Horse racing is a popular sport that has a long and rich history. It is enjoyed by people all around the world who either follow the sport for fun or bet on some of the biggest horse racing events throughout the year such as the Grand National and the Cheltenham Festival.

Betting on horse racing is a complex task with many factors to take into consideration such as the condition of the ground, the form of the horses, the track the race is taking place on, as well as the jockeys and the trainers of the horses. That’s why some punters opt to take their selections from various paid or free racing tips that are available from experts online rather than come to their own conclusion.

The vast majority of online bookmakers take bets on horse racing but some are definitely better than others. In this blog post, we will take a look at some of the best horse racing bookmakers and what they have to offer. 

Firstly, lets take a look at what makes a good horse racing bookie.

Live Streaming of Horse Racing

One of the most popular features that bookmakers offer is the ability to live stream horse racing events. This allows you to watch the races in real-time as they happen, making it easy to follow along with the action and place bets as the race progresses. 

Some of the best bookmakers for live streaming horse racing include: 

• Bet365: This bookmaker is known for its comprehensive live streaming service, which includes horse racing from around the world. It is easy to use and provides high-quality streams, making it a great option for those who want to watch the races as they happen. 
• Unibet: Another bookmaker that offers live streaming of horse racing is Unibet. It has a large selection of races available to stream, and the streams are of high quality. Unibet also offer some great odds on racing as well as several money-back offers.
• Paddy Power: Paddy Power offers live streaming of horse races taking place around the world. One advantage of streaming horse racing via Paddy Power is that they don’t require customers to have placed a bet on the race that they want to stream.

Best Odds Guaranteed

Best Odds Guaranteed is one of the most popular horse racing offers and a must-have for any serious horse racing punter.

With Best Odds Guaranteed, or BOG as it is also known as, if you place a bet on a horse and the starting price (the odds at the time the race begins) is higher than the price you took, the bookmaker will pay you out at the higher price. This can be a great advantage for those who want to get the best value for their bets. 

Some of the best bookmakers for best odds guaranteed include: 

• William Hill: William Hill is one of the top UK horse racing betting sites and is known for its strong reputation and horse racing offers such as best odds guaranteed which is available on all UK and Irish horse racing. 
• Ladbrokes: Ladbrokes is another bookmaker that offers best odds guaranteed on all UK and Irish horse racing. Ladbrokes has competitive racing odds and with Best Odds Guaranteed, those prices can increase even more.
• Betfair: Betfair is one of the world’s biggest bookmakers and also offers best odds guaranteed on all UK and Irish horse racing. Competitive odds, regular promotions and unique betting features make Betfair Sportsbook a favourite destination for many horse racing punters.

Horse Racing Features

Another factor that makes a bookmaker a good choice for betting on horse racing are the features that they offer which are focused specifically around horse racing.

• Betfair: Betfair offer ‘Each Way Edge’ which is a unique feature that allows racing punters to select how many places their each way bet will pay out on. Some bookies offer extra places on horse races but at Betfair, customers are able to either increase or decrease the number of places themselves with the prices they are offered for their bet being adjusted accordingly.
• Parimatch: Parimatch is a relatively new online bookie but has quickly become a favourite with race goers due to unique features such as ‘Lengthen The Odds.’ With this betting option, users are able to not only bet on a horse to win but also to win by a minimum number of lengths. This can significantly increase the odds of the bet and is an attractive option in some circumstances.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many bookmakers that offer a good horse racing service. The bookmaker that you choose should depend on your requirements such as whether you want to stream the races live via the bookies’ website or app, if you’re interested in Best Odds Guaranteed, Extra Places or Refund offers, or if you like the idea of being able to customise your bet with features such as Each Way Edge or Lengthen The Odds.

 

 

 

The question of what is the easiest sport to predict is a tough one to answer. Each sport has certain markets and match-ups which can make it easy to predict the outcome.  

It is also perhaps more pertinent to ask: “what sport can deliver the best return on investment (ROI)?” as that is more important than simply whether you can guess the result. For example, anyone could guess that Manchester City are likely to beat Watford at home at odds of 1.10, but would that make you any profit in the long run? 

What we should be interested in are issues such as: what sport tends to have the best over-rounds (or value for the punter), the best liquidity and the most opportunities to profit. 

We’ll have a look at these questions below. 

 

Are Any Sports More “Predictable” Than Others? 

In essence it shouldn’t be the case that any sport is inherently more “predictable” than others. Betting markets are essentially very efficient so if you are betting at odds of 2.0, then regardless of the sport, the outcome will happen 50% of the time over the long run, or if the odds are 3.0 it will happen 33% of the time and so on. 

