To bet on horse racing in Australia, you open and verify an account with a licensed bookmaker or tote operator, deposit, then choose a race, a runner, a bet type and how you are paid. A $10 win bet at fixed odds of $5.00 returns $50 if the runner wins: your $10 back plus $40 profit. If it loses, the $10 is gone.
The price you take, the bet type and the stake decide what a winning bet pays, and a scratching or a protest can still change your bet's outcome after you place it. Horse racing betting maps the bet types, price types and settlement rules beyond this first bet.
Open an account with an Australian provider
Only a provider licensed in an Australian state or territory may take an online bet from you. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) keeps a public register of wagering providers, listing each trading name and the regulator that licenses it. Checking a bookmaker's licence shows how to read it. Offshore betting sites are illegal to offer betting here, and their customers lose the protections Australian providers must give.
Three rules shape the sign-up itself:
- Identity comes first. Since 29 September 2023, a provider must verify your identity before you can place a bet. Accounts are for adults: if a customer turns out to be under 18, the provider must close the account and return the deposits. Account verification covers what you are asked for.
- No credit. Since 11 June 2024, online and phone wagering providers cannot accept a credit card or funds linked to one, such as a digital wallet. Digital currency such as cryptocurrency is banned too. Separately, since 17 February 2018 a provider cannot offer you credit or refer you to a credit provider, such as a payday lender, to fund your betting.
- One account in your own name. Open it with your own details and bet only through it. A bookmaker can close an account and void bets that break its terms.
Set a deposit limit before your first deposit
Every Australian online bookmaker must offer a deposit limit and prompt you to set one when you open the account, under the National Consumer Protection Framework. You choose the amount and the period, and the periods include daily, weekly, fortnightly and monthly. Lowering a limit takes effect straight away; raising one takes effect only 7 days after you ask.
A limit binds one bookmaker only, so set one at each account you hold. Each month the bookmaker also sends an activity statement with your deposits, bets, wins, losses and net result. Read it: it shows what your betting is costing you.
If you want to stop betting online and by phone, BetStop is the free Australian Government self-exclusion register, launched on 21 August 2023. You register yourself at betstop.gov.au, and one registration blocks you from every online and phone wagering provider licensed in Australia for anything from 3 months to a lifetime. An exclusion can be extended but not shortened, and it does not cover betting in person at a venue.
Read the race card
The race card lists every runner in a race with the same core details for each. With an illustrative race and runner:
| On the card | Illustrative entry | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Race number | R5 | The fifth race on the meeting's program |
| Jump time | 2:45 pm | When the race starts, in the track's local time |
| Distance and class | 1400m, Benchmark 64 | How far the race is and which horses are eligible to run |
| Runner number | 4 | The saddlecloth number, which is how your bet identifies the horse |
| Barrier | 9 | The starting stall; barrier 1 is next to the inside rail |
| Jockey | An apprentice claiming 2kg | Who rides; an apprentice's claim comes off the horse's weight |
| Weight | 57kg | The weight the horse is allotted; with the apprentice's 2kg claim it carries 55kg, and the rider weighs out at that, with lead added if they are lighter |
| Trainer | Trainer B | Who prepares the horse |
| Form | A string of figures | Recent finishing positions; the form guide's legend explains each symbol |
| Price | $5.00 | The current fixed win price, which can move until the jump |
A price is also a chance: implied probability = 1 / price, so $5.00 implies 1 / 5.00 = 20%, with the bookmaker's margin built in. How betting odds work explains the margin.
A scratched runner stays on the card, marked as scratched. The full field-by-field read is in how to read a form guide. Any word on the card you have not met before is in the list of horse racing terms.
Place the bet, step by step
- Open the meeting and the race, check the jump time, and check your runner has not been scratched.
- Choose the bet type. A win bet pays only if the runner finishes first, and a place bet pays if it finishes in the paid places. Each way is one of each, so it costs twice the stake. The other horse racing bet types, from quinellas to quaddies, can wait until the basics are familiar.
- Choose how you are paid: a fixed price, the tote, or the starting price where your bookmaker offers it.
- Type the stake on the bet slip, and check whether the box means per bet or in total.
- Read the slip before you confirm: meeting, race number, runner number, bet type, price and potential return. If the price changes while the slip is open, decide on the new price before you accept it.
- Confirm, and keep the confirmation. The bet exists once the bookmaker accepts it; a slip you never confirmed is not a bet.
