Can You Bet On A Horse To Lose?

I took my son out to his first horse race recently, and I decided to let him put on a little bet just for fun.

We went over to the bookmakers stand to have a look at who we fancied to win, and what odds were available.

Straight away, he said something which made me laugh but equally got me thinking, as I’d never thought about it before.

He asked me if he could bet not on a horse to win, but to lose.

I was instantly intrigued as I only ever really bet on horses for fun and here’s my young son with enterprising ideas right out of the gate.

So, I decided to look into it.

So, can you bet on a horse to lose?

As it turns out, you can absolutely bet on a horse to lose and this is called laying the horse. In fact, in any given race you can typically bet on as many as you like to lose. Though you won’t get as good odds doing it this way, you’ve got a much higher chance of winning.

Betting enthusiasts have always been looking for ways to beat the system, and betting against horses rather than in their favor can be a way of improving your chances of winning.

There are some cases in which you couldn’t bet on certain horses to lose which I will get into, but laying horses to lose is potentially a great tactic.

Can you make money laying horses to lose?

Laying horses to lose rather than choosing horses to win is a much, much slower burn.

It’s equally less volatile, however, since your chances of losing are considerably lower.

Betting on a horse to lose just requires a bit of change in thinking.

If you’re planning to use laying horses as a route to regular profit, the first thing you’ll need to be aware of is that it will have to involve a much higher stake size.

As I said, the odds are going to be much more in your favor than were you betting on a horse to win.

The likelyhood of the horse losing is going to be greater than it winning, meaning your pay-out will be less.

In order to generate high returns, then, you’ll have to be prepared to put down big bets.

For example, if you were to lay a horse at odds of 2/5, you’d need to risk around 200 dollars to make around 140 dollars. Returns are there, but they’re much lower.

The risk reward ratio is even more skewed at higher prices, as you can imagine.

You are slowly paying more and more for rewards that only increase incrementally.

The levels of certainty needed to be sure of your bets in this range are rare in horse racing.

Bettors tend to focus on horses closer to evens for lay bets.

How do I bet on a horse to lose?

Any bookmaker or betting exchange will give you the option to either back or lay a horse.

Backing means you’re betting on it to win, laying it means to lose.

Most oddsmakers will show odds for each horse both for returns on backing and successfully laying horses.

Check you’re looking at the right odds as often they’re color-coded.

Can I bet on more than one horse to lose?

You can bet on however many horses to lose as you like.

If you think there are 3, 4 or 5 horses in the race who stand a good chance of losing you can lay all of them.

If you wanted, you could lay every horse in the race, although one of those bets is obviously bound to lose.

You can also lay horses across multiple races, just like betting daily doubles on horses to win.

You can select a series of outcomes and, if they all happen, you’ll win an even larger prize.

Obviously, these bets are riskier, but betting multiple losses across races is much safer than trying to accurately predict multiple winners in a single bet.

You can even bet on the positions of multiple horses in a single race; say, for example, you pick three horses that will come in 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd.

Riskier, again, but with a much higher pay out if you predict it accurately.

Can you bet on your own horse to lose?

As I mentioned, there are some cases where you are not allowed to lay a horse—namely, if it is your own horse.

You can bet on your own horse to win, but you cannot bet on it to lose, for I think obvious reasons.

So, if you are lucky enough to own your own racehorse and were thinking of some kind of scheme like this, you’re out of luck.

You can’t lay a horse you own.

So, betting on horses to lose can actually be a very smart and profitable way to bet on horse races.

Let’s say there are ten horses in a race.

If you choose one to win, your chances of winning (just in terms of contextless probability) are 1 in 10.

If you bet on a horse to lose, your chances are 9/10 of winning.

Obviously, oddsmakers will make sure to keep odds at a place that is profitable for them, and it’s not always as simple as that, but in general betting on horses to lose is a safer way to play, and when done right can be very profitable.