Horse and dog race betting is a type of sports betting but there are important differences. Horses and dogs are not people. They couldn't care less about some of the "desire" concepts that enter into other forms of sportsbetting. Also, in racing, it is easy to mix with trainers, jockeys, track personnel and even owners. Try wandering around the Yankee clubhouse someday. It won't happen, but it is easy to chat up folks at the track who have insider knowledge. Please note that as with every other form of gambling, there are ways to cheat like doping a race horse so it never has a chance of winning or putting grease on a greyhounds eyes so it can't see the hare clearly. Cheating does not even have to be that blatant today with the existence of betting exchanges. The betting exchanges allow the punter to lay a horse if they don't believe it will win. Hmm. An unscrupulous trainer, jockey or owner could easily force a horse to run even if it is not 100% fit which renders the chance of the horse winning minimal. Although they lose money in fees and travel costs, they can make thousands on the betting exchanges laying the horse safe in the knowledge that it will not win. This happens but for the most part, racing is tightly governed and regulated so it seems as if the majority of racing is carried out free from cheating.

So how do you go about winning in horse racing? Start a bookie is the safest option. Unless you are lucky enough to pick a 6 horse accumulator or some other long shot bet, horse racing really is the sport for kings. With the proliferation of horse racing owner syndicates, ownership has become far more accessible to the ordinary public. The cost of purchasing, training fees, feeding, travelling, jockey fees and race entry fees make horse racing ownership one of the most expensive leisure times around.

Even more important, because of pari-mutuel betting, the only way you can make a good score is if few other people make one at the same time. It will be fairly rare that your own research and study will occur without similarly savvy people also discovering this "good bet". If others find your good bet too, the odds can go into the toilet, and it ends up not being such a good bet after all.

Race handicapping likely is the most strategically complicated of all gambling, even though (unlike poker or blackjack) a person doesn't actually have to do anything, and it easy for another person to make the exact same bet while being clueless as to why it is a good bet! Animal racing has a lot of variables that are nonexistent or at most trivial in other types of sports betting or gambling.

Unlike some of the other mid-skill types of betting, racing doesn't really have the equivalent of the "jackpot" where betting becomes a clear positive expectation. The closest parallel is a Pick 6 carryover, but even then you need to pick winners.