the group. If the selected horse wins the race, the bettor collects. If the horse finishes in any other position, the bet loses.
Win Bet Odds
Bettors can see the latest win bet odds for every horse in an upcoming race by logging in to the horse racing betting site of their choice and selecting a race.
Typically, online racebooks display the current odds based on betting action along with a smaller notation showing each runner’s morning line odds (the price the track oddsmaker assigned to each runner based on anticipated betting interest).
Horse racing betting sites often display win bet odds as whole numbers rather than fractions. For example, the racebook may show a horse priced at 5-1 as “5” and a horse priced at 7-1 as “7.”
The exception is for short-priced favorites, which racebooks still display as 7-5 or 7/5, for example.
Read more about horse racing odds and calculating payouts here:
Place Bets
- Wins if your horse finishes in first or second place
- Loses if your horse finishes third or worse
- Easy bet to understand, provides some margin for error in case your selection comes up just a little short, pays less than a win bet but more than a show bet
- Detailed discussion: Place Bets
Horse racing place bets take the win wager step one step further. Both involve selecting a single horse in a single race, but the place bet pays if the selection finishes in first or second place.
Whereas a win bet only pays if the horse finishes first, the place bet wins if the horse finishes anywhere in the top two. Place bets make no distinction between a first and second-place finish; they pay the same amount in either outcome. If the horse finishes in third place or lower, the bet loses.
Show Bets
- Wins if your horse finishes in first, second, or third place
- Loses if your horse finishes fourth or worse
- Easy bet to understand, good starting point for newbies, not a high-paying wager in most cases
- Detailed discussion: Show Bets
With the show bet, the bettor selects one horse and collects a payout if the horse finishes anywhere in the top three places. As long as the horse finishes in first, second, or third place, the bet wins.
Show bet payouts do not change based on the horse’s finishing position. They are simple yes or no propositions – show bets pay the same amount whether the selected horse finishes first, second, or third.
Show bets do not pay as well as win or place bets, but they offer even more margin for error. The show bet is usually not the best option for an odds-on runner or even semi-competitive entries because the payouts return so little in those cases.
Longshot outsiders are better candidates for show bets due to coming into the race with longer odds, resulting in better payouts if the horse performs well. And because the show bet pays for a top-three finish, the wager has a decent chance to win.
Bettors are unlikely to make a fortune with show bets, but they are a great way to get started because they are easy to understand and pay out fairly often.
Across The Board Bets
- Involves placing a win bet, a place bet, and a show bet on one horse
- Big upside if the horse wins (collect on all three bets)
- More expensive to lose
An across the board bet is a combination play that involves placing a win bet, a place bet, and a show bet on a single horse. The purpose is to maximize upside while also providing consolation payouts if the chosen runner doesn’t finish as well as the bettor had hoped.
With an across the board bet, there are four possible outcomes:
- The chosen horse finishes first: The bettor collects on the win, place, and show bets
- The chosen horse finishes second: The bettor collects on the place and show bets
- The chosen horse finishes third: The bettor collects on the show bet
- The chosen horse finishes fourth or worse: The bettor collects nothing
The across the board bet costs three times as much as a single straight bet because it involves placing three separate bets. As such, a $2 bet on a horse “across the board” will cost $6. Likewise, a $10 bet on a horse “across the board” will cost $30.
Across the board bets are more expensive to lose, but they offer the upside of potentially collecting on three different wagers for a large payout. Additionally, the bettor still wins something if the selected horse finishes second or third.
One thing to keep in mind is that it is not uncommon to lose money with an across the board bet on a horse that finishes in third, depending on the horse’s odds. For this reason, some bettors prefer to adjust their bet sizes to enhance the payout for second and third-place finishes. So rather than placing a simple $4 across the board bet (which would cost $12), the bettor might place a $2 win bet, a $4 place bet, and a $6 show bet.
How to Place Straight Bets Online
Straight bets are the easiest types of wagers to place at legal online racebooks. Fans can place straight bets by signing in to the horse racing betting site of their choice and selecting an upcoming race to visit that race’s program and wagering interface.
In most cases, the wagering interface offers win bets by default, but fans can easily use the bet type selector to choose other types of straight bets:
After selecting the type of straight bet they want, bettors can then select any horse, adjust the size of the wager, and submit the bet. Bettors can also place across the board bets by selecting that option from the dropdown selector. In some cases, as in the example above, the across the board bet is displayed as a “win/place/show” wager.
Horse Racing Straight Bet FAQ
Wes Burns has more than a decade’s worth of experience as a writer, researcher and analyst in the legal gambling industry and is co-founder of BettingUSA.com. As a former professional online poker player, Wes approaches his work from the viewpoint of players.