How Your Payout is Determined

Understanding parimutuel betting:

As you can see from Figure 1, both Morning Line (ML) and Live Odds (ODDS) are posted for each horse in any given race. Morning Line odds, which are set by professional handicappers before any wagering begins, are informational only and aren't used to calculate payouts. They are simply an indication of how the handicapper thinks the public will bet (i.e., they are the handicapper's prediction of what each horse's final odds will be once everybody has made their win wagers and wagering has closed), and reviewing them will give you a good idea of who the contenders are. Using Figure 1 as an example, the odds maker predicts that the #3 horse will be the favorite (lowest odds) while the #7 horse is clearly a long shot (high odds).

Fig. 1. Morning Line (ML) and live odds (ODDS) are posted for each horse.

Betting on horses is unlike sports betting in that you aren't locked into the odds that are posted - either on the Racebook or at the track - when you make your wager. Instead, your payout is based on the final odds, which may bear no relationship at all to the Morning Line. This form of wagering, called "parimutuel betting", is used at all major tracks in the United States. With parimutuel betting, you are playing against bettors at live odds are determined by the amount of money bet on each horse in each betting category - Win, Place, Show, Exacta and so on (e.g., if someone at the track bets $2 on the #3 horse to Win, the $2 goes into the Win pool). As live odds fluctuate whenever money comes in, we update them approximately once every 60 seconds.

As soon as the race results have been declared official and the track has deducted a share from the pool to cover expenses and profit (the "take"), the final odds are calculated. Bettors who have winning tickets are paid proportionally based on those odds.

Finding payout information:

Payout information is included in the race results (to find the race results, click Results beside the race you bet on, as shown in Figure 2).

Fig. 2. Click Results to display the payout information.

The horses that ran, the numbers of any horses for which a refund will be granted and the payout—which includes both the win and the wager amounts—for each type of wager that was offered on the selected race are displayed. As shown in Figure 3, the Win/Place/Show payouts are based on a $2.00 wager, while all other payouts are based on a $1.00 wager. You can calculate your payout using this information. For example, if you placed a $4.00 Place bet on the #6 horse, your payout will be $8.40.

Fig. 3. The payout amounts are displayed in the results.

Finally, your payout amount will show up in your eCash statement as soon as we receive confirmed results and payout information, which is normally 10 to 25 minutes after a race has run. Your account balance will be refreshed when you sign out and sign in again.