Plain-English betting guides for racing fans

Our guides sit alongside the horse racing pages and the bookmaker reviews. The reviews tell you what each UK-licensed bookmaker offers; the guides explain the ideas you need to judge those offers for yourself. Each one is written to be read in a single sitting and to stay useful for years rather than weeks.

We start with the most basic question of all: what a price actually means. Our guide to how betting odds work covers fractional and decimal odds, evens, odds-on and odds-against prices, implied probability and the margin a bookmaker builds into every market. If you only read one guide, make it that one.

From there the guides branch out into money, markets and safety. We explain how paying with PayPal at a UK bookmaker works, how the Asian handicap changes a football bet, and what protections you have when you bet online with a licensed bookmaker.

The racing pages cover the sport itself, from the going to the big festivals, and are a natural next step once the betting terms feel familiar.

You will meet the same handful of terms on every bookmaker's website. Here is a short glossary; the guides above explain each one in more depth.

• Stake – the amount you bet.
• Returns – what comes back on a winning bet, including your stake. Profit is returns minus stake.
• SP – the starting price, the official price of a horse when the race starts.
• Each way – two bets of equal stake, one on the horse to win and one on it to be placed. Our each-way calculator works out the returns for you.
• BOG – Best Odds Guaranteed: if you take a price and the SP is bigger, you are paid at the SP. It usually applies to UK and Irish horse racing, and terms apply.
• NRNB – non-runner no bet: your stake is returned if the horse does not run.
• Rule 4 – a deduction from winnings when a runner is withdrawn late. The size of the deduction depends on the price of the withdrawn horse.
• Ante-post – a bet struck before the final declarations. If the horse does not run, the stake is usually lost unless the bet was NRNB.
• Overround – the amount by which a bookmaker's prices add up to more than 100 per cent. It is how the bookmaker builds in a margin.

Horse racing is the main sport on this site, and the guides are written with racing in mind even when the subject is wider. The odds guide uses a racing book for its worked example, because a field of runners shows the bookmaker's margin more clearly than a two-way market. The payments guide explains why it is worth sorting out verification before a big meeting rather than on the morning of it.

When you want to apply the ideas, the racing section covers reading form, understanding the going and the main festivals. Knowing that a horse is 5/2 means little until you also know how it has run on soft ground, and the reverse is equally true.

Every guide follows the same rules. We explain how things work in general rather than chasing the latest promotion, because offers change and the principles do not. We only state facts we can stand behind, and where something depends on a particular bookmaker, we say so and tell you where to check: usually the cashier page or the terms and conditions on the bookmaker's own site.

We do not publish tips, systems or staking plans, and nothing in these guides is a method for beating the bookmaker. Bookmakers price markets with a margin, and over time that margin works in their favour. The aim of the guides is to help you understand what you are buying when you place a bet, so that betting stays an informed hobby.

If you spot something that looks out of date or unclear, please let the editorial team know. We review the guides regularly and correct them when rules or common practice change.

Arbitrage betting means backing every outcome of an event with different bookmakers, at prices that add up to less than 100 per cent in implied probability. In practice the gaps are small, usually a few per cent, and they close quickly. A price can move before your second bet is placed, a bookmaker can cut the stake it will accept, and a bet struck at an obvious mistake in the price can be voided under the palpable-error rule in its terms, which leaves the other bet standing on its own.

No bookmaker describes itself as arbitrage friendly in Britain. Their terms allow them to restrict accounts whose betting pattern looks like arbitrage, and many do. If you want to understand the maths, the odds guide shows how to turn a price into an implied probability, which is the whole calculation.

Betting costs money, and the guides are written on that basis. Before you open an account, decide how much you are comfortable spending in a week or a month and treat that as the cost of your entertainment. Every UK-licensed bookmaker offers deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion, and the safety guide explains how to use them.

If betting stops being enjoyable, take a break. Free, confidential support is available from organisations such as GambleAware and GamCare, and GamStop lets you exclude yourself from all UK-licensed online gambling sites in one step.