You may have experienced this situation before, you’ve handicapped a horse race and think you’ve found a horse that has a good chance of winning the race. Not only does it look to be the best of the field, but it also is going off at pretty good odds. Now comes a hard question, “How to bet it to make the most money from this great horse?”

There are many kinds of bets available. There is the straight win bet, and also, of course, the place and show bet. There are also many exotics including exactas, trifectas, superfectas, daily double, pick threes, even pick fours, where you could key on this horse in each one of those bets. The problem is, do you just bet to win or try to spread you money around and maybe catch a really big exotic and the win as well?

The beauty of win betting is that you know what you will get if the horse wins. With some good math skills you can also tell pretty close what the place and show bet will pay, providing that you have access to the pool figures. Some tracks show probable payoffs for exactas so you may know what your exactas pay as well. The only problem with any kind of horse racing betting is that the odds can and do change after the race has started and the bell has rung. At that point, the computers, do their final calculation and new odds and payoffs are flashed after you can no longer bet.

Unless you are lucky enough o live where bookmaking is legal and can therefore get set odds from a bookie, you’ll just have to live with this uncertainty that most of us horseplayers endure. Therefore, no bet will protect you from that.

As for determining whether to spread the bet or just play a straight win or an exotic alone, that depends upon the size of the pools and your bet as well as your ability to pick exotics. For instance, if you are trying to pair your horse with others to build good exacta bets, you are now risking your very good bet with other horses who are not so certain to win.

unless you can make a very strong case for the reward outweighing the risk, I usually advise players to stick with straight win bets on horses. Consider carefully how much more risk is involved in any other bets and factor that in to the payoffs. You will usually find that straight win betting is your best bet.