Best Irish Horse Racing Betting Sites

It’s time to take a dive into the world of horse racing in Ireland and beyond on a quest to find the best horse racing betting sites. Whether it is promotions for the biggest festivals or simply friendly customer support you hold dear, we’ve got you covered at Betyou.ie.

When our experts review and rate the best Irish horse racing betting sites in 2024, we are generally looking for a list of key criteria.  

Firstly, the online sportsbook should be licensed and regulated by a legit governing body like the UK Gambling Commission or the Irish Revenue Commissioners. 

We love to see top bonuses and ongoing promotions aimed towards horse racing betting whether it be free bets, enhanced odds or extra place terms. The most important thing to get us through the door as new players is an enticing signup bonus.  

When big events like Cheltenham and Aintree come around, we want to see extra bonuses and promotions and competitive odds for the races at the meeting. 

Several horse racing betting sites also offer live betting and live streaming services while betting apps are a big positive to help us bet on the go. 

Features like easy and fast deposits and withdrawals will make our user experience a lot easier while if we have friendly and efficient customer support staff on hand we’ll feel more safe and secure.

Let’s look briefly at a few of the best horse racing betting sites available on Irish shores. 

Tonybet 

Tonybet is a popular site amongst Irish bettors offering a great deposit bonus of up to €100, along with a bettor’s tournament and a VIP sports program where horse racing enthusiasts can get involved. There’s also live in play betting and streaming on the horse racing. Tonybet features odds boosts on selected horse races and has the bet builder function. 

22Bet 

22bet isn’t one of the biggest betting operators out there for Irish players but when it comes to horse racing markets there are hundreds to choose from every single day. There are various bet types too like place betting and betting without the favourite. 22bet covers meetings from several countries, offers live streaming and even has a prepopulated horse racing betting acca of the day as a quick pick option. 

Slotuna 

Slotuna sportsbook is another solid option for Irish sports bettors. Start your sports betting journey at Slotuna with a 100% deposit match offer up to €100 and enjoy weekly reload bonuses and cashback that you can use on your favourite betting markets. Enjoy live betting on a diverse array of bet types. 

Ivibet 

Ivibet is another sports betting platform licensed under the Curacao gaming laws. It’s operated by TechOptions Group B.V. Many territories are restricted including the United Kingdom (without a VPN) but players from Ireland can sign up and claim a 100% deposit match up to €150.   

Bet365 

Bet365 is one of the most established online bookmakers and will often be the originators of the odds for horse racing. Promos will be great at bet365 when big festivals like Cheltenham comes around. Bet 365 also offer a comprehensive live betting menu and complementary live streaming for members, as well as a results service. New Irish players can bet €10 and ger €30 in bonus bets.

When we sign up to a new betting site for horse racing, we want as many features as possible that enhance our user experience. Whether this is enhanced odds, extra places on the races, best odds guaranteed, live betting and streaming or even factors like ease of deposits and withdrawals, it all comes into the equation.

Firstly, we want to make sure we are using a fully licensed and regulated bookmaker. The safety and security of the players is paramount. A strong sign-up bonus is a huge incentive and the more promotions, bet types and betting markets on the horse racing the more we have to choose from. We might want to make some exotic bets like a Yankee or a Trixie – does the sportsbook allow that?

Sports Betting apps with live betting and streaming add to an immersive experience and nonstop betting, while loyalty programs reward the most faithful horse racing bettors. Features like extra places guaranteed stand out and great bonuses for the likes of Punchestown and Cheltenham will always be welcomed by punters.

When it comes to offers and promotions on the best betting sites for horse racing, you won’t be stuck. Enhanced odds, daily odds boosts, extra place terms and more are offered daily on top online sportsbooks like BetVictor,  888sport and TonyBet.

Look out for great sign up offers and horses racing specific promos when the biggest festivals and meetings come around. The likes of Bet365 will have boosts and super boosts on selected horses in every race while Boylesports and Skybet for example will offer extra place terms at competitive odds.
If it’s just enhanced odds you’re looking for try BetVictor or 888sport.

Of course all the best sites will offer best odds guaranteed and money back specials, along with an array of different specials bets throughout the horse racing season. Punchestown and the Dublin Racing Festival, Leopardstown and the Galway Racing festival are some of the biggest horse racing events in Ireland so look for some great promotional offers in the week leading up to these festivals.

There are several things you can do to try and put the horse racing odds more in your favour vs the bookies at horse racing meets. Let’s look at a few hints and tricks:

1.       Stick to certain race types.

2.       Bet on more on obscure races.

3.       Use the Actual over Expected formula to calculate value.

4.       Check out the tips of the best judges.

5.       Watch the moves in the market and see where the big syndicate money is going.

6.       Check for reverse line movement.

7.       Research historical and recent results.

8.       How do different horses fare on different ground conditions?

9.       How do horses perform on specific tracks or in specific handicaps or races?

10.   Bet in Play: Watching the race play out often throws up some nice betting opportunities.

You can also look to take advantage of all the enhanced odds offers, specials and the extra place offers on show at the big bookmakers for the top racing festivals. Shop around the online sportsbooks for the best odds using an odds comparison site.

There are generally several different bet types available at Irish betting sites to bet on horses. Let’s go through some of the most popular ones here. 

Single: a straight bet on the outright winner of the horse race. This could be on a favourite or an underdog. 

Double: Combine a single from two different races and multiply the odds of each horse together. The result is your return odds should you be lucky enough to back two winners on the nose. 

Accumulator – add three or more selections into one single bet in the hopes of a lucrative payout. Remember unless you’re getting parlay insurance; all the horses have to win for you to win your bet. 

