Best Cheltenham betting odds | The Sun
HELD at the prestigious Cheltenham Racecourse, the Festival features 28 races across four days of top-class horse racing action, with no less than 14 of those being Grade One contests – the highest level of jumps racing.
More than 250,000 racegoers will descend on Prestbury Park across the four days, with just under 70,000 people being in attendance for the big one on Friday, the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup.
If you aren’t lucky enough to be going to the Cotswolds however, it doesn’t mean that you have to miss out on the action, with five races a day broadcast for free on ITV Racing and bookmakers offering betting and streaming on every single race.
Before you place your bets why not check out our full Cheltenham betting preview
The Cheltenham Festival is one of the most popular events of the year for punters, with everyone from experienced fans to part-time bettors scouring the Cheltenham Festival odds and enjoying the action. With that in mind, we’ve taken a look at some of the best bookmakers when it comes to betting on the 2023 Cheltenham Festival and put together some of our best tips and advice in this handy guide.
How do odds for Cheltenham work?
It may feel like the stakes are raised somewhat because of all the fever around the Cheltenham Festival, but the concept of betting and Cheltenham Festival odds are just the same as they would be for a ‘conventional’ horse race in the UK or Ireland on any day of the week.
For British and Irish betting markets, odds can be displayed in two different ways, either as decimals or as fractions. They mean the exact same thing – regardless of whether you’re backing a horse at 3.00 or at 2-1 – it all comes down to the preference of the punter. However, most people tend to stick to fractions when talking about betting on horse racing, so we’ll do that.
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Every fractional odd corresponds to a percentage chance that the bookmaker believes each horse to have and in an ideal market those percentages would add up to 100% to form a perfect market – however the total sum will go above this to account for bookmakers’ profit margins. We’ll go into more detail about how odds are calculated below.
Each of the 28 races at Cheltenham will be priced up for the bookmakers and every horse in the race will be given a price which reflects their chances. If we look at the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, the Willie Mullins-trained Facile Vega is the 7-4 favourite with most firms. That means that he is seen to have the best chance of winning compared to the other horses in the race.
If you placed £5 on Facile Vega to win and he obliged, you would win £8.75 plus your £5 stake, resulting in a total return of £13.75. Once the race is completed, your bet will be settled by your bookmaker and the winnings will be paid into your account.
Bet on Facile Varga to win at bet365
Which bookmakers have the best odds for Cheltenham?
Cheltenham week is a fantastic time for punters to take advantage of some fantastic offers, as bookmakers and betting sites scramble to persuade you to use their site over others.
The same can be said for Cheltenham betting odds, with the betting markets more competitive than ever. It can be difficult to work out which bookmaker offers the best odds on Cheltenham – and it can differ from race to race – so a good starting place is with an odds comparison site like Oddschecker, which compares the prices of a horse with various bookmakers. That way, you can see which bookie is offering the best odds at the Cheltenham Festival on the horse you think is going to win.
However, there are some other ways you can ensure you are getting value yourself. The first is with ‘Best Odds Guaranteed’ offers, which we’ll go into greater detail below. This essentially means that bookmakers will match the price of your horse if they drift after you’ve backed it, with both bet365 and Paddy Power offering this on Cheltenham from 8 am on the morning of the race.
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Another good way of getting good value is with William Hill, who runs a Bet Boost promotion. This only works once a day, meaning that it is best saved for your best bet of the day (or NAP selection), but it essentially means that you can enhance the price of one horse each day on stakes up to £20 – which is a perfect tool to have up your sleeve for Cheltenham week.
Finally, with lots of high-profile horses running at Cheltenham, bookmakers will regularly boost the prices of certain horses or multiples to entice you to bet with them. These are usually restricted to a certain stake and can be offered to both new and existing customers. Usually, those who get a boosted price on sign-up will get a much bigger price but be paid out in free bets while existing customers will get a smaller price boost but will be paid out in cash.
One horse to keep an eye on with that in mind this year is Constitution Hill, who is the shortest-priced favourite of the week at the time of writing for the Champion Hurdle on Day One – meaning he is likely to be the target of juicy price boosts.
How do bookies calculate odds for Cheltenham?
A horse’s price is effectively telling you two things; the chance that the bookmaker thinks that the horse has of winning the race and the money that you stand to win if you back that horse.
The price of a horse can be as low as it needs to be, but on the Betfair Exchange scale, the shortest price a horse can be is one hundred to one on, or 1-100. If a horse is trading at that price, it means that bookmakers feel they have a 99% chance of winning that race and you would need to stake £100 just to win £1.
