How to Bet Exotics at the Track

Learning how to bet exotics at the track takes time, patience and experience – meaning you’ll have to play with real money if you want a true education on the intricacies of exotic betting. The practical experience you gain however, from learning how to bet exotics at the track, will help you hone your handicapping skills - and there’s an additional bonus - exotic betting offers both the average and professional bettor the opportunity of making a big score.

Decades ago the only betting options available at the track were win, place and show (straight bets), which made making a profit on an average bankroll a time-consuming waiting game. You had to wait for just the right horse, at just the right time, at just the right odds - and you had to have sufficient handicapping skills to spot these horses. Even nowadays, if you are a good enough handicapper to find the right horses at the right time, you are often faced with an underlay (odds lower than the horses real chance of winning) proposition when it comes to straight bets.

Having the option of betting exotics at the track 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 racetracks now, including 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. Some exotic wagers are pure sucker plays while others offer legitimate and measurable value for your money.

When exotic betting first arrived at the track many good handicappers regarded it as pure folly, and they were right to a point – simply because the payoffs for the exotic bets weren’t shown on the tote board. If you thought a horse had a 2-1 shot at winning a race you could determine whether the horse was an overlay simply by looking at the tote board, where the win odds were shown throughout the betting right up until post time. If your 2-1 horse was paying off at 5/2 or better, you had yourself a prime overlay betting opportunity. If the horse was paying off at less than 2-1, it represented an underlay and didn’t deserve a bet. The point is you could determine the value of the betting proposition before you placed the bet.

This was not the case with early exotic bets at the track. 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 (if you consistently bet underlays at the track you will lose money), the fact that it was missing from the tote board made exotic betting at the time a sucker bet.

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. If you like a horse you think should be 3-1 in the first leg a multiple-race exotic wager such as the daily double, and the horse is a 2-1 underlay, you might still find value in that horse by combining it with a an overlay in the second leg of the daily double. Even though the first horse is paying less than it should to win, combining it with an overlay in the second race of the daily double might produce an overlay payoff. The same can be said for exactas and quinellas, for which the payoffs are also shown on the tote board right up to post time. If you like a horse that should be 3-1 who is paying off at 2-1, you might still find value in that horse when combined in the exacta or quinella with an overlay horse.

Over time and through your experiences watching the tote board and betting exotics at the track, you will develop the ability to judge what constitutes and overlay an underlay in the exotic payoffs. An extreme example would be a combination of 2-1 underlay with a 20-1 overlay in the daily double, exactas or quinellas. If the payoff is $15 for a $2 bet, it is obviously an underlay. If the payoff is $150 that would likely represent an overlay, depending on what you think the 20-1 shot’s actual chances are of winning are.

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 – the daily doubles, exactas and quinellas. As you gain experience in determining the underlays and overlays in the exotic betting pools, you will develop a better understanding off betting the blind exotics (payoffs 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.

There are big scores to be made in both single-race exotic bets such as trifectas and multiple-race exotic bets such as the win 3, win 4 and pick 6, but 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.

Exotic bets such as superfectas and win-place pick alls should be regarded more as fun bets or action bets, and should be played with caution, due to the fact that the amount of money required to successfully cash these types of bets on a regular basis is extremely high - and more often than not the resulting payoffs qualify as underlays - which leads to a large net loss overtime.

For more detailed information on how to bet exotics at the track, with regards to the actual requirements of each type of exotic bet, ticket structuring and betting strategy, please visit our individual exotic betting pages below.

Exactor and Quinella wagering
Trifecta wagering
Superfecta wagering
Daily Double wagering
Win 3 betting
Win 4 betting
Pick 6 betting