Horse Racing

As seen in our feature on the Grand National History, betting has been around almost as long as horse racing.

For those interested in racing history, Lottery took the first ever National, and returned with a starting price of 9/1.

Today betting on horse racing is a massive industry, and almost every day there are dozens of races for punters to pick winners in!

The biggest betting events of the year are Royal Ascot and Cheltenham Festival; the two respective meetings bring the cream of flat and jumps horses out.

By the nature of these meetings there is often a solid betting shape for the contests, with a favourite that can either be backed or opposed, and the big chunky bets are invariably of higher turnover on races that are 11/10 the field instead of the market leader being priced at 9/1.

It is for this reason that the Grand National is “the people’s” betting race, and attracts volume trade of typically small stakes rather than the massive five figure bets that are ubiquitous for races such as the Champion Hurdle.

Throughout the season there are major meetings for both codes, but each week there is racing of various quality, with a lot of the better races being run on Saturdays.