Essentially, that means that the bigger the price of a horse translates the smaller the chance that the bookie thinks that the horse has of winning – so a 100-1 chance (1%) has a much shorter chance of winning than an even money shot (50%).
Everything that is shorter than evens – i.e. is ‘odds on’ – has a greater than 50% of winning in the eyes of the Cheltenham betting odds, so a 4-11 chance would have a 73.3% chance of winning for example.
Let’s say we have an eight-runner Champion Hurdle, with the following market; Hurricane Fly 2-1, Buveur D’Air 3-1, Binocular 6-1, Goshen 8-1, The New One 12-1, My Tent Or Yours 16-1, Menorah 33-1, Celestial Halo 50-1.
According to that market, Hurricane Fly would be the favourite as he is the shortest price and therefore has the greatest chance of winning. In percentages, Hurricane Fly would have a 33.3% chance of winning the Champion Hurdle, while Celestial Halo is least likely to win, with a 2% chance of success.
To work out these odds, bookmakers use a formula which calculates the probability of something happening and then they add in space for a profit margin. Each of these probabilities is the percentages mentioned above and when added together these form the market.
A perfect betting market should add up to 100% when you add up the probabilities of every horse in the race, with any extra accounting for the profit margin of the bookmaker. In this case, the odds of all eight horses add up to 103.1%.
If you staked £5 on Hurricane Fly to win and he obliged, you would win £10 and get your £5 stake back if he crossed the line in front, meaning you’d get a total return of £15 for your Champion Hurdle bet. A £5 bet on Buveur D’Air would return £20 and so on.
In more competitive races like the 24-runner Pertemps Final, the prices are likely to be much bigger to reflect the fact that the race is harder to win. However, if you can find the winner your return will be bigger!
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What is ante-post betting?
Ante-post betting is essentially betting on something way in advance. Doing this can have its advantages and disadvantages compared to betting on the day, but you will generally get yourself a better price if you bet on a horse ante-post.
For example, the recently retired Altior was a 4-1 winner of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle back in 2016. However, you’d have got much higher odds on Altior to win the Supreme if you had backed him much earlier in the season when he was more unknown to punters. If you had placed a bet on him to win the race before his debut over hurdles in October 2015 – when he’d won one of his three starts in bumper races – you’d have likely got 10 or even 20 times the odds.
However, the big negative with ante-post betting is the fact that you may not even get a run for your money. A season is a long time for a horse and along with injuries they could also have the plan changed for them, perhaps if they show a proficiency for a different trip or decide to go over fences rather than over hurdles. The ante-post price of the horse at the start of the season factors in the fact that the horse may not even line up on the day, meaning that if they are pulled out the bet would be considered a loser – regardless of the fact that you didn’t get a run for your money.
Most bookmakers offer ‘non-runner, no bet’ on the Cheltenham Festival, but this tends to be in the weeks leading up to the Festival rather than season-long and it’s worth checking the terms and conditions with your provider before placing a bet.
Is ante-post betting better odds?
As mentioned above, you may find that you have a horse at 66-1 rather than 6-1 for the Cheltenham Gold Cup because you backed them ante-post, but you are effectively having a different kind of bet to the bet on the day.
With an ante-post bet, you’re staking your money on the horse taking part in the race as well as going on to win it, so your odds will likely be higher as a result. It doesn’t always work this way however as a horse can underperform during the season and drift in the market.
For example, let’s say you were really impressed with a horse called Kauto Star, who has just won the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby. Bookmakers have priced him up at 16-1 for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, so you place £5 on him that day to win the Gold Cup.
However, since then Kauto Star has been defeated in each of the Betfair Chase, King George VI Chase and the Cotswold Chase, meaning his price on Gold Cup Day is now 25-1 – to reflect the fact that he hasn’t been performing as well since his run at Wetherby. Your bet would still be at 16-1 and he could well oblige for you, but you’ll get shorter odds than someone who backs him on the day.
What is best odds guaranteed?
Best odds guaranteed is a super popular offer with both online and high street bookmakers and it essentially exists to try and help you get the best price possible on the horse that you fancy.
The starting time can vary from operator to operator and it can also apply to certain races only with some bookies, so be sure to check with your bookmaker, but best odds guaranteed offers kick in at around 9 am on the morning of the race.
From that point on, if you back a horse and they drift – or gets bigger – in the market, you will get a higher starting price. For example, if you back Kauto Star at 10.30 am on Gold Cup Day for the Cheltenham Gold Cup but he drifts throughout the day and goes off as a 5-1 chance, you will be paid out at 5-1 if he goes on to win the race.
