Triple Crown Betting: How to Bet on Horses

When Spring gets into full swing and Triple Crown commercials grab your attention, some people start to think about how to bet on horses. The Triple Crown is the only exposure many people have to horse racing, and it follows the same order every year. The Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes make up the three jewels of the Triple Crown and if you want to take a rooting interest, you may wonder how to start betting the horses, one of the most popular sports betting markets in the United States.

Triple Crown betting remains one of the only forms of gambling where a smart bettor can win a lot by just risking a little.  This is due to the tremendous odds and potential payoffs. It’s very difficult for even professional sports or casino bettors to make a big profit since most times the odds are in the casino’s or “house’s” favor, but horseplayers can and do take advantage of huge payouts and incorrectly posted odds since it's not just the oddsmaker who sets the final line but the total of all the money that is being bet on a particular race.  The morning line oddsmaker may set the opening line but the final prices are directly determined by the bettors.

If you are not entirely sure where, how, or what to look for when placing your first Triple Crown bet then you are in the right place, because we're going to teach you precisely how to bet on horses, whether it’s the Triple Crown or a day at your local track. If you're ready to place wagers with confidence and have more fun, keep reading.

Choosing an Online Triple Crown Betting Service

Currently online Triple Crown betting has never been more popular or accessible for fans across the country. If you live in one of the dozen states that currently allow online sports betting, you have a range of options from traditional sportsbooks like Bovada, BetOnline and Bet365. 

Any of these online Triple Crown betting sites will offer the popular pari mutuel wagers of Win, Place, and Show, as well as Futures options where applicable, and you don't have to pick just one service. Many experienced bettors will have accounts at multiple online sportsbooks so they can "shop" for lines or odds they think provide more value than another. Plus, since these online sportsbooks are competing against each other for the right to service your wagers they run various promotions like guaranteed bets or deposit bonuses that you can choose from.

Now that you have identified where you can go to bet on Triple Crown betting let's look at what exactly you can bet on. With any Triple Crown betting horse race there are two basic ways you can take a financial position on the outcome: 1) Traditional wagers such as Win, Place, and Show; 2) Futures Bet.

Pick your favorite pony, make a deposit, and read on to learn exactly what you can bet on for each Triple Crown betting.

How to Bet on Horses: The Traditional Wagers

For the most basic bet, you can simply place a wager on any horse you believe will either win the race or finish in 2nd or 3rd place. This is called a Win, Place, or Show bet; Of course not all horses are created equally, so when placing this bet you need to pay close attention to the specific odds on each horse.

For instance, the horse you think will win is listed as 5:1 or what is referred to as a $5 return or win for every $1 wagered. So if you bet on that horse to Win and it does finish in 1st place you stand to win $5 for every $1 bet. If you wager the horse to finish 2nd otherwise known as Place, and the horse finishes 1st or 2nd you still win a portion of those 5:1 odds. You can also wager that the horse will finish 3rd or Show and if it does finish 1st, 2nd, or 3rd you can still win a smaller portion of the pool.

Simple math shows how these work and as you gain betting experience, these numbers will help you identify value and distinguish good bets from bad.

How to Bet on Horses: The Futures Bet

For the most basic Futures bet you can simply place a wager on any horse you believe will win either the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, or the Belmont Stakes, which are racing’s three legs of the Triple Crown.  The odds are usually set months before the first race which is the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday of May.  

The advantage of taking a Futures position on a horse is because often the odds will be more beneficial earlier before the prep races that come before the Derby.  For example if a bettor can identify the day of the Derby favorite months before the actual race based on the 2 year old racing campaign or by the training improvements, that bettor will most likely get much higher odds and therefore a better payoff should that horse go on and actually win the Kentucky Derby.

A bettor can also take a Futures position on whether a particular horse will finish 2nd or 3rd in the Triple Crown races as well, just as we discussed earlier as Place or Show bets.

We’ll cover more advanced wagering strategies for Triple Crown betting in a future blog post, so make sure to sign up for our newsletter. Good luck to all and as always, be responsible with your gambling; always bet with your head and not over it!