With a history that dates back to the days of ancient Babylon, horse racing is the oldest spectator sport in the world. People have wagered money on the outcome of races ever since and now, thanks to the Internet, gambling on horse racing online is easier than ever before.
As well as being more convenient and saving travel time, betting online also gives you access to races from quite literally all over the world. Instead of being limited to events in the UK, you can easily have a flutter on the Melbourne Cup, the Kentucky Derby or the Durban Handicap, as well as a host of smaller races. This can dramatically improve your chances of winning as you can choose from a far wider selection of bets.
Competition between the various online betting websites usually means that cut-price promotions, deals and special offers are far more widely available. This rarely happens at the actual racetrack where bookmakers know they have a captive audience that are simply unable to take their business anywhere else.
Many such offers – which can include free bets worth hundreds of pounds – are usually available only to first time users of the site. For this reason, you may want to try out a few different sites and take advantage of a range of these incentives before making a decision about which site you like best. You can also track the results of the various site tipsters to choose which to follow.
As well as offering enticements for you to join, a good site will also make it easy for you to obtain as much information as possible about the race you wish to place a bet on. Details about the condition of the track, the prior record of both the horse and jockey should all be at your fingertips. Although this information can usually be found somewhere online, it is far better if it is accessible from within the site to save you having to switch between multiple screens on your browser.
Some sites allow you to stream live coverage of the race you have placed a bet on directly to your computer, using the same video feeds that are played on large screens to spectators at the track, so that you can follow the action rather than simply waiting for the result. This can be particularly useful if the race is not being covered by one of the many television sports channels and adds enormously to the betting experience.
Betting on horse racing online is a great way to gamble and as you surf through the web you`ll find lots of free racing tips to look through, but making a decision about which tips to follow and which ones to ignore is never easy and, in many ways, is the biggest gamble of all.
