- Fact-checked by Josh Miller
- Edited by Diana Westfield
Greyhound betting moves fast. Six dogs, the hare goes round, and half a minute later it’s all over, with the next race only a few minutes away at most tracks. You pick a dog by its trap number, 1 on the inside rail through to 6 on the outside, and the bets themselves work much like they do on horses. The big difference is the small field. Six runners means you can realistically call the first two home in order, and that’s why half the punters at the track are doing forecasts.
Greyhound betting basics: the traps, the jackets, the prices
Learn the jackets once and you’ll never squint at a race again. Trap 1 wears red, 2 blue, 3 white, 4 black, 5 orange, and 6 gets the black and white stripes. Dogs aren’t drawn out of a hat, either. The racing manager puts them in grades by ability, then picks traps by style: the rail-huggers go low, the ones that swing wide off the bends go high. Prices come as fractions, and on an ordinary Tuesday-night card you’ll often see something like 2/1 the favourite and 8/1 the outsider.
Each way at the dogs usually pays a quarter of the odds for first or second. Here’s how that works on a £2 each way bet at 5/1, costing £4: if your dog runs second, the place half pays £2 × (5/4 + 1) = £4.50. So you lost the race and still made 50p. The CasinoCalcs each way calculator does this for any terms.
Greyhound forecasts and tricasts, and what they cost
With a straight forecast you’re saying “2 wins, 5 is second” and nothing else will do. Not sure which way round? A reverse forecast is two bets, 2-5 and 5-2. The tricast asks for first, second and third in order, and a combination tricast on three dogs covers all six orders. Go up to four dogs and that’s 24 bets, so keep an eye on the total stake.
These pay out on a computer straight forecast or tricast dividend, worked out from the dogs’ starting prices after the race. You won’t know the exact figure in advance, but you can get close. The tricast and forecast calculator counts lines and stakes for any combination, and the tote calculator handles win and place pools.
What the odds of a six-dog race tell you
Turn all six prices into percentages and add them up. At the dogs you’ll often land somewhere between 115% and 125%, noticeably more than on a big horse race. The extra is the bookmaker’s cut. So a 6/4 favourite looks like a 40% chance, but if the race is priced to 120% it’s more like 33%. Run any card through the bookmaker margin calculator, or convert a single price in the implied probability calculator.
A race every few minutes adds up fast. BeGambleAware.org has free support if it’s getting hard to stop.