If I Only Bet a Fiver for Fun, Does Any of This Matter?

Less than it matters for almost anyone else. That is the honest answer and we would rather give it than pretend otherwise.

If you have two bets a year, on the National and the Gold Cup, the bookmaker's charge costs you a sum you would not notice if we told you. The maths on this site is aimed at the difference between losing slowly and losing quickly, and that difference only compounds if you are betting often.

So if you came here worried that you had been doing something wrong with your annual fiver, you have not. Put it on the grey, or the one with your nan's name, and enjoy the race.

There is still one thing worth thirty seconds of your time, and it is the reason this page exists rather than just saying "carry on".

The actual amount, on a fiver

The charge sits between roughly a tenth and a quarter of stakes depending on the race, so on a five pound bet it is somewhere between about fifty pence and a pound and a half.

For the National specifically, you are at the expensive end. It is the biggest field of the year, and field size is what drives the charge. On a fiver that is around a pound and a half of your stake.

Set against an afternoon of it, that is a reasonable price for the entertainment, and we are not going to tell you otherwise.

The arithmetic only turns serious with repetition. The same rate applied to a tenner a week for a year runs into three figures before any question of which horses you picked. That is the population this site is really written for, and plenty of people slide from the first group into the second without deciding to.

The one thing worth knowing

If you are only having a couple of bets a year, the single most useful thing you can do takes no study at all: have them in the smaller races.

Here is why, from every festival race we measured this summer.

A six-runner Group race charges you around a third of what a twenty-runner handicap does. Not a little less. About a third. If you are going to the races or having a bet on a big Saturday, choosing the small-field race on the card instead of the giant handicap is worth more than any tip you will read that morning.

It works against instinct, because the big handicap is the one everyone talks about and the one with the most horses to choose from. It is also the one where the market charges most for the privilege.

That is the whole tip, and it does not require you to know a thing about any of the horses.

How much this varies between meetings, and why one summer festival cost 43% more to bet at than another, is set out in why one meeting is dearer to bet at than another.

A word on all of this

None of these pages is a tip, and none describes a way to win. They describe what betting costs, which is a different and more reliable subject. If your betting has stopped being fun, BeGambleAware has free, confidential help, and the National Gambling Helpline is on 0808 8020 133.

Common questions

Does the bookmaker's margin matter if I only bet occasionally?

In money, barely. On a five pound bet it is between roughly fifty pence and a pound and a half. It matters when bets repeat, because the same rate applies every time and the total grows while the excitement does not.

Is the Grand National a bad bet?

It is the most expensive kind of race to bet in, because it has the biggest field, and field size is the main driver of the charge. As a day out that may be entirely beside the point.

Which races are cheapest to bet in?

Small fields. Across 269 festival races this summer, races with two to seven runners carried well under half the charge of races with sixteen or more.

Should I bet at all?

That is not our call to make. What we can tell you is that no approach we have tested across 29,483 races makes money, so a betting bank is best treated as the cost of an afternoon rather than an investment.

Where can I get help if betting has stopped being fun?

BeGambleAware offers free, confidential support, and the National Gambling Helpline is on 0808 8020 133.