Horse Racing

The end of the 2025-2026 racing season has produced some extraordinary trends with bad beats data, favourites falling over and an example why punters should choose Betfair over corporate bookies.

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A Betfair-run podcast LayBack had produced a 25-26 horse racing season review episode which points out a number of unusual statistics from the last 12 months of the sport using Betfair’s exchange data,

BEST RACING ODDS: Betfair — where you find better value than the bookies

Short odds aren’t always good — bad beats can happen

From 16,891 races in the season just gone, 192 horses traded at $1.01 on the Betfair exchange before not winning the race — meaning the anomaly happened in 1 per cent of races.

If you consider horses trading at $1.20 or less and not winning the race, 2,744 horses hit this mark or lower and didn’t go on to be first past the post.

Mucci Star traded at $1.20 or less five times and failed to win, while Tycoon Star and Snack Bar did the same on three occasions.

It is worth noting that 99 per cent of winners traded at $1.01 at some point before winning the race.

BEST RACING ODDS: Betfair — where you find better value than the bookies

Be careful at Morphettville and Belmont

If you are looking for a favourite, be wary of the top runner at Morphetville and Belmont with both having the most instances of a short-priced horse not winning.

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Morphetville had 80 runners that traded at $1.20 or less but didn’t win their race, while Belmont was next most at 67 horses.

At regional tracks, Ballarat favourites struggled the most with 59 runners losing after hitting $1.20 or less on the Betfair Exchange.

BEST RACING ODDS: Betfair — where you find better value than the bookies

Proof Betfair has the best racing odds

Betfair Exchange data suggests their odds were 16 per cent better than the corporate bookmaker’s average across the Group 1 races in the 25-25 racing season.

If $10 was placed on the winner at every Group 1 race, you would win $5,681.27 with the corporate bookmaker’s average, while you would collect $6,612 if you bet via Betfair — nearly a difference of $1,000.

The data showed that the Betfair odds on 67 of the 76 Group 1 winners were better than the corporate bookmaker’s average.

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BEST RACING ODDS: Betfair — where you find better value than the bookies