Some sports may have more instances – and markets – that throw up very short favourites however. Football often has odds-on favourites, such as teams like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City playing at home against lower-table teams. Or markets like over 1.5 goals where odds are often in the 1.10-1.20 range. 

Tennis also has lots of odds-on favourites, such as Djokovic and Nadal in the early rounds of grand slams, when their odds can often be as low as 1.01 or 1.02. 

So in simple terms, these sports may be “easier to predict” than sports like horse racing and golf, where the favourite is usually odds-against and in the case of golf, often over 10/1. 

If your aim then is simply to find the sport that gives you a high number of wins, then football and tennis would be a good way to go. 

This might not necessarily provide you with what really matters though: profit. 

We’ll take a look now at the other factors you should be looking at when choosing what sport to bet on. 

 

Which Sports Offer the Best Return on Investment?

Having reviewed hundreds of betting services here at Honest Betting Review across a range of different sports, we have developed a good idea of which sports offer a good return on investment. 

Return on investment (ROI) – in case you aren’t familiar with the term – means how much you would receive back for a certain amount invested. So for example a tipster with a 20% ROI would mean they had produced a $20 profit for every $100 invested. 

Interestingly, when we look at those sports with the best ROI, it tends to be ones that aren’t always the easiest to predict – such as horse racing and golf. 

Some of the best horse racing tipsters can achieve returns on investment of over 20%. For example, tipsters such as Hanbury Racing and Loves Racing have achieved long-term ROIs of over 25%, which is extremely impressive.

At the same time, some golf tipsters like the Golf Insider and Bookie Insiders have achieved even more impressive returns of over 30% ROI. 

On the other hand, finding a football or tennis tipster with a long-term ROI of over 10% can be quite challenging. It is normally considered a good performance to have achieved an ROI of above 5% in these sports. 

This shows it is important not to overlook sports that on the face of it are harder to predict, because they can offer better returns than those that are easy to predict.  

 

What Sports Offer the Best Value for Punters? 

Another way to look at it is in terms of which sports offer the best value for punters. This can be seen by looking at the “over-round” – or in other words, the edge that the bookies give themselves over a punter in a betting market.

The over-round is in effect how much profit a bookie can expect to make on a market. It is worked out by adding together the percentage chance implied by the odds. So if the over-round is 105% for example, the bookie would expect to make 5% profit from the market. If the over-round is 110%, they would expect to make 10% profit and so on. 

Typically, the higher the number of outcomes in a market, the bigger the bookies’ over-round tends to be. 

Once again, this isn’t good news for sports like horse racing and golf. An analysis by the website Golf Forecast found that the average bookies’ margin in golf outright markets is a huge 42.5%! That is obviously terrible value for the punter. 

Horse racing can be equally bad at times, with big races like the Grand National having over-rounds of 150% or 160%! More normal races typically have over-rounds of 20-30%, which aren’t good value either from the punter’s point of view.

Sports like football and tennis, with just two or three outcomes, tend to have much lower over-rounds. A typical football match might have an over-round of 110%, whilst markets with only two outcomes like Asian handicaps and over/under 2.5 goals tend to have over-rounds of around 105%. 

Tennis matches can often have even lower over-rounds of 102-103%, as can American sports in markets such as points bets and handicaps.

On the basis of over-rounds it would be better therefore to stick to sports like football, tennis and American sports. The bookies over-round in these sports is lower, meaning their advantage over you is smaller. 

 

Explaining the High Over-round Paradox

Given the above, you may be wondering why it is that tipsters in sports like golf and horse racing can achieve much better returns on investment when they face these much worse over-rounds than in other sports. They have to overcome a seemingly huge disadvantage against the bookies.

The reason for this is whilst the bookies overall advantage in a betting market may be large, they can still mis-price individual selections within that market. A horse might be priced at 20/1 for example when its odds should actually be 12/1. It is finding these “errors” that allows tipsters to make such a substantial return. 

It also means that with prices in golf and horse racing being so much bigger – with prices going over 100/1 for some selections, the potential difference between the bookies’ odds and what the true odds should be can be much greater than in sports like football and tennis. 

If a tennis player is priced at 1.50 by the bookies for example but their price should actually be 1.45, that only represents a 0.05 tick difference.

In a golf market though a player that was priced 81.0 that should be priced at 67.0, would mean a 14-point tick difference – or a much bigger return in other words. 

To put it simply then, there is much more scope in sports like golf and horse racing to make a big profit from bookie errors, versus sports where you are betting at low odds in two- or three-way markets. 

 

How Exchanges Change the Picture

All of this discussion so far has focused on how bookmakers price up betting markets, but with the addition of exchanges to the mix, the picture changes considerably. 

With most exchange markets, the over-round is reduced considerably. For football and tennis, it will normally be as low as 100.6%, presuming there is a decent liquidity. 

