Each-way bets are great if the odds on a horse are over 4/1 (minimum) but of course not all favourites are given such generous odds and many of them start at much less e.g. 2/1 or 5/4 so really your only option is to put your stake ‘On The Nose’.

If, for example, you put £5 on a horse at 3/1 and your horse wins then you get 3 times your stake = £15 PLUS your original stake back, which in this case is £5 giving you returns of £20. And although this is a very attractive prospect if your horse even comes in 2nd place you get nothing!

The example in the picture is a Paddy Power online betting slip on Kauto Star. With odds of 5/4 and a £5 stake the potential returns would be £11.25 if he were to win.

Betting on the nose is great for horses with short odds that you believe will win just bare in mind that not all favourites win their respective races and that maybe you could up your chances of a return if you backed a different horse, with longer odds, each-way.

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So when do you bet each-way on a horse? Ideally it’s when you believe that the horse you fancy will finish the race in either 2nd or 3rd place (and sometimes even 4th place if the race has 16+ horses running) but may not necessarily win the race because the favourite appears to be a shoe-in. But, on the off chance that your horse does win, the each-way bet covers 1st place as well.

The Each-Way can be broken down as follows: if you bet £1 each-way, it’ll cost you £2 and that is because the first £1 covers your horse for winning the race, the second part of the bet covers your horse if it fails to win but manages to finish in 2nd, 3rd or 4th place. You can’t bet on a horse each way if the race has less than 5 runners and a race with 5 ~ 7 runners will only pay out on 1st and 2nd place.

Make sure that you check the odds on your chosen horse because each-way bets only pay out either 1/4 or 1/5 of the quoted odds if your horse finishes in 2nd, 3rd or 4th place. Basically, you shouldn’t back a horse each way unless it’s odds are over 4/1, because you could never win enough to cover your original stake.

The picture above is of a Paddy Power online betting slip which you can see requires the minimum input to place a bet – click on the horse, betting slip pops up, put in how much you want to stake, tick the e/w box and your stake amount and potential returns (worked out if your horse finishes in 1st place) are automatically tallied for you. If you’re happy with that, click ‘Bet Now’ and you’re done!

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