Best Horse Racing Betting Sites in Canada

Every sports betting site in Canada takes wagers on horse racing, but the number of options and types of bet per sportsbook will vary.

All of the bookmakers listed on this page feature races from Canada, as well as international meetings in countries like the U.S, UK, Australia, Ireland, and South Africa.

The most straightforward type of bet on any horse race is a straight win. When you go to the horse racing section of any betting site and see races listed, the odds next to each horse will be for them to win the race, unless specified otherwise.

Punters can choose to place a bet on a horse to win the race at the fixed odds offered at the time of the bet. Prices do tend to change regularly in the minutes and hours leading up to a race, and bettors can instead choose to bet on a horse at the starting price, meaning the bet can be placed in advance but the odds taken will be whatever that horse’s odds are at the time the race starts.

In a safer option, bettors can pick a horse to place only, which is a bet on the horse to finish either first or second. There are no extra rewards for finishing first, and the payout is less than a straight win, but the chances of success are greater.

An even safer bet is a show bet, which is like a place bet but instead of the horse having to finish in the top two, it only has to end up in the top three. Payouts can be low, but because of the increased chance of winning the bet, punters often stake more money on these wagers.

While place and show bets allow horse racing punters an opportunity to play it safer and increase chances of winning, there are various other more audacious bet types that are much more difficult to win.

A quinella is a bet on two horses to make up the top two in a race. They can finish in either order but must come in first and second.

More difficult than a quinella but similar is an exacta. Again, two horses in any given race are selected, but in this instance, the winner and runner-up must be specified in exact order.

To take it further, a trifecta bet is the same as an exacta but with a third-place horse added, and a superfecta, which is extremely difficult to win, adds a fourth horse.

European betting sites may refer to exactas and trifectas as forecasts and tricasts respectively.

Different types of parlay bets can also be placed on horse racing. For example, a daily double lets punters pick winners in back to back races, and both must win in order to receive the potentially high payout.

There is also the option of a pick 3, pick 4 or pick 6, but these wagers are very tough and the latter is borderline impossible. Combining bets on multiple races into one wager can also be simply referred to as a parlay.

Odds fluctuate all the time in horse racing, particularly as each race draws nearer. With so much betting activity, it is inevitable that prices will change.

It is basic supply and demand. If a horse is being backed heavily at a certain price, the odds will be reduced. If nobody is backing one horse but there are many bets on all the others, that one horse’s odds will go up as the bookie wants people to back it.

While some sportsbooks just have better odds in general across the board, when you compare a number of bookmakers in an attempt to find the best prices on a certain race, it is often the case that one bookie will have the highest odds on one horse, and another will have the best price on a different horse, and so forth.

It is difficult to narrow it down to just one betting site for all horse racing - you need to have options.

You should have a few accounts with different sportsbooks, and pick and choose when you use each one based on their odds for particular horses that you want to back.

If you are looking to put together a pick 4 or a parlay of some kind, you should add the same bets to your bet slip on each horse racing betting site, and see which would give you the highest payout.

All of the bookmakers listed on this page have competitively priced horse racing odds, but they do differ in terms of variety and what type of bets they offer, so be sure that they have the markets and odds you are looking for before signing up.