Even for horse racing and golf, the over-rounds tend to be much lower. As race time approaches, the over-round on horse races on Betfair will normally reduce to less than 101%, meaning much better value than with the bookies. 

In golf markets the over-rounds tend to range from 105-110%, which whilst not quite as low as on horse racing still represents a huge improvement over the bookies. The over-rounds don’t tend to get quite as low on golf as there will sometimes be a gap in the spread between the back and lay odds of higher-priced selections, e.g. those at 500+ in odds. 

What all this means is that sports like golf and horse racing become much better value for the punter on the exchanges, with the over-round problem being largely eliminated. 

On the downside, you don’t get the extra places with the exchanges when betting each-way that the bookies often offer these days. You also have to factor in commission on your winnings, which on Betfair these days can be as low as 2%.

Overall though, the exchanges have made betting on sports like golf and horse racing more attractive for the punter and in turn forced bookies to be more competitive by offering extra places and other incentives. 

 

Conclusion – The Easiest Sport to Predict Isn’t Necessarily the Best to Bet on

If you are looking for the easiest sports to predict, then it is probably best to focus on those with markets containing short-odds favourites like football and tennis. You will be able to find plenty of selections at very low odds, which will give you a high number of winners and the bookmakers’ advantage over you (the over-round) will be small. 

However, it is important not to confuse “easy to predict” with “profitable.” You can find sports that are easy to predict in terms of being able to pick lots of winners, but you could still be losing money overall if the bets you are making don’t represent value. 

The tipsters with the highest returns on investment are generally found in golf and horse racing. This is because there is more scope in these sports to find big differences between the bookies’ odds and the “true odds,” meaning larger profits. 

With the advent of betting exchanges, in these sports the over-round is greatly reduced, meaning there is also better value in the market now. In turn this has forced bookies to offer extra places and other perks for punters. 

So it’s worth weighing up other factors such as return on investment and profitability when choosing which sport to bet on, rather than just which is easiest to predict. 

 

 

 

 

There are a number of advantages to a high strike-rate betting system. It can mean lots of winners, a smaller betting bank, shorter losing runs and the potential to grow your bank more quickly. 

In many ways, it is the ideal betting strategy. So you might wonder why there aren’t many high strike-rate systems out there. 

The reason may be that many bettors – and tipsters for that matter – prefer to bet at long odds to get the thrill of backing a big winner. There’s nothing quite like landing a 100/1 winner for example and being able to brag about it to friends and fellow bettors. 

However, it is tough to find value at long odds and you will also have to endure long losing runs. Focusing on short-odds selections is a more prudent and sensible approach to betting. Slow and steady wins the race, as it were. 

 

The Favourite-Longshot Bias

Indeed, backing at long odds is not only tough to endure emotionally when you hit long losing runs but has actually been shown in studies to be a less effective strategy. 

Two academics from Nottingham University looked at thousands of runners in UK flat races and found that backing horses of less than evens (2.0) resulted in a return on investment of -7%, versus losses of -40% from backing horses priced at more than 40/1. 

A separate study of English and Scottish football produced similar results, finding that betting at short odds produced a negative return of -2%  but when backing at over 4/1, the losses were -15%. 

There is much speculation about the reasons for the favourite-longshot bias. Most experts think it is because the bookies know they can get away with offering poor value on longshots because most punters will still back them, hoping for that “big win,” whereas they need to offer more competitive odds for favourites to attract punters to back them. 

Whatever the exact reason for it though, it is clearly in the punter’s interest to back at short odds. There is more value there and statistically returns will be better over time. 

 

Advantages of High Strike-Rate Systems

As mentioned, there are quite a few other advantages to high strike-rate systems in addition to the better value you are getting. 

That includes:-

• High proportion of winners – meaning regular returns which is easier to handle psychologically than having continual losers with a low strike-rate system. A high strike-rate system often has a 50% or higher winning rate, meaning over half of bets are winners. 
• Smaller betting bank needed – a high strike-rate means the losing runs and drawdowns will be shorter, so you don’t need as big a betting bank to start with and can stake at a higher level.
• Bank can grow more quickly – it also means the bank can grow faster. If for example you only need a 20 point bank for a high strike-rate system, versus 100 points for a low strike-rate system, then less profit is needed to double or treble the bank and so on.  

So there are lots of advantages to a high strike-rate, low odds strategy. The only obvious downside is that you don’t get the thrill of having a big winner, but that should be more than balanced out by the considerable upsides described above.  

 

Three High Strike-Rate, Low-Odds Strategies

We’ll take a look now at three high strike-rate, low odds betting strategies. These are strategies we have tested out here on the site and found to produce reliable results. 

