A Pick 6 calculator prices your ticket before you build it at the window. Two horses in the first race, one in the second, three in the third, two, one and four in the rest: 2 × 1 × 3 × 2 × 1 × 4 = 48 combinations. At a $2 base that’s $96. Swap the Pick 6 for a Pick 4 with the same first four races and it’s 12 combinations, $24 on a $2 base or $6 at 50 cents. The free calculator above works for Pick 3, 4, 5 and 6.
How the Pick 6 calculator works
You need the winner of every race in the sequence. A ticket covers every combination of your choices, so the cost is the product of the horses in each race times the base bet.
Combinations = race 1 × race 2 × … × race 6 Cost = combinations × base bet
That multiplication is the whole strategy. Adding one horse to a race where you already have four makes the ticket 25% bigger. Adding one to a race where you have a single makes it twice as big. So the usual approach is to single the races you’re surest about and spread in the wide-open ones. The “one more horse” figure shows you what that next horse will cost.
Base bets
Pick 4 and Pick 5 bets are usually 50 cents a combination, Pick 3 often $1, and Pick 6 tends to be $2 (some tracks run 20-cent jackpot versions that only pay the big pool to a single winning ticket). Check the track’s rules, especially for scratches: most give you the post-time favourite if one of your horses is withdrawn.
For the order of finish inside one race, use the superfecta calculator or the exacta box calculator. The UK and Irish version of a multi-race win bet is the Scoop6.
Bet with money you can afford to lose. If it stops being fun, BeGambleAware.org is free and confidential.