Upcoming races

The races you can bet on right now.

That is the whole meaning of this screen, and you need to know it so as not to look for it elsewhere: the list does not show the coming races in general, but only those whose entries are closed and which have not yet been run. In other words, those whose field is final. See Being a punter.

The practical consequence is that this list renews itself constantly. A race appears in it when its entries close and disappears when it starts. Come back to it often rather than looking in it for a programme for the day.

It is nevertheless never empty, and that is no accident: the game permanently creates Prix du webmaster races covering every usual category, and those stay open to betting for one hour instead of a quarter of an hour. So there is always something to play, even at a quiet time.

Reading a line

• The name of the race, which leads to its card, with its date, its speciality and its distance.
• Its class, its racetrack — clickable, it shows the layout — and its manager.
• The criteria: which horses the race was open to. That tells you what sort of field you have in front of you.
• The jackpot and the number of entrants.
• The stakes: yours first, then the total already staked on the race.
• The Bet button.

The three figures that decide the choice

These columns are not decorative: they let you compare races with each other before staking.

The entrants. They govern the types of bet available — 6 are needed for a trio, 8 for a quarto, 10 for a quinto. And a large field scatters the other people's bets, so it improves the dividends.

The jackpot. Money added by the organiser, which comes to swell the dividends without any punter having staked it. A race with a jackpot is mathematically more interesting than the same one without — it is the figure to look for first.

The stakes. The column gives two: yours, then the total already staked by everybody. That total is your competition — a lot of stakes means a bigger cake, but shared among more people; few stakes, the opposite. A lightly played race with a jackpot is the best deal there is. As for your own stake, it reminds you what you have already put in there, which saves you coming back to it twice without thinