Columbus, OH — Across all 30 of the extended pari-mutuel tracks that raced in the U.S. over the last four years (2021-24), total handle over the period declined by 4.3% with average nightly wagering being down 1.7% and average betting on a per-race basis down by 5.6%.
During this time, the percentage of handle by wager type has stayed remarkably level. Although there were fewer dollars in total wagered, the way bets are being placed is virtually unchanged. The Standardbred player is an extremely consistent animal.
The wager most universally preferred by bettors is the exacta, which garners around 26% of the total handle. This is followed closely by the trifecta, which accounts for about 24%, and then win, capturing roughly 17% of all dollars wagered on the sport.
The trifecta is the only wager type that has shown any sort of measurable change over time, with its share of wagering dollars declining by about 1.1% in the period.
The data would indicate that, on average, the harness racing betting public prefers the intra-race wagers that produce immediate results with chances at moderate payouts, as opposed to inter-race wagers that include multiple legs and require more effort.
Of those multi-race wagers that are played by a subset of the population, the Pick-4 dominated with 2.8% of all handle while all others had around a 1.6% share each.
Gait
You probably won’t be all that shocked to discover that trotting races handle less than pacing races. Granted, there are about 2.5 times fewer trotting races held each year across all the various tracks, but on average, they take in 3.6% less in wagering dollars per race.
As most Standardbred horseplayers are aware, trotters have a much higher propensity for making that critical break in stride that causes tickets to be torn up in an instant.
What is interesting to note, however, is that the mix of wagers being placed on trots is slightly different. There is a noticeable 0.6% increase in exacta bets placed and a 1.2% bump in superfecta wagers. Additionally, some show wagering seems to be shifted in favor of more win bets. There is also a decline in the multi-race wagers that conclude with a trot as the final leg, but the data is limited in this regard.
All of this makes intuitive sense. With the unpredictability of breaks in stride, gamblers are either saving their money for opportunities with a higher confidence factor or leaning towards wagers where a little bit of volatility can pay off in a bigger way.
Track condition
On average, over the last four years, 9.4% more per race has been wagered on surfaces that were not listed as “fast.” Approximately 14% of all races during the time period were in this category of “off” tracks.
Much like with trotters, races on varying other conditions must have that similar unpredictability and volatility that we are observing shifts a gambler’s tendencies. In the “off” track races, the percentage of money spent on trifecta and superfecta tickets got a boost while more win, place and show bets were saved for a non-rainy day.
Track size
Harness horseplayers have varying opinions about what size racetrack produces their favorite style of racing to watch and wager on. Some preach the thrill of half-mile track racing, others only consider large ovals as racing worthy of a wager, and then there’s a whole other group somewhere in the middle — preferring five-eighths-mile tracks, to be exact.
For this section, we can’t really look at overall handle because the limited set of large tracks (seven-eighths and one mile) dominates the wagering landscape, but we can still look at the wagering tendencies across the various size tracks and uncover some interesting facts.
Large tracks that can accommodate bigger fields dominate inter-track wagering, showing far higher percentages of handle on multi-leg wagers than at the other sizes.
Medium size tracks (five-eighths of a mile) show the highest percentages of win, place, show and exacta bets. This would appear to signal that the players of these tracks are more traditional and perhaps believe the races are more even keeled to handicap and bet.
At small tracks (half-mile), players opt for the trifecta and superfecta options. With the percentage of winning favorites being the highest at small tracks, it appears that gamblers seek out wagers that can produce bigger returns despite higher takeout.
Field size
The more horses in a race, the more money gets bet on that race. The data proves this to be universally true. Average per-race handle goes up with each extra starter.
According to the look at handle over the last four years at all tracks, a six-horse field will achieve 26.2% more in wagers than a five-horse field. A seven-horse field will average 18.8% more than with six. An eight-horse field will reach 11.7% more in bets than seven. A nine-horse field takes in 26.4% more than with eight. A 10-horse field will total 30.8% more in bets than nine.
Large fields are the clearly the desire of most horseplayers, so let’s look at how all that money is spread out amongst the various betting options in these varying field sizes.
As the number of horses in a race increases, the ratios of traditional win, place and show bets decrease. Curiously, the extremely popular trifecta pools also take a dip as field sizes get very large. So where do all these missing wagering dollars end up?
They’re mainly showing up in two places: the “other” category, made up of wagers like the pentafecta (Hi-5), etc.; and there in inter-race wagers, where the probable payouts are likely to be much higher with large numbers of possible combinations. Large fields boost both wagering and prospects for life-changing scores.
Purse
Used as a measure of class, purse also influences wagering dollars. The higher the purse of a race, the more money is wagered on average. Segmenting the industry-wide data into purse levels of low, medium and high, the mid-level races handle 17.2% more per race than low-class races, and top-class races handle 19.0% more than that.
There’s a clear trend with regards to wager type, as well. As the class of race gets higher, so do the proportions of win, place and show bets. Conversely, as the class of race diminishes, the trifecta and superfecta bets become more popular.
What this likely indicates is that the public feels more inclined to wager when there’s more on the line. Higher purses may lend to perceived higher integrity and wagering confidence. The data also shows that often inconsistent lower-level competition has bettors taking more shots in the dark at the “gimmicks” for potential higher returns.
Conclusion
There wasn’t much mention of the exacta throughout this analysis because it was consistently the most preferred, dependable wager across all subsegments of the data we analyzed. It is clearly the “go-to” wager for the core harness player.
From this analysis, we inferred that the public likes wagering on large fields of higher quality pacers in bad weather. However, we can’t wave a magic wand and change the weather patterns, convert trotters into classy pacers, or put the maximum number of horses behind the gate without impacting the number of available races.
What we can learn from this analysis is that some segment of harness players — and gamblers, in general — appear to be drawn to a notion of unpredictability. They wager more in situations that aren’t as clear-cut because, in the pari-mutuel setting, it means prospects of a better return. Big wins equal big fun in the minds of the casual gambler.
One might then propose that the key to unlocking higher handle in the sport would be to introduce other levels of this perceived unpredictability. At one point in time, varying distance races were contested, but as of now, they have almost entirely disappeared.
All major sports have enacted rule changes over the years as their games evolved to help stay relevant and interesting to new groups of fans, fairly confident their hardcore ones will stick around. Harness racing might consider doing the same.