One $10 win bet, priced three ways
Take one $10 win bet on Runner 4. With illustrative prices, this is what it returns if Runner 4 wins, depending on how the bet is priced:
| How it is priced | When the price is set | Illustrative price | Return | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed odds | When the bookmaker accepts the bet | $5.00 | $50.00 | $40.00 |
| Tote | When the dividend is declared after the result | $5.70 | $57.00 | $47.00 |
| Starting price (SP) | At the jump | $4.40 | $44.00 | $34.00 |
The working is the same each time: return = stake x price. So $10 x 5.00 = $50, $10 x 5.70 = $57 and $10 x 4.40 = $44, and the profit is the return less the $10 stake. If Runner 4 loses, all three return nothing.
Fixed odds lock the price when the bet is accepted, so you know the return before you confirm. A tote bet goes into a pool with everyone else's money on that race; the operator takes its commission and the rest is shared among the winning tickets as a dividend per $1, stake included. The same tote bet could have paid $4.30 if late money had come for Runner 4, so any tote figure shown before the race is an estimate. A starting price is the official price at the jump; for NSW TAB race meetings it has come from the NSW Official Price service since May 2017. Fixed odds vs tote compares them across more runners, and types of racing odds adds Betfair Starting Price and the other price types.
A fixed-odds return can still change after you bet in two ways: a deduction if another runner is scratched late, and a dead heat, where the rule books that cover it divide the return by the number of runners tied. The dead heat rules explain the split.
If your runner is scratched or the result is protested
If your runner is scratched, a bet struck once the final field is known is refunded, whether it was at fixed odds, on the tote or at SP. A futures bet struck before final acceptances can be all in, so it loses if your runner does not start. In the tote's multi-race pools, such as a quaddie, a scratched pick moves to a substitute instead, and under the tote rules gazetted in WA in 2010 a scratched feature double selection is forfeited.
If a different runner is scratched late, after betting has opened, the Stewards declare a deduction in cents in the dollar. A winning fixed-odds bet struck before the scratching is paid less that deduction. Bets struck after the scratching are not reduced by it, and tote bets are not deducted this way.
Racing NSW's Rules of Betting take the deduction off the face value of the ticket, so an illustrative 10c deduction turns a $50 return into $50 x 0.90 = $45. Online bookmakers state their own method in their terms, and some may apply a deduction to the winnings only, so check yours; scratchings and deductions works through both.
Protests are settled before the result is official. Under AR 212 of the Australian Rules of Racing, the Stewards declare correct weight only once every rider required to weigh in has done so at not less than their weight out, and any protest has been decided. Bets are settled on the placings at correct weight.
If a protest is upheld and Runner 4 is promoted to first, your win bet is a winner; if Runner 4 crossed the line first and loses the race on protest, the bet loses, unless your bookmaker's terms or a protest payout offer pay on first past the post. Under AR 214(6), a change to the placings after correct weight has no effect on the Stewards' earlier orders on betting; correct weight and protests covers the timing.
Compare the price before you confirm
Bookmakers set their own fixed prices, so the same runner can be $5.00 at one and $5.50 at another (illustrative prices). On a $10 winner that is $50 against $55: same runner, same race, same result, and $5 more for taking the longer price. A price can only be compared before you bet; once the bet is struck, the price you took is the one that counts.
The Terminal on B337's odds comparison board shows racing and sports prices from 40+ bookmakers side by side, with Betfair back and lay beside them and price history (flucs) for each runner. The Terminal reads prices on a repeating cycle rather than tick by tick, so confirm the price in your bookmaker account before you bet.
B337 is software, not a bookmaker: it does not take bets or hold your money, and you place the bet in your own account. A free account opens a limited view of the Terminal with live odds. Betfair is a trade mark of its owner, and B337 is not affiliated with it. Bookmaker names are trade marks of their owners. B337 is not affiliated with them.
Risk: Betting involves risk. A longer price raises what a winning bet returns, not the chance that it wins, and a stake you would miss is too big at any price. Decide your limit before the first race, and see responsible gambling for limits and support.
Mistakes that cost a first bet money
- Treating $10 each way as a $10 bet. It is two $10 bets, one to win and one to place, so it costs $20.
- Backing the right number in the wrong race. A greyhound meeting and a horse meeting can share a town's name, and R5 at one track is not R5 at another. Read the meeting and race number on the slip.
- Reading a tote approximate as a price. The dividend is only set once betting closes: in the example above, the $5.70 dividend could as easily have been $4.30, which is $10 x (5.70 - 4.30) = $14 less on a $10 winner.
- Expecting three places in a small field. Under the tote rules and the NSW on-course rules, a field of 5 to 7 runners pays only first and second, so a third placing returns nothing.
- Raising the stake to win back a loss. A bigger stake after a loss only raises what the next loss costs. If you notice yourself doing it, stop for the day; Gambling Help Online offers free, confidential counselling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on 1800 858 858.