 

1. Backing Short Odds Favourites in Football

The favourite-longshot bias has been shown to apply in football just as strongly as in other sports. We see all the time that certain teams dominate their domestic leagues. For example Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, Manchester City in England or Bayern Munich in Germany. These sides can go on long winning streaks, particularly when at home.

Whilst the odds of such teams will be low – often around 1.10 – 1.20 at home to weaker opposition – and therefore putting many punters off backing them, it does not mean that those odds don’t represent value.

When looking at the performance of such teams at home, they will often win nearly all of their matches against weak opposition, sometimes by big margins. Here is a run of games of Man City for example in the 2021/22 season:

As you can see they are very dominant and can win extended stretches of matches during a season.

A strategy that has focused on backing these dominant teams in leagues around the world is a service called Banker Bets. As the name suggests, it selects the kind of “bankers” we have been referring to – those teams who are at short odds but still represent value. If a team is priced at 1.2 for example but the real odds should be 1.15, that is still value.

Banker Bets provides tips from leagues around the world and has a strong record, with 145% profit made on their tips if betting as singles and 410% if betting as accumulators. The strike rate of the bets has been extremely high at 79% and the typical odds are around 1.30, so this strategy is the very definition of a high strike-rate, low odds strategy.

We ran our own trial of the service and it made 126 points profit in an 18 month trial, which is very good going. It has now been going for nearly eight years so is a well established service and has shown the effectiveness of the approach of backing strong favourites in football matches.

 

2. Backing Top Class Horses in Ideal Conditions

There’s an old saying in sport: “Form is temporary, class is permanent.” This is an adage that particular applies to horse racing, where the very best horses tend to win time and time again when it comes to the biggest races, even if they have temporary lapses in form. 

Think of Stradivarius or Yeats at the Ascot Gold Cup, or all-conquering horses like Frankel and Sea the Stars. When push came to shove they could always deliver the goods, much to the delight of their adoring armies of fans. 

When these top class horses run, it is generally in listed and group races, rather than handicaps. That means they do not have to worry about carrying extra weight compared to other horses and being artificially restricted to try and suit the handicapper. They are free to run their own race and for the best horse to come through and win. 

That means these high class races are often the most fair and should be the most attractive for punters to bet in, particularly as they have the most liquidity. They also tend to be dominated by favourites who can show their true potential in these races. 

One betting expert who takes advantage of all these factors and focuses solely on Class 1 racing is Mel Gee with his First Class Racing service. Backing horses at short odds and using decades of experience betting on the sport, he has made managed to more than double his members’ betting banks in 14 months. 

Betting is very selective and sometimes there are only one or two bets per week. That is because Mel waits for the ideal conditions for the horse – when it has everything in its favour – the ground, distance, course, jockey, etc. Then he backs them heavily with his own money whilst also advising them to his members. 

The strike rate for this strategy has been very high at 59%, and because there is such a high winning rate, just a 20 point betting bank is advised for following the service. Losing runs tend to be short and there has been a good rate of return so far for the service. 

So backing top quality horses in high class races as Mel Gee has done in his First Class Racing service has proven to be an effective high strike-rate, low odds betting strategy. 

 

3. Backing Over 1.5 Goals in Football Matches

Another high strike rate system involves backing over 1.5 goals in football matches. In case you are not familiar with this market, it means you are looking for there to be at least two goals in a football match. It doesn’t matter how many more goals or which team scores them, just that there are at two or more goals. 

As you can imagine, the strike rate for backing over 1.5 goals tends to be pretty high. In most leagues, 70-80% of matches finish with over 1.5 goals. In the Premier League for example, the strike rate was 77% in the 2021-22 season. The odds are typically in the 1.10-1.40 range.

However, just backing over 1.5 goals blindly is unlikely to make you a profit over the long term. It is important to have a strategy that finds value in the over 1.5 market. We have detailed some strategies you could use here, but perhaps the best one we have found involves waiting for the games to go in-play and seeing how they develop. 

Using a large stats database of thousands of matches, a team of professional traders called Trade On Sports have developed a strategy that looks for matches where a goal in the first half of a match gives a high chance of there being at least one goal in the second half. 

We tested this strategy out in a live trial for over a year and it made over £5100 profit to £100 stakes. Essentially it involved backing over 1.5 goals at half time and waiting for there to be a goal in the second half. Normally you would only back at odds of 1.6, so there would need to be a goal after 60 minutes for those odds to be reached. 

The strategy performed very well though and relies in part on how many late goals there are in football matches, which if you have watched football for any length of time you will know is quite often. The strike rate for the strategy during our trial was 67%, which is a very decent winning rate to have achieved and resulted in very healthy profits. 

For a tried and tested football strategy with a high strike rate betting at low odds, Trade On Sports’ strategy of backing over 1.5 goals in football matches in-play is well worth a look.