What is fixed-odds betting in horse racing?

Fixed-odds wagering is the newest old thing in horse racing in the U.S. with horse betting sites such as Twinspires, AmWager and TVG offering this type of betting. The fixed-odds horse betting is quite popular in Australia and to a lesser extent in Europe and the U.K.

In fixed-odds horse betting, a third party (i.e., the racebook) sets the odds rather than the betting public, as occurs in pari-mutuel wagering. It’s the way that people bet on horse races before the parimutuel system began to take over in the early 1900s.

The benefits of fixed-odds betting are twofold for the player: It allows a punter to lock in odds at a fair price without having to worry about the late money ruining the payoff, because big bettors and syndicates are no longer incentivized to wait until the last moment to wager. Second, bettors can lock in a bet at higher odds than the final odds in the parimutuel pool, which is more efficient at determining accurate odds than any sportsbook. Read more about strategies in horse racing and check out these American online horse wagering sites to learn more.