Terminology can either make you a successful gambler, or it can leave you feeling frustrated and confused. It’s completely up to you to figure out which one you would rather become. The reality is betting is definitely a great way to pass the time, but you need to be as well informed as you possibly can be. What do you need to know first? Well, simply put, knowing the common types of bets will help you out in the long run.
There are really three basic bet types — win, each way, and lay.
The win bet is very simple. In short, it’s betting on a team, a horse, or a player to win an event. The bookmaker will offer odds on each team, horse, or player to tell you how much you win if your selection wins. You make a stake (bet) — if you win, you get your stake back plus your winnings. The winnings will always be based on multiplying the odds and your stake.
So a good win bet example would be if you were to place 50 GBP on Funny Cide at 10/1. Funny Cide being a famous horse, of course. If Funny Cide doesn’t win, then you lose your stake — at least it’s not money you need for food, right? However, if your horse does indeed win, then you get to multiply your stake by the odds. This would be 50 GBP * 10 to make 500 GBP, and you get your 50 GBP stake back. This means that the total return has to be 550 GBP, but your profit will be 500 GBP. Make sense?
Well, it gets a little tougher from here. You have an “Each Way” (EW) bet. It’s really two bets rolled into one, which makes it interesting to punters. You get a win bet like what we just talked about, but you also have a place bet. The staking works a little different with this type of bet.
If you make a 25 GBP EW bet, it’s really 50 GBP — you’re doing 25 “each way”. It’s like a backup bet. If you get a nearly win, then you get a payout. If you win, you get a payout.
It’s quoted in terms of odds as follows: EW (odds) 1,2,3 — in the world of horse racing, this would mean that your place bet will pay out at odds of 1/4 of the win odds of your selection as long as it finishes in 1, 2 or 3rd. If you get a 4th place finish — no money.
There’s a place only bet, which means that you don’t risk losing the stake entirely just because you don’t win — but you miss out on the bigger payout if you do get the win.
Strong handicapping will be required in order to make each bet really profitable, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a little fun every now and again, right? Absolutely.