What should I know about placing bets at the track or with a legal off-track betting system?
If you bet at the track or with a legal off-track establishment that is tied into the track betting pool, you can wait until the last few minutes to bet so long as the lines are short or the phones aren’t too busy. Bets at the track and with the legal off-track systems should be placed by first giving the amount of the bet, then the type of bet (Win, Place, Show, Exacta, Exacta Box, etc.) and next the horse program numbers only. A bet to win and place on Program #4, the horse called “Upset,” would be given as follows: “Give me $10 to win and place on number 4.” If you are betting different amounts to Win and Place then separate the two bets as follows: “Give me $10 to Win on No. 4, and $20 to Place on #4.” Note that the track and the legal offtrack betting operations don’t want to know the name of the horse. The name is useless to them. They enter numbers only into a computer that transmits your bet to the track computers for inclusion in the pool. WARNING: There are two sets of number
