Free Virtual Horse Racing
A short race between invented horses, bet with chips that are worth nothing, with the price of every ticket on show before the gates open.
Play chips
1,000
No real money, no prizes, nothing to buy.
This race
7 runners
Takeout 16.0%
Pick a chip, then back a horse to win or place, or add an exacta.
- 1Salt Meadow
- 2Juniper Bell
- 3Lantern Fog
- 4Tin Whistle
- 5Velvet Anvil
- 6Static Bloom
- 7Chalk River
Exacta: first and second, in order
Session coach
Last round
Nothing played yet. After each of your races the coach says what the round cost and what decided it.
Decide the cost before you start
Gambling is entertainment with a price, like a concert ticket. The useful question is not how much you might win but how much the evening is allowed to cost. Pick that number first, and treat reaching it as the end of the session. You can set one below and the coach will hold you to it.
Next bet
No bet lined up. Once there is one, its expected cost shows here before you play it.
- Races played
- 0
- Chips bet in total
- 0
- Bets raised after a loss
- 0
Where the result came from
- House edge, on average
- 0
- Luck
- 0
- Result
- 0
The report fills in as you play. Price a real racing pool after its takeout
Set a session limit
This table is for practice and entertainment only. How to keep gambling safe
What this ticket costs
- Takeout on every bet
- 16.0%
- Kept by the track before any bet is paid
- Expected cost of the ticket
- 0
- No bets yet
- Posted win odds add up to
- 119.0%
- 100% would be odds with no takeout
- A blackjack table's edge
- 0.41%
- The takeout is about 39 times that
No bets on the ticket. Each one you add is priced here before the race.
Every bet here costs 16.0% of the chips on it, about 39 times the 0.41% a blackjack table takes from a player who follows the chart. A place bet or an exacta is charged the same: an exacta pays more because it hits less often, not because it is better value. Each race is drawn from the horses' chances alone, so the last result changes nothing about the next one, even with the same field. Price a real racing pool after its takeout
This session
- Races
- 0
- Chips staked
- 0
- Net chips
- 0
- Expected at this takeout
- 0
Expected is the takeout on every chip you have staked. A short session swings well away from it in both directions, and long prices such as exactas swing furthest.
Built by Alexander Korsager · last updated October 3, 2026 · corrections
- Takeout on every bet at this table
- 16.0%
- A blackjack table played by the chart, for comparison
- 0.41%
- What the chances the win odds imply add up to
- 119.0%
- What the same published rate card takes from real exacta pools
- 18.5%
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A race card with every ticket priced
A racing bet is priced differently from a casino bet.
The track takes a fixed share of everything staked, called the takeout, and pays the winners from what is left. At this table that share is 16.0%, on every bet. A blackjack table played by the chart takes 0.41%, so the same chip costs about 39 times as much here.
- Paid out to the winning tickets
- 84.0%
- Kept by the track: the takeout
- 16.0%
- A chip bet at this track16.0%
- A chip at blackjack, played by the chart0.41%
What each takes from a chip on average.
Each race has 6 to 8 invented horses and three bets: win, place and exacta.
The panel under the race card prices your ticket before the race, shows the chance the posted odds imply, and then, once the race is over, shows the true chance each bet had. A real track never shows that last number, which is why it is worth seeing here.
| Bet | Posted | Odds imply | True chance |
|---|---|---|---|
| WinThe 20% second choice | 3.20 to 1 | 23.8% | 20.0% |
| PlaceThe 25% favorite | 0.80 to 1 | 55.6% | 46.7% |
| ExactaThe favorite, then the second choice | 11.60 to 1 | 7.9% | 6.7% |
An example field of 7: a 25% favorite, a 20% second choice and the rest level. The gap between the last two columns is the takeout, and a real track never shows the last one.
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Rules at this table
Win
- Paid if
- The horse finishes first
- Takeout here
- 16.0%
- Example
- The 20% second choice
- Its true chance
- 20.0%
Posted price
3.20 to 1
Profit per chip, on top of the stake returned.
Place
- Paid if
- The horse finishes first or second
- Takeout here
- 16.0%
- Example
- The 25% favorite
- Its true chance
- 46.7%
Posted price
0.80 to 1
Profit per chip, on top of the stake returned.
