Is There A Dramatic Difference Between Horse Racing & Other Sports When It Comes To Betting?

"Horse racing" (CC BY 2.0) by Paolo Camera

The Irish love their sports and love a little flutter on their favourite teams and races. Whether it’s traditional Gaelic football or an imported sport like basketball, there’s a betting market for everyone. Indeed, odds for all sorts of sports can usually be found on one single website these days.

With 26 racecourses across the country, there's no doubt horse racing is one of the favourites, but there's one question that punters in Ireland – and indeed all around the world – continue to ask: why are horse betting odds presented so differently to the odds for most other sports?

How Betting Raced Into The 21st Century

"Dingle Races" (CC BY 2.0) by Barbara Walsh Photography

To understand this, we need to look into the history of betting. Back before the turn of the millennium, betting required actually heading to a track, stadium or betting shop and even then, chances of getting odds on the more obscure races or sports weren’t great.

Things couldn’t be more different now: online sports betting and horse betting appear together on some of the world’s most popular iGaming platforms, allowing fans to bet on almost any race or sport in the world, and often during the actual event. For instance, the Irish-friendly Mr Green provides a wide variety of live betting options in addition to slots, table games and other iGaming genres. There, horse races from all around the world can be found, alongside other sports including football, hockey and even eSports. The fact that sports betting and horse racing are now found together on most iGaming or betting platforms should not be a cause to overlook the fact that the two have different origins, which remain in a variety of ways.

Betting Odds Are Calculated Differently

By far and away the most pressing difference between racing and other sports betting is how bookmakers determine the odds. When it comes to horse racing, bets are ‘pari-mutuel’, meaning all bets are mutual in that the odds are decided depending on the total amount of money bet on each race and each horse, as well as the percentage the bookies intend to keep. This is unique to horse racing odds which, as a result, can vary quite a lot between when they are first presented and when the race actually begins. For instance, a punter may bet when theodds are 4/1, but if the horse’s final odds change to 2/1 right before the race, the bettor will only win half the pay-out they initially expected.

Sports betting rarely does this. Sports odds are instead set by the bookmakers and remain the same or similar regardless of when they’re first pitched. The number of people on the team or the amount wagered by bettors rarely has any impact. True, the odds are based on factors such as team statistics, player fitness, weather and other criteria specific to each individual sport - for example, for tennis odds, surface is often taken into account. This is often how horse race odds are calculated, the difference is the odds that bookmakers first come up with for other sports does not change.

So, what can we take from this? Well, clearly those of us who prefer a flutter on horse races are a little more thrill-seeking than our sports-betting counterparts. That said, we shouldn’t enter into any bet lightly. We’d recommend that regardless of whether you’re planning to wager on horse racing or other sports, you regularly brush up on the different elements that all bookmakers consider.