Trixie – make three selections from different races. You are essentially making 4 bets in the shape of three doubles and a treble, so your stake is multiplied by 4. If you want to add in some singles, try a Patent bet. Two from three must come in for a payout. 

lucky 15 bets work the same way as the Trixie only you’re making four selections from four different races. The lucky 15 consists of 15 bets where we add in four singles and most bookies will offer bonuses and insurance on the lucky 15 bet in horse racing betting, so it’s preferred to doing a Yankee bet. 

The forecast or tricast can be a lucrative form of betting. In a forecast if we like two horses, we can back them to finish first and second in a certain order. The dividends on these bets are obviously much higher if they come in. For a tricast we just add in another horse and pick 3 horses. We can also play reverse forecasts and combination tricasts where your horses can come in the top positions in any order. 

The placepot is a card where you pick a horse from each race to place. It’s usually the first six races of a meet. Similarly, the Jackpot is where you pick the winner of four consecutive selected “Jackpot” races. It’s like an accumulator with bonus payouts. We can pick multiple selections across the card in the Jackpots but we have to pay for each combination.

Currently betting in running or live betting accounts for over 30% of wagers. Several betting sites and betting apps offer live betting, live streaming and results services and this has made live horse racing betting take off. Remember that your stream will usually be a little behind so it can pay to monitor the exchanges to see how the race is going.

It's nice to be able to watch the race start and take shape and if you’ve a good eye you might see some horses struggling that were meant to go well or vice versa. Essentially you can take in information that will be missed by the market and not priced into the odds.

These in play odds are often controlled by an algorithm too which gives us room to exploit the prices. Sites like Bet365 and PaddyPower offer excellent live betting, streaming and results services. We’ll see plenty of in-play markets in horse racing betting.

Best Odds Guaranteed (BOG) is a promotional offer that some of the larger bookmakers use to attract business. These can include bookmakers like Bet365, Skybet, 888sport, PaddyPower and Boylesports. BOG is one of the most popular promotions in horse racing and we will see this offered at big racing meetings like Leopardstown and Fairyhouse.

There can be times when backing early horse racing betting odds pays dividends when the traders put up lines that are a little off but sometimes it backfires, and the closing line ends up drifting. This can happen in line with the betting exchanges like Betfair which will dictate the horse racing betting prices.

What the best odds guaranteed feature does is make sure that if the odds at the start of the horse race are bigger than the odds you took, you’ll get paid out at these odds. This is great because it allows us a free hit at taking early odds.

Ireland is one of the biggest countries when it comes to racing meetings. There are meets and festivals every day to bet on horses in Ireland whether it’s in Fairyhouse or in Bellewstown. Irish punters love a bet on the horses though, so they don’t have to stick to these shores. Let’s have a look at some of the big racing festivals on the island and beyond.

·Cheltenham Festival is the biggest and best racing festival of the year for both UK and Ireland horse racing punters. Prize money is huge, and the prestige of the event is second to none. It’s a four-day festival that takes place around March and usually coincides with Paddy’s Day. Irish punters flock to Cheltenham in the hopes of hitting a nice score or a big winner at The Cheltenham Gold Cup. 

·Breeder’s Cup is an end of the year championship for North American thoroughbred horses, and it attracts the biggest names from around the world. It's closely related to the Kentucky Derby. The Breeder’s Cup has been a 2-day evet from 2007 and consists of a series of Grade 1 races. 

·Galway Races is Ireland's biggest and most famous racing festival and is held in summertime in Galway every year. Get ready for seven days of non-stop action. Thursday is Ladies’ Day at the Galway Racecourse. This is an extra incentive for the Irish ladies to take part and maybe win a big cash prize. The Galway Plate is the biggest race of the event. 

·Aintree Grand National is the richest race in the UK and comes around Easter time. All the biggest horses and jockeys will be in attendance albeit the big race has a lot of luck attached to it. It is a National Hunt handicap steeplechase with over 30 fences. Anyone remember Mon Mome storming to victory at three figure odds when half the field fell? 

·Dublin Racing Festival could be described as the best social and horse racing occasion live from Leopardstown racecourse where the music and beer on tap is as fast as the horses. The Irish Gold Cup and Irish Champion Hurdle highlight the calendar. 

·Punchestown Festival is a horse racing meet like the Dublin Racing Festival in Leopardstown. Ladies’ Day is on Friday which is known as the most sociable day on the calendar. There are loads of big races up on the outskirts of Naas. The Punchestown Gold Cup highlights the 5-day festival, usually held in early summertime.

Paddypower and Bet365 would be the two horse racing betting apps I’d recommend as a horse racing punter in Ireland. Both come fully equipped with live streaming of all the biggest races, great promos, the best odds and a myriad of live betting markets.

Both apps can be downloaded on iOS or Android from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store respectively. They also have great results services if you want to check out how your bets did after the fact.

When Cheltenham time comes around you can expect to see several promotional offers as each of the best betting sites battle eachother for new sign ups and action.

This can be anywhere from fantastic signup bonuses for new players, reload bonuses for existing players, extra place specials, enhanced odds and loads more.

If you are making big bets or exotic bets like Yankees and Lucky 15s or just accumulators beware of the bookie’s maximum payout limits.

How to place a bet on the horse racing:

It's simple to place a horse racing bet for one of the big festivals like Cheltenham.

1.Navigate to the bookmaker page via our links.

2.Hit the ‘register’ or sign-up button.

3.Fill in all your details required like your name, address and email.

4. Opt-in to any bonuses if you want.

5.Send in any verification documents needed.

6.Fund your account and navigate to the Cheltenham betting markets.
Browse your favourite horse races, pick your horses and simply place your stake in the bet slip.