American Horse Racing - What you need to know!

The first thing to remember when you are betting with us on US Racing is that dividends reported from US tracks are to a $2 stake. What this essentially means is that to get your returns you need to divide the reported dividend by two and then multiply it by your stake.

A Handy Example

You place £10 on Paddy's Boy in Race 10 at Santa Anita and it romps home. You patiently wait for the dividend to come through as you know that US Racing cannot be settled until after the official result is known. At last you see a dividend of 10.6 - to find out your returns divide this by 2 and multiply by your stake:

10.6/2 = 5.3 x 10 = Returns of £53.

What else do I need to know?

Place/Show betting

So you think your horse has a chance but it may not win and you decide that place betting is the way to go. With US racing this is slightly different to what you might be used to. You need to look at the number of runners in the race:

1-4 runners - Win Only

5-7 runners - Place pool

8+ runners - Show pool

When you look at the results from a US track you will see a Win dividend, a Place Pool dividend and a Show Pool Dividend. If you have placed a Place/Show bet on the race and your horse has placed then if the race contains 5-7 runners you will be paid on the Place pool dividend (remember to divide that dividend by two) and if the race contains eight or more runners then you will be paid the Show Pool dividend.

One more thing you might not be aware of

Coupled Horses

In American racing, horses can be "coupled" from having the same owner. This means that out of both horses, whichever result is better counts as the result for both horses in all US Tote markets. This only applies to Tote markets. Any bets on any markets where we offer our own Fixed Odds price (including if you opt to take the Paddy Power SP) will be settled on the official result without coupling. In the majority of cases, the individual Fixed Odds prices will be greater than the "coupled" return.