Most bookmakers offer the best odds guaranteed on every race in the UK and Ireland from 9am on the morning of the race – but do check before you place a bet.
Which bookies offer best odds guaranteed for Cheltenham?
Top UK bookies with the best odds guaranteed offers
- William Hill
- BetVictor
- Tote
- Betway
- Paddy Power
- bet365
- BetUK
- 888sport
Most bookmakers offer Best Odds Guaranteed (BOG) for every single race in the UK and Ireland, but to save you a job we’ve looked at every bookmaker on this list to see if they offer it at Cheltenham and from when.
The exact details differ from bookmaker to bookmaker, but all but one of the 10 operators listed above offer Best Odds Guaranteed in some shape or form.
Two bookmakers offer BOG from 8 am on the morning of the race, beginning with Paddy Power, who offers it on every race in the UK and Ireland (which includes the Cheltenham Festival). Also offering BOG from 8 am is bet365, which offers BOG on every single horse race from 8 am on the day of the race – except for races in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Several bookmakers on the list offer BOG on every race in the UK and Ireland from 9 am on the day of the race, they are BetVictor, Betway and TalkSport Bet. That means that every race placed on the Cheltenham Festival after 9 am on the day of the race will automatically have BOG.
Meanwhile, William Hill offers BOG from 10 am on the day of the race on every race in the UK and Ireland. They’re joined by 888Sport, who don’t specify a time on their site when it was looked up and BetUK who offer BOG on certain UK racing markets according to their site.
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Another bookmaker to offer a type of Best Odds Guaranteed is the Tote, which has its own Tote Guarantee. Betting on the Tote means you are betting into a pool – which is slightly different from sportsbook betting as the price is dependant on market strength – but they have vowed with their own guarantee that any bet in their pool will match the starting price if it dips below.
The only mainstay UK bookmaker which doesn’t offer the best odds guaranteed is SpreadEx, though they are more of a specialised provider. They do offer traditional ‘fixed odds’ betting on the Cheltenham Festival, but their main offering is spread betting.
Spread betting allows you to predict what will happen on sports in specific ways, meaning that you have more chances to both win and potentially lose. This is a good option if you fancy a jockey to have a particularly good day at the Cheltenham Festival – Rachael Blackmore for example – and placing a spread bet on her performance for the day can give you a high return if you prove to be right.
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If this is your thing, SpreadEx is an excellent option, though their sportsbook is also a highly reliable offering for those who just want to place conventional win bets – with the bookmaker going ‘non-runner, no bet’ for the Cheltenham Festival.
How often do favourites win at Cheltenham?
This is a difficult question to answer with any certainty, but in general, favourites tend to win a horse race 35% of the time. That means that in theory if you blindly back 100 horses who are the favourite, 35 of them will return home in front.
There isn’t an exact science to this though and it’s worth noting that things can often work differently at Cheltenham – where you’re dealing with the best horses in the best races. There are often a disproportionate number of favourites at the Cheltenham Festival because of the nature of the races, which can skew the numbers. For example, if a Constitution Hill was to run in every single race you would expect a lot more of them to win!
Bet on Constitution Hill with William Hill
If we look at the last five years of the Cheltenham Festival, it provides some interesting results. Of the 140 races held at the Festival over the past five years, 44 of those have won. If you work that out as a percentage, it would read as 31.42% – which is slightly below average. Essentially, you’re looking at one in three favourites winning as a rule of thumb, if you allow for some wiggle room.
Top tips for Cheltenham betting odds
With so much going on during Cheltenham week, it can be easy to just place a bet in the excitement of the build-up and find yourself with a price that isn’t as competitive as elsewhere. There are a few things to consider when shopping around for Cheltenham betting odds, and we’ve listed a few top tips for you below.
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Go in early: More people bet on the Cheltenham Festival than your normal British or Irish horse race, meaning that the markets are more volatile than usual. A lot of those people will leave it late until placing bets – particularly on the favourites – meaning that if your fancy is at the top of the market it will likely be worth your while to beat the rush. Backing your selection in the morning at around 10 am will solve this and while it isn’t guaranteed as your selection may drift, betting on your horse at this time ought to ensure that you get Best Odds Guaranteed on your selection if you bet with the the a provider that offers it.
Shop around: The Cheltenham betting market is about as competitive as it gets and bookmakers try to entice you in by beating their competitors and offering better Cheltenham odds than others. Markets can differ from race to race, meaning that although a bookmaker is the best price in the Supreme, they may not be in the Arkle Trophy. A good way to combat this is to use price comparison sites like Oddschecker, which will show you a grid of bookmakers and highlight the best price on the offer for the horse you fancy.
