TurfAtlas publishes results and payouts for reference; we don't take bets. This guide explains what each wager is so the payout lines on a chart make sense. Payouts are always quoted to a base amount, usually $2 for straight bets and $1 or $0.50 for exotics. Check the base before you compare returns.
Straight bets
- Win: your horse must finish first.
- Place: your horse must finish first or second.
- Show: your horse must finish first, second or third.
Win pays the most and is the hardest to hit. Show pays the least and is the safest. Across the board is shorthand for one bet of each on the same horse.
Single-race exotics
These bet on the finishing order within one race. The more places you must call, the larger the payout and the longer the odds.
- Exacta: the first two finishers in exact order.
- Quinella: the first two in either order.
- Trifecta: the first three in exact order.
- Superfecta: the first four in exact order.
You can box an exotic, which covers every order of your chosen horses, for the cost of every combination. Or play a key: fix one horse on top and combine it with several others underneath.
Multi-race exotics
These require picking the winner of several consecutive races on one ticket. Miss one leg and the ticket is dead. That is why they pay large, and why an unclaimed pool sometimes carries over to the next day.
- Daily Double: the winners of two consecutive races.
- Pick 3: three consecutive winners.
- Pick 4: four consecutive winners.
- Pick 5 and Pick 6: five or six in a row, often with a jackpot pool.
On multi-race bets you can play more than one horse per leg; the ticket cost is the number of combinations multiplied by the base bet.
How payouts are set
Racing runs on pari-mutuel betting: all wagers of a type go into a shared pool, the track takes a fixed cut (the takeout), and the rest is divided among the winning tickets. Odds reflect how the public actually bet, and they aren't final until the pools close. That is why the payout on the chart can differ from the odds shown during the race.
To decode a result chart line by line, see how to read a race chart; for unfamiliar terms, the glossary has definitions.