Looking for a Second Racing Account: What Is Actually Worth Comparing

Why one account is a structural disadvantage

A single bookmaker gives you a single price. If a horse is 4.00 with your account and 4.40 elsewhere, every winning bet you place at 4.00 is ten per cent smaller than it had to be. That difference compounds across a year far more reliably than any improvement in your form reading, because it requires no skill at all, only the willingness to look twice before confirming.

The second reason is availability. Markets, bet types and the willingness to take a particular bet differ between operators and between races. The punter with one account bets what they are offered. The punter with two or three bets what they wanted to bet.

The cost of more accounts, stated honestly

• More balances to track, and a day going badly has more places to deposit into.
• More verification processes, each with its own document requirements.
• More promotional contact, each operator with its own reasons to get you betting again.
• A harder time seeing total spend, which is the number that actually matters at the end of a month.

Why we do not list operators here

Three reasons, and they are all about honesty rather than modesty. Operator features, prices, market coverage and promotions change constantly, so any list published today is wrong within months. Comparison tables published by sites that earn a commission on sign-ups order themselves commercially, and we are not going to produce another one dressed as research. And we have not conducted a tested comparison of wagering operators, so saying that we had would be a lie.

What we can do instead is tell you what to look at. The checks on our licensed accounts page establish whether an operator is licensed in an Australian state or territory at all, which is the question that comes before any comparison of features.

A fortnight's worth of comparison you can run yourself

This takes no special knowledge and produces a better answer than any review. Pick the races you normally bet. Before you place anything, write down the best price you can see at each account you hold, and the price you took. Do it for two weeks.

The habit that matters more than the account

Checking the price before confirming is the single most valuable thing an ordinary punter can do, and it works regardless of which operators you hold. A punter with three accounts who always bets at the first one is in exactly the same position as a punter with one.

Tote access is the comparison nobody makes

Punters compare fixed-odds prices constantly and almost never compare what an account can do with a tote pool. That is a mistake, because the two systems pay differently on different kinds of race and an account that only gives you one of them has halved your options before you start.

Where the tote wins

On a race where your selection is unfashionable, the pool can pay well above the fixed price, because the dividend is set by where the crowd's money went rather than by a bookmaker's assessment. On a race where everybody is on the same horse, the pool pays less. A punter who can reach both is choosing between two prices on every bet; a punter with fixed odds only is taking what is offered.

What to check in each account

• Whether tote betting is available at all, and on which codes and meetings.
• Which exotic pools you can access, and whether the bet types you use are offered on provincial as well as metropolitan cards.
• How tote-derived prices, where offered, are defined in that operator's rules. These are the operator's own products and the definitions differ, so read them rather than assuming.
• Whether a scratching refunds a tote bet and deducts from a fixed one, which is the ordinary position and worth confirming in writing.

Questions punters ask

Is it allowed to hold accounts with several bookmakers?

Holding multiple accounts with licensed Australian bookmakers is ordinary practice. Each operator's own terms govern how your individual account is handled.

Will an operator limit me if I win?

Operators set limits on markets and on individual accounts within the rules of their licence, and the specifics are in their terms. Read that clause if it matters to you.

Do better prices really matter that much?

Yes, because the effect is arithmetic rather than a matter of judgement. A systematically better price improves every winning bet, which is more than most selection improvements achieve.

Does this page recommend an operator?

No. We name none and recommend none. Commercial blocks on this site are labelled as advertising where they appear and are not a ranking.

Keep reading

Spotting a licensed accountWho is licensed to take your betTote, fixed odds and the bets betweenDeposits and withdrawalsWhere a complaint goesAll racing topics