Don’t dawdle: When it comes to betting on Cheltenham you are always open to the risk of not getting the best price, but sometimes it’s worth trusting your gut. If you have chosen your horse and you are sitting wondering if the horse is going to drift or shorten, it’s best to just trust your gut and go for it. If the horse proceeds to drift, you are at least protected by Best Odds Guaranteed and if the horse shortens, you’re sitting on a better price.
Take advantage of promotions: A good way to try and squeeze a bit of extra value out of your selections is by making use of promotions that are on offer with your bookmaker. This can be anything from William Hill’s Bet Boost to specials which have been boosted by your bookmaker. Most operators will offer you enhanced odds on certain outcomes and horses during Cheltenham week and if one of those happens to be on one of your fancies that can provide a bit of extra value. A good place to keep your eye out for these things is on the Promotions page of your betting site – while offers will tend to be featured on the Horse Racing section of the site, too.
Cheltenham Betting Tips and Predictions
As far as tips on the horses go, we’ve looked at the five ‘Championship’ races across the four days and given our verdict on each.
Champion Hurdle: The feature on Day One of the Festival, the Champion Hurdle is usually a fast and furious contest, and it’s difficult to look past CONSTITUTION HILL. It’s very rare that you would see a horse with just five career starts trade as a 1-3 favourite for the premier hurdle race of the season, but it’s very difficult to pick holes in what he’s achieved so far.
Bet on Constitution Hill to win at William Hill
He’s followed up last season’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle win with two bloodless performances in Grade One company so far, handing a firm beating to stablemate and Champion Hurdle winner Epatante on both occasions, and his profile is rock solid. The improving State Man provides a different kind of test for Constitution Hill, but he’s a long way clear on ratings and in truth it’s very difficult to see anything but a perfect start to the week for Nicky Henderson.
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Champion Chase: Wednesday’s feature is the Queen Mother Champion Chase, for which a horse much has the perfect combination of speed and jumping ability in order to be successful. This year’s renewal is a rather muddling one and the in-form horse coming into proceedings is the Gary Moore-trained Editeur Du Gite, whose taken some notable scalps when winning the last twice – including in the rearranged Grade One Clarence House Chase over course and distance in January.
Several come into this with questions to answer and the heavy rain forecast between now and Wednesday muddies the picture further. With that in mind, it could be worth sticking with last year’s winner ENERGUMENE, who relished the testing conditions when striking 12 months ago. He doesn’t necessarily need it to be heavy, but he’s a very solid proposition whatever the weather and can fend off the attentions of Edwardstone and Sandown regular Greaneteen.
Bet on Energumene to win at 7/4 at BetVictor
Ryanair Chase: It’s very difficult to look past SHISHKIN, who was breath-taking when winning last month’s Ascot Chase. Admittedly, he was lacklustre when favourite for last year’s Champion Chase, but this trip of two and a half miles seems to suit him down to the ground and a replication of that Ascot form will make him impossible to live with for the Nicky Henderson team.
Bet on Shishkin to win at William Hill
Stayers’ Hurdle: This race looks the most open of all of the Championship races, with several having question marks hanging over them. Both Blazing Khal and last year’s winner Flooring Porter have been injury doubts in recent weeks, meaning it could be worth taking a chance on the French raider GOLD TWEET.
Bet on Gold Tweet at 12/1 with bet365
The six-year-old was fantastically impressive when winning the Grade Two Cleeve Hurdle here in January, with Paisley Park back in this. This is tougher, but he’s been supplemented for this at a cost of £14,000 to his connections and he’s fancied to take the step up in class in his stride.
Cheltenham Gold Cup: A fascinating renewal of the sport’s blue riband race, in which each and every runner has something to prove. Galopin Des Champs was well clear when falling at the last in last year’s Turners Novices’ Chase and he’s been superb in three starts so far this term, though he has to prove he can handle the extra quarter of a mile on this tough course. Similar niggling doubts hang over the King George winner Bravemansgame, while last year’s winner A Plus Tard was very disappointing in the Betfair Chase at Haydock in November.
Take a bet on Ahoy Senor at 14/1 with 888sport
Irish raiders Stattler, Conflated, Hewick and last year’s Grand National winner Noble Yeats all command respect, but a chance is taken on Scottish challenger AHOY SENOR. A Grade One winner over fences at Aintree last year, he relished a test of stamina when winning the Grade Two Cotswold Chase here in January and provided his jumping holds out here, he can improve for the extra furlong or so.
Reading from Ireland? check out the best Irish bookies to bet on Cheltenham
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