Exacta
- Paid if
- Two named horses finish first and second, in that order
- Takeout here
- 16.0%
- Example
- The favorite, then the second choice
- Its true chance
- 6.7%
Posted price
11.60 to 1
Profit per chip, on top of the stake returned.
- Each race has 6 to 8 horses. The names are invented and none refers to a real horse, track or stable.
- Every price is posted before the race and does not move. It is the bet's chance with the 16.0% takeout removed, shown as profit per chip: a bet at 3.20 to 1 returns the stake plus that much for every chip on it.
- Any bet takes up to 200 chips, and you can put as many bets on one ticket as your chips cover.
- After a race you can draw a new field or run the same field again at the same odds.
FAQ
- Is this horse racing game played for real money?
- No. The table uses play chips that have no value, cannot be bought, and cannot be cashed out or exchanged for anything. If you run out, you are handed another stack for free. There is no account and nothing to download.
- What is the takeout on a horse racing bet?
- It is the share of the money bet that the track keeps before paying anyone. This table uses 16.0% on every bet, a published win-pool rate at a major US circuit. It works like a house edge: a horse with a 20% chance would pay 4.00 to 1 with no takeout and is posted at 3.20 to 1 here. You can see it in the odds themselves, because the chances the win odds imply add up to 119.0% instead of 100%.
- Is an exacta better value because it pays more?
- No. It pays more because it hits less often. If a 25% horse wins, a 20% horse then runs second 26.7% of the time, so that exacta has a 6.7% chance and is posted at 11.60 to 1. The takeout on it is the same 16.0% as on a win bet here, and real tracks usually take more from exacta pools than from win pools.
- How is each race decided?
- Every horse has a chance of winning, and the chances add up to 100%. Your browser draws the winner in proportion to those chances, then draws second place the same way from the horses that are left, and so on down the field. The order is fixed before the race is shown, and the animation is drawn afterwards to finish in that order. Nothing depends on your bets, your balance or earlier races.
How this game works
Each horse is given a random strength, and its chance of winning is its strength divided by the total for the field, so the chances add up to 100%. The finishing order uses the Harville model, the standard way to turn win chances into chances for the other places: each next position is drawn from the horses still running, in proportion to their win chances. Under it, the chance of an exacta is the first horse's win chance multiplied by the second horse's share of what is left, and the chance of a place is the sum of every exacta with that horse in it. In a field of 7 with a 25% favorite, a 20% second choice and the rest level, the favorite places 46.7% of the time.
A real track does not post fixed odds. It runs a pool: all the money bet goes in, the takeout comes off, and the rest is divided among the winning tickets after betting closes. A pool needs a crowd, and this table has one player, so it posts the price a pool would pay if the crowd's money were split across the outcomes exactly in line with their chances. That is the rule in the pari-mutuel payout calculator, applied to one outcome, and it comes to the chips returned being one minus the takeout, divided by the chance. It also means the chance the posted odds imply is always the true chance divided by one minus the takeout. At a real track the crowd is not that accurate, and nobody knows the true chances at all.
Because every price is built that way, every bet costs exactly 16.0% of the chips on it on average. The tests prove it by walking all 720 finishing orders of a field of 6 and all 40,320 of a field of 8, for every win, place and exacta bet. A separate seeded simulation of 200,000 races checks that the draws themselves match the model: no win, place or exacta frequency may differ from its formula by more than 0.4% in absolute terms. The blackjack figure used for comparison comes from the blackjack strategy tool's default rules, played by the chart.
Limits
- The Harville model is a simplification. Real races do not follow it exactly, and it says nothing about pace, distance, ground or anything else that decides a real race.
- Real odds move until the race starts, because money keeps arriving in the pool. The prices here are fixed when the race card is drawn.
- One takeout is used for every bet so the three can be compared. Real tracks usually take more from exacta pools: the same published rate card takes 18.5% from exactas against 16% from win bets, and rates differ by track and state.
- Real payouts are rounded down to a fixed step, and real races have dead heats, late withdrawals and coupled entries. None of those is modeled.
- Play chips do not feel like money. A losing run that is easy to sit through here is harder with a real stake.
This is a practice game for adults. It has no real-money play and links to none. A racing bet made with money has the takeout removed before any ticket is paid, a far higher price than most casino table games, and no way of choosing horses in a game like this one, or amount of practice, removes it.
Gambling can cause serious harm. The National Problem Gambling Helpline is free, confidential and open 24/7, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), or chat at ncpgambling.org/chat.
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