Horse racing: What are the smartest bets to play at Fair Grounds?

The winter meet at Fair Grounds is underway, complete with an impressive menu of wagering options. Win/place/show bets, single-race exotic wagers, multi-race exotics wagers — you won’t soon run out of options.

But not all bets are equal from a value perspective. Complex exotic wagers like the trifecta, superfecta, and Pick 4 offer the promise of big payoffs, but they don’t return as much to winning bettors as simpler wagers, like the exacta and double.

It all comes down to takeout — the percentage of each wagering dollar extracted to fund purses, pay taxes, run the track, and more. At Fair Grounds, the takeout rate for win/place/show bets is 17% — pretty much middle of the road. Exacta and double wagers feature a takeout rate of 20.5%, while the rate for trifecta, superfecta, Pick 3, Pick 4, and Pick 5 wagers climbs to 25%.

Compared to some tracks, the 25% rate is a pretty big cut. This is especially true for the Pick 5, since many tracks offer the bet as a low-takeout option.

But the 20.5% takeout rate for exacta and double bets is enticing, particularly when compared to other tracks on the winter racing menu. Oaklawn Park and Laurel Park, for example, take a 21% cut from exacta and double wagers. At Santa Anita, the rate for the exacta is 22.68%.

These might seem like small differences, but tiny amounts can add up. Consider an exacta pool containing $100,000, from which 1,000 bettors cash identical $2 winning tickets. At Santa Anita, a winning ticket would pay $77.30. At Fair Grounds, the same wager would return $79.50, and the extra $2.30 in profit would pay for another $2 exacta, with 30 cents left over.

This doesn’t mean you should never bet trifecta, superfecta, or multi-race tickets at Fair Grounds. When you’re confident these options are the right strategy for a winning payday, wager accordingly.

But factoring takeout into the equation, the smartest bets to play at Fair Grounds are the exacta and double. Over time, they’ll offer greater returns than corresponding wagers at several other winter racetracks.