How to Bet Exotics at the Horse Tracks

To learn how to bet the exotics at the horse tracks takes time, patience and experience. Thus, you will need to play with real money if you want a true education on the intricacies of exotic betting. This experience from learning how to bet exotics at the horse tracks will help you hone your handicapping skills. In addition, exotic betting offers the horse bettor the opportunity of making a big score.

Years ago the only betting options available at the horse tracks were win, place and show. Better known as straight bets. However, now with the exotic betting the horse bettor can really score bigger winnings.

Having the option of betting exotics at the horse tracks allows you to turn an otherwise unplayable race into a prime betting opportunity, by combining horses on a single ticket in the same race or over multiple races in a fashion that will produce an overlay payoff.

There are a number of different types of exotic bets offered at all major horse tracks now. Exotic bets include single race exotic bets such as exactas, quinellas, trifectas, and superfectas, as well as multiple-race exotic wagers such as daily doubles, win threes, win fours, pick fives, pick sixes, and win or place pick alls.

When exotic bets were first used at the horse tracks, payoffs for exotic wagers such as daily doubles, exactas and quinellas were not shown on the tote board. This meant that even if you liked a 5-1 shot with a 10-1 shot, you could not determine whether the payoff constituted an underlay or an overlay. And since this information is critical to making money at the track the fact that it was missing from the tote board made exotic betting at the time a sucker bet.

However, fast forward to modern horse racing, where payoffs for at least some of the available exotic wagers are given on the tote board. Tote boards now show the payoffs for exactas, quinellas and daily doubles right up to post time.

With experience and watching the tote board and betting exotics at the track, you will soon develop the ability to judge what constitutes an overlay an underlay in the exotic payoffs.

The point is that if you are a good enough handicapper to determine which horses are underlays and overlays in the win betting, you should also be able to determine what constitutes an underlay or overlay payoff in the exotic betting.

If you are serious about learning how to bet exotics at the track, you should start off betting the exotics whose payouts are displayed on the tote board, such as the daily doubles, exactas and quinellas. As you gain experience in determining the underlays and overlays in the exotic betting pools, you will soon develop a better understanding of betting the exotics that are not displayed on the tote board such as the trifectas and superfectas and multiple-race exotic wagers such as the win 3, win 4, pick 6 and lottery type wagers such as the win or place pick alls.

You can score big in both single-race exotic bets such as trifectas and multiple-race exotic bets such as the win 3, win 4 and pick 6. However, because the payouts for these types of exotic bets are not displayed on the tote board, you must be able to determine for yourself, which horses the public is likely to underbet and overbet, in order to estimate your chances of an overlay payoff.