Betting Guide

Pick a horse, pick a market, set your stake. If your bet comes in you get your stake back multiplied by the price you clicked.

Betting on ROX uses play money. Every market below runs on the practice balance in your account. Real-money betting is offered only where ROX is licensed for it.

How you get paid

ROX runs pari-mutuel pools, not a bookmaker's book. Everyone backing the same market on the same race pays into one pool. When betting closes, ROX takes a 12% rake and everyone who backed the winning outcome shares what remains, in proportion to what they staked.

You are betting against the other players, not against ROX. ROX holds no position on the result and can never owe more than the pool holds.

If nobody backs the winning outcome, Winner, Place, Show and Gate pools are refunded in full. On the exotics — Forecast, Quinella, Tricast and Trio — the pool is not refunded: it rolls over into the same market at a later race, and grows until somebody takes it. A carried pool is raked once, in the race it was staked in, not again each time it rolls.

A pool below $50 does not run — at that size, rounding to the cent distorts the split — so it voids and every stake comes back in full.

And no rake is taken on a pool with only one bettor. If nobody else backed that market, there is nobody to bet against — your stake comes back rather than your stake less 12% for having been first. You still lose it if your selection does not come in; that part is the bet.

Group racing

G3 runs daily. G2 races are booked once twelve horses have 340 points or more, and G1 races once twelve have 500 or more — the betting card says how close each one is.

A Hyperion races G3 from the day it is minted. G2 and G1 are reached by climbing.

Reading a price

ROX uses decimal odds. The price is a multiplier that already includes your stake. A price of 5.61 means a $10 bet would return about $56.10 — your $10 back, plus $46.10 profit.

Divide 1 by the price for a rough sense of how likely it is. A price of 4.00 is about a 1-in-4 chance.

The price is an estimate, not a live pool price. It is calculated from the same ratings that decide the race, with a margin — it does not read the pool and does not move as other players bet. What you actually receive is your share of the pool at settlement, so your return may be higher or lower than the figure you clicked. A market nobody else backed pays more; a heavily backed one pays less.

The straight bets

Three ways to back a single horse, easiest first.

Market	Wins when your horse finishes	Shown as
Show	1st, 2nd or 3rd	TOP 3
Place	1st or 2nd	TOP 2
Winner	1st	1ST

Start with Show. It is the shortest price and the easiest to get right — your horse only has to make the frame.

One thing to watch if you have bet elsewhere: on many sites "Place" means the first three. Here Place is the first two, and Show is the first three. The TOP 2 and TOP 3 labels on the race card are there so you never have to remember which way round it is.

The exotics

Four ways to back a combination. You pick these on the runners' own rows — find your horse once, then say what it has to do.

Market	Wins when
Forecast	you name 1st and 2nd, in the correct order
Quinella	you name the two horses that finish 1st and 2nd, in any order
Tricast	you name 1st, 2nd and 3rd, in the correct order
Trio	you name the three horses that fill the podium, in any order

Getting the order right is harder, so it pays more. Naming the first two in the correct order is about twice as hard as naming them in any order — and pays about twice as much. Tricast against Trio is the same idea six times over.

Each market takes exactly the horses it needs — two for a Forecast or Quinella, three for a Tricast or Trio — and a horse can hold only one finishing position in a given market. Give a horse 2nd when it already holds 1st and it simply moves.

The price appears on the EXOTICS panel as soon as your selection is complete, and that is the price you get when you add it to the slip.

One ticket, many bets

A ticket can hold up to 20 bets, and each one wins or loses on its own. They do not combine and the prices do not multiply — five bets on a ticket is five bets, not one bet that needs all five to come in.

There are no multiples. If you have used another bookmaker, that is the difference worth knowing: nothing here needs every leg to win.

The whole ticket is one charge, and it is placed all or nothing — if any line is refused, none of it is placed.

Stakes

Between $1 and $1,000 on any one bet, and at most $5,000 on a ticket.

Set a stake on each line, or type once into Stake per line at the foot of the slip and every line follows it. A line you have set keeps its own figure; clear it and it goes back to following.

Timing

Races run to a published schedule; the strip at the top of the betting page shows what is coming and when. Betting closes ten minutes before the off, and the countdown beside the race name is the one that matters. A Group race takes bets only once its field is final, three days before the off, so the card you bet into does not change under you.

The field is complete 72 hours before the off, when entries close. Some gates are held by ROX Official horses completing the card. Betting on the race opens only then, so the runners you price against do not change while the book is open.

Settling

Bets settle automatically once the race finishes, and winnings are credited to the balance you staked from.

The pool is divided at settlement and your return is your share of it, not the estimate you clicked.

If a race is cancelled, every pool on it is voided, stakes are returned in full and no rake is taken. A cancelled race does not touch a carried pool built up by earlier races.