Betting on Greyhounds – A Beginners Guide

In this article, betting on greyhounds: A beginners guide, I am going to take you through the most popular greyhound bets that will help you get familiar with how to bet on greyhounds. Just to let you know from the start, there’s no sure way to win at greyhound betting. However, this greyhound bets explained guide will go some way to making you more knowledgeable on the sport.

I prefer the greyhound racing because there’s less room for variance – there’s so many more constants than in horse racing.

I’m probably not alone in this, but for me I much prefer betting on the dogs more than I do betting on horses! In fact, since becoming a more professional sports better, I rarely bother with horse racing.

I prefer greyhound racing because there’s more consistent factors than in horse racing. For example, there can only be 6 or 8 dogs in any given race depending on the country (UK and IRE is 6). Most tracks are all weather and so rarely impacted by the climate.

I also think it’s more exciting to watch. Why, because the races are fast and furious. It takes about a minute for most races to finish.

I first got into betting on greyhound racing about 30 years ago. Back then I was a real amateur, I’d just try to figure out a reverse forecast in the next dog’s race. There was no system behind it, I just looked up the fastest two dogs and wrote their trap’s in a reverse forecast onto my slip. No internet in those days.

Truth be told, I lost more than I won, but I did enjoy the speed of the race and that you’d know the result really quickly. Another big advantage was that you still had time to get on the next race if you wanted to do that.

Online bookmakers today offer very similar bets to those you can still get in the traditional bookies on high street. Except now it’s from the comfort of your own home or on your computer or smartphone.

In my book; THE TWO TRAP GREYHOUND SYSTEM although we don’t use other forms of betting on greyhounds. I have been asked by readers to give some background to the types of bets that can be had.

When you’ve read through this article you should be familiar with how does greyhound racing betting work. Now read on.

Types of Greyhound Racing Bets

Many of the terms used for Greyhound Betting types are common to many other sports and betting markets too. Some of these you will already be familiar with. Unless you are a complete beginner to sports trading or betting. So let’s explain what are the bets at greyhound racing.

Ante Post

Ante post is simply placing a wager on the trap or dog well before the start of the race. This can be days or even months, in the case of big races, before the main event.

In greyhound racing the most popular ante post bets are for the Derby events. The English or Irish Greyhound Derby events for example. These competitions have a number of qualifying rounds so it’s possible to get long odds on greyhounds even those that are favourite to win outright.

The Single or Win Bet

There’s not much to say about this type of bet. The win bet is the easiest bet to describe. This is a straight forward bet; you choose the dog you want to win the race outright (coming in first place).

Place or Each Way Bet

If you were wondering can you bet each-way on greyhounds, here’s the answer.

An each-way bet is the second most popular bet on both greyhounds and horse racing.

Not sure if your chosen dog is good enough to win? Then bet each way, it’s simply two bets on the same dog. Half of your total stake is bet on the dog to win and half on it to be placed in a qualifying position.

If your selection wins, you win on both the win and place parts of the bet. The place part of the bet is paid out at a fraction of the win odds and will be shown in the betting slip.

Each-way betting can be a very useful strategy when selecting long odds (or outsiders) in a race.

Many of you may already use the two trap greyhound system and will have seen that quite often the winning dogs have longer odds, some as high as 9.0 or more! 

Long odds winners in greyhound racing happen quite a lot. These long odds work especially well when you are trading as a stake percentage of your bank, as opposed to a percentage increase of your bank.

MBT Sports Pro Tip:

Betting on greyhounds: Never miss out on the best odds: many online bookmakers now offer “best price” or “best odds guaranteed”, this means that if the starting price is better than the odds that you placed your bet on, they will match the higher price. It is worth comparing the early prices for different bookies as value can sometimes be found there.

Forecast Betting

There’s quite a few types of forecast betting.

Dual forecast and Tricast betting

Involves selecting dogs to finish 1st and 2nd or 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the correct order respectively. As you’d expect. the odds for this are higher – since the probability of you predicting the right dogs to finish in the right order is very low! It is that much harder to predict.

Straight Forecast

Involves picking the 1st and 2nd dog, they must be in the correct order to win.

Exacta

There’s usually a  minimum stake to bet for an Exacta; it’s the same bet as the straight forecast but the return varies as it’s based on the ‘ Tote’ dividend.

Trifecta

Similar to Exacta but you have to name the first three in the race and again in the correct order. This really is gambling in my opinion. It’s really hard to predict the first 3 in any race, and the returns for this bet are very high to reflect this.

Reverse Forecasts & Tricasts

Reverse forecasts  and reverse tricast bets let you choose the dogs in the same way as forecast and tricast betting but the dogs can finish in any order as long as they are in the first two (for a forecast) or three (tricast). The returns are lower as you have more options to win.

Acca’s or Multi Bets

If you like the chance of a low stake with a potential high return then an acca or multi bet is the system that will do this for you. Simply put, you select the greyhound or trap that you feel has the best chance of winning the race. You select a number of dogs and place them together in a single acca.

A multi bet starts with a double, which is the first two selections, adding a third dog to make a treble. Then a fourth to a four-fold, five-fold and so on. Most bookmakers allow you to go to around fourteen or fifteen selections in a preformatted online slip. But you can add as many as you want in principle.

The outcome if successful can take a simple 1 point bet and make you thousands. But as the likelihood of this happening is very small, the bookies will tempt you with long odds. I really wouldn’t recommend this as a strategy.

Remember whether you are new to sports betting or new to greyhound betting and you plan to use these strategies, start by paper trading. Paper trade first until you are confident enough to start real betting. And start with small stakes.

2 More Questions On Betting on Greyhounds

How do you win big on greyhounds

There are many ways you can win big on greyhounds. My article on 5 of the best greyhound betting systems can be found by following this link.

Which box wins the most in greyhounds

This is a big question! To be honest it’s probably an incomplete question really, or at least it should be asked in context. You probably should ask; what number wins most at a greyhound racetrack? Why this question?

For clarity what we mean by number we can refer to as the Trap or Box number. In the UK there are only 6 traps, numbered 1 to 6. In the US and Australia it’s typically 8 boxes, numbered 1 to 8.

Being able to identify which trap wins most often at a greyhound track is at the core of my system; The Two Trap Greyhound System. But you don’t have to invest in my book to take advantage of knowing the importance of trap, or box, draws.

Typically, the trap draw will influence how a greyhound will run in any given race. You can make a huge difference to how often you successfully win your greyhound bets. If you understand how each trap, or box, can affect a greyhound, and which greyhounds perform at their best depending on the trap number they are drawn in.

I’ll give you an overview of the 8 box set up below. This is useful for Australia and the US. If you’re betting on UK and Irish race tracks where there are 6 Traps, this analysis is still valid, just reframe the middle 4 boxes.

It’s fair to say that, in general, Trap 1 will throw up more winners than any other trap. But that’s not helping if you want to increase the probability of you picking more winners at a particular racetrack.

You can read more on this research by going here.

Summary of Greyhound Betting

Many of you will have noticed that these systems on how to bet on greyhounds are the same as for horse racing and in some cases, like acca’s, can be used in all types of sports. And if you want to learn how to place lay bets on greyhound racing you may find this article of some interest too.

If you want exclusive sports tips, systems and strategies that we only share with members then head over to mbt-sports.com.

Betting on Greyhounds, Is It Worth It?

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