Dating back to 1873, the Preakness Stakes is the middle-child of the Triple Crown series. When the race was first inaugurated, the Maryland governor at the time, Oden Bowie, named the race after a horse named Preakness. The first running took place at Pimlico Race Course, and after a period of 36 years, when other venues hosted the event, the Preakness Stakes returned to Pimlico, where it’s still run today.
With an attendance record of 140,327 people, the Preakness Stakes is the second-most attended equine event in North America, trailing only the Kentucky Derby. As the event builds interest, more and more people get into betting on Preakness Stakes action. To help you bet on the Preakness Stakes, we’ve compiled a comprehensive betting guide.
2019's Preakness Stakes odds are not without controversy. Maximum Security won't be competing after being disqualified from the Kentucky Derby. And shocking 65-1 winner Country House has been scratched do to a cough.
For the latest odds on the 2019 Preakness Stakes before Saturday, May 18th, check out the Bodog's 2019 Preakness Stakes Preview.
Preakness Stakes Bet Types
Horse handicappers and recreational bettors alike will benefit from the plethora of Preakness Stakes betting options available at Bodog Racebook. The Preakness Stakes is the second jewel of the Triple Crown and commands far more bets than your typical horse race. Everything from straight bets to high-paying exotics are available in our online racebook. Looking to bet on the Preakness before race day? Check out the futures section of Bodog Racebook. We also have proposition bets, which let you wager on the possibility of a Triple Crown winner.
Preakness Stakes Straight Bets
To bet on one contender for the Preakness Stakes, look no further than the Win/Place/Show straight bets. For the win, simply pick a horse to win the race. If your prediction is accurate, you win a payout based on the horse’s final odds. For the place bet, your horse must finish first or second for your bet to pay out. As for the show bet, your contender must finish in the money (first, second or third), for your bet to win. As the risk decreases from Win to Show, so do the payouts.
Preakness Stakes Exotic Bets Explained
Bets that include multiple horses are exotics. These bets appeal to a wide range of horseplayers, as they can be low risk and beginner-friendly, like the straightforward quinella, or more high risk and complex, like the superfecta, which can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single bet.
Exacta Betting on the Preakness Stakes
For a bigger payout than the straight bets, look to the exacta bets. This bet involves predicting the top two finishers of the Preakness Stakes, and you must get them in the right order. In the 2018 Preakness Stakes, horse bettors who bet on Justify to win and Bravazo to finish second won $27.40 on a $2 exacta bet.
Trifecta Betting on the Preakness Stakes
With a higher risk/reward ratio than the exacta, the trifecta is a bet on the top three finishers of the Preakness Stakes. Like the exacta, you have to get the order right. In the 2018 Preakness Stakes, bettors who picked Justify as the winner, Bravazo as the runner up and Tenfold for third on their trifecta bets won $148.30 on a dollar bet.
Superfecta Betting on the Preakness Stakes
The biggest payout possible in Bodog’s Preakness Stakes betting comes from the superfecta. This exotic asks you to predict the top four finishers of the Preakness in the correct order and offers a monster payout. The lucky bettors who accurately predicted Justify for the win, Bravazo for second, TEnfold for third and Good Magic for fourth in the 2018 Preakness Stakes won $372.50 on a $1 superfecta bet.
Quinella Betting on the Preakness Stakes
If the exotics seem too risky, the quinella bet offers a softer betting experience. Like the exacta, you must guess the top two finishers of the Preakness, but unlike the exacta, you don’t have to get the order right. For example, for people who put Justify and Bravazo on their 2018 quinella bet for the Preakness Stakes, it would have covered the two following scenarios:
1.Justify
2.Bravazo
1. Bravazo
2. Justify
The bet is divided into two pools, which means the payout is smaller than bets that go into a single pool.
Preakness Stakes: Everything You Need To Know
What are Boxed Wagers?
Boxing a wager makes betting easier by removing the need to get the finishing order right. The quinella is essentially a boxed exacta, meaning you still need to predict the top two finishers, but you don’t have to guess which horse wins and which comes in second. Boxing a wager reduces risk and the payout.
What are Wheeled Bets?
Wheeled bets are ideal when the field has a strong favourite. This bet modifies the exactas by asking you to get the correct finishing placement of one or more horses, and then grouping in a number of horses for the rest. For a wheeled exacta, you can pick the first-place winner, and for the second-place finisher, you can include several horses.
To use the 2018 Preakness Stakes as an example, a successful wheeled exacta would have picked Justify as the winner, and then could have included Bravazo, Good Magic and Lone Sailor as the second-place finishers. This bet strikes a good balance between risk and reward, as it offers higher payouts than the boxed version, but doesn’t require the intense betting requirements of the exacta.
Futures Betting on the Preakness Stakes
The racebook futures market provides horseplayers with the opportunity to place bets before race day. When the Kentucky Derby ends, the Preakness Stakes futures odds will be open for business. These odds offer great value – especially if you get your bets in before the field is set.
Prop Betting on the Preakness Stakes
Prop betting has made its way to the horse racing world. These side bets don’t involve picking the winner(s) of a race. Instead, they focus on tangential events, enhancing the overall horse racing experience. One popular prop bet that’s always available before the Preakness Stakes is whether the Kentucky Derby winner will win the Triple Crown.
What is a Coupled Entry Wager?
Anytime a stable or a trainer have multiple entries in the Preakness Stakes, you can bet on all their contenders through a coupled wager. As long as one of the horses in the bet wins, you win. This spreads out the risk and is a great way to back up your favourite horse trainer. In the 2017 Preakness Stakes, Steve Asmussen had two entries: Hence and Lookin At Lee.
What is a Pick 3 and Pick 4 Wager?
Pick 3 and 4 wagers involve betting on three and four races back to back. You can pick the winners of three races, or you can pick a combination of winners, such as the following:
Race No. 1: Cloud Computing
Race No. 2: Senior Investment and Hence
Race No. 3: Term of Art, Multiplier, and Always Dreaming
The more horses you include in your Pick 3 and Pick 4 wagers, the more expensive the ticket becomes, so many horseplayers will try to include just one horse in one of the races.
What is a Daily Double Wager?
The Daily Double is the two-race version of the pick 3 and 4. The wager involves picking the winner of two races that could be scheduled for the same day, or back to back days. Both of your picks must come through in order for your wager to win.
In the 2017 Preakness Stakes, a Daily Double included the Dixie Stakes. Tickets that had World Approval and Cloud Computing picked for each race won $88 on a $2 bet.
Preakness Stakes Betting Tips
With so many betting options available, it can be hard to figure out the best way to bet on the Preakness. Knowing your betting preference helps because all of these bets are tailored to match certain betting styles. Recreational bettors who are looking to enhance the excitement of the day will find everything they need with the straight bets (Win/Place/Show), as each option provides a unique level of risk and reward.
Seasoned horseplayers will find the complexity of the exotics more appealing. In their natural state, exotics have high risk and reward ratios and are suited to those who abide by the “go big or go home” mantra. However, with the options to box and wheel them, the risk-intolerant can get their share of exotic action in a way that suits their betting style.
Figuring out which bets to use is half the challenge; the other half is picking the winning horses. In recent years, the Kentucky Derby winner has become the Preakness Stakes favourite, so that’s a good place to start your research, but not the only place. After all, from 2013 to 2018, only three Kentucky Derby winners doubled down on Preakness Stakes victories, and they were exceptional horses: California Chrome in 2014, American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018.