On this page, I will introduce you to our top horse racing betting sites. But if you are wondering, how we rank them and come to these conclusions, then I can elaborate. When we rank a bookie, we look into the different types of horse racing events and festivals that take place throughout the year in the UK and judge a bookie by its approach to them all.
We also share some of the best horse racing bookmakers’ promotions and bonuses that are available. This way we are connecting you to sites that offer the best value, as well as providing responsible gambling tools to keep the players safe and providing good customer service all in a user friendly way.
Competitive welcome offer
Whenever you sign up to a new betting account, you will want to get your bank roll off to the best possible start. The best way to achieve this is to sign up to a bookmaker that offers the best welcome bonus. This will likely be a free bets offer but will vary in value.
For instance, William Hill offers £60 worth of bonuses in exchange for an opening £10 bet. £40 of this is made up of four £10 free bets, with a further £20 awarded as a William Hill Vegas bonus to be used on selected games. Your £10 free bets, and indeed the qualifying wager, can all be used on horse racing.
Gentleman Jim is another good horse racing betting site, but they currently don’t have a sign up offer.
Competitive odds value and best odds guarantee
When betting on the horses, or any sport for that matter, you will want to back your selections against the best possible odds. There are a number of bookies that offer best odds guaranteed promotions, one of which is BetVictor.
With this promotion, if the starting price (SP) of your winning selection is larger than the price you took when placing your bet, the bookmaker will pay you at the bigger price. This is often abbreviated to BOG.
BetVictor also has a Run For Your Money promotion where they will refund all losing bets on British and Irish racing when horses refuse or whip around at the start, fail to come out, or lose all chance at the stalls.
Horse racing betting market variety
There are lots of different and interesting ways to bet on the horses. From simply backing a horse to win, either straight or each way, to laying down forecasts and tricasts. You can also place Tote bets and placepots as well as combination bets and accumulators.
When it comes to horse racing betting, there’s a lot going on at Betfred. If you bet on the horses, you are able to collect one Rewards4Racing point for every £1 staked when you link your Rewards4Racing account to your Betfred account.
On top of all this, Betfred also offers five times the odds on a Lucky 63, four times the odds on a Lucky 31, and three times the odds on Lucky 15s. This bookie also offers a 10% bonus on tricasts, extra and super extra place races, 10% bonus on Lucky 15s and Yankees, 20% Lucky 31s and Canadians, plus a 25% bonus on a Lucky 63 and a Heinz.
Other horse racing promotions at Betfred include a 10% Winnings Boost and a free bet refund if your horse comes 2nd or 3rd in selected races.
Proposed ante-post options
An ante-post bet is a wager that has been placed before the start of the event, in this case a horse race. Ante-post means ‘before the post’, and in horse racing refers to the starting post. An ante-post bet is usually placed well in advance of the race’s start date. These bets are normally made on the most notable horse races such as the Grand National or the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
On the one hand, bettors are able to get larger odds than they might find on the day of the actual race as the closer it gets to a race starting, the lower the odds are likely to be. However, one of the major risks attached to ante-post betting is that a non-runner will normally result in your bet losing.
However, there are plenty of bookies that run an offer where your stake will be returned if your horse doesn’t run. This is referred to as non-runner no bet, and it is a key feature in the ante-post horse racing betting markets. For example, Coral offers non-runner no bet on all championship races at the Cheltenham Festival. Coral also runs a Horse Racing Club, where you can get closer to the action, while it also has a My Stable tool where you can track your favourite horses.
Security & trust
It is always important that you only ever play at a site that has a trustworthy reputation and is fully licensed. Ideally, these would be licenses awarded by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission or the Malta Gaming Authority.
To keep your money and sensitive data safe, choose a site such as bet365 that uses TLS (Transport Layer Security) to encrypt data going to and from the site. This includes your personal details and any payment information.
Banking options
Another crucial factor when deciding on your perfect horse racing betting site is the range of banking methods provided for you to make your deposits and withdrawals. The most common of these is the debit card, which is traditionally provided by the two main banking corporations, Visa and Mastercard.
For the most part, welcome bonus offers can only be triggered by using debit cards, but there are some bookies that will let you make your qualifying deposit using other methods such as Apple Pay. That is certainly the case with Betano. Other banking options can include e-wallets such as PayPal, Skrill, or Neteller. A lot of betting platforms also offer Instant Bank Transfer and Paysafecard.
Web and app user experience
Finally, it is favourable to opt for a site that has a good mobile betting app. Whether you favour an iOS device or prefer to use an Android phone, most online bookmakers will offer an app for both systems. This is true of Ladbrokes.
It isn’t completely vital as most sites will fully convert to mobile mode when used through a mobile browser anyway. It is just that most bettors prefer to use an app. Also, these days most sites, especially the newest ones, have been designed with mobile in mind.