Pari-Mutuel Payout Calculator

Because the pool it is priced from is still open. A pari-mutuel payout is only final once wagering closes and no more money can arrive on any horse, so any figure computed before then, including this one, is what the pool would pay if it closed at that instant. That is a structural fact about how the bet works, not a limitation of this tool's arithmetic: nothing can know the payout in advance, because it is not decided until betting stops.

The pool is the same idea with more horses sharing it. A win pool pays whichever single horse wins, so all of the profit goes to that horse's backers. A place pool pays whoever finishes first or second: the profit is split into two equal halves, one for each horse, and each half divides by the money bet on that horse. A show pool pays first, second and third the same way, in thirds. So place and show payouts are usually smaller than win payouts on the same horse, both because the profit is divided among more horses and because more people bet on a horse to just place or show than to win outright, which raises the amount its own payout gets divided by.

Because your stake becomes part of both numbers the payout is built from. It adds to the whole pool, which after takeout is the profit to be shared, but it also adds to the amount bet on your own horse, which is what your share of that profit gets divided by. The second effect is always at least as large as the first: adding a dollar to a horse's own pool can only shrink that horse's payout or leave it unchanged, never grow it. So the price you see quoted before you bet is never quite the price you get, and the gap grows with the size of your bet relative to the pool.

It is the percentage of the pool the track and the state keep before anything is paid out, and it funds the track, the state's racing programs and the purses, not a bookmaker's margin on a single bet. US tracks commonly take 15% to 25% depending on the bet type and jurisdiction; New York Racing Association tracks publish 16% on win, place and show wagers, retrieved 2026-09-11. That is several times a typical sportsbook's hold on a straight bet, and because it comes out of a shared pool rather than being priced into a line, it is easy for a casual bettor never to see the number at all.

Not under the standard rule this page models, and the reason is arithmetic rather than a guarantee about any specific horse. The takeout is removed once, up front, from the whole pool; after that the formula splits what is left among the winning horses and divides by the money already on them, which always returns at least the stake back on a winning ticket under this rule. What can and does happen in reality is a minus pool: on an overwhelming favorite, the money already bet on that horse can be so large relative to the pool that the formula above would pay less than the statutory minimum, and tracks are required to make up the difference themselves. This page does not model that subsidy; if your numbers are close to that edge, treat the estimate as a floor rather than the final figure.

That is a different rule from a minus pool, and it is the one this page actually applies rather than the one it declines to model. The Association of Racing Commissioners International's Model Rules of Racing state it identically for win, place and show (ch. 4, secs. B(2)(d), C(2)(e) and D(1)(g)): if the money already bet on the horse or horses you named leaves no profit once the takeout is removed, the whole pool is refunded rather than paid out at a loss. That needs numbers close to the edge, the named horses holding nearly the entire net pool between them, which is rare but arithmetically real, and this page prices it correctly rather than showing a negative or zero payout. A minus pool is the opposite case: one heavily backed favorite whose own price would fall below the statutory minimum, which the track tops up out of its own money instead of refunding anyone, and which the previous answer covers. Both look like the arithmetic breaking down; only the refund rule is the one this calculator runs.

Win, place and show pay out to a single wagering interest each (or two, or three, sharing evenly), which is the rule this page models. An exacta pays out to one specific combination of finishers instead, and our exacta calculator covers ticket cost and will-pay for that bet, priced by the same pari-mutuel rule this page uses applied to a combination rather than a horse. Trifectas and superfectas are not built anywhere on the site yet: they are the same idea with far worse combinatorics, and one honest tool for the exacta is worth more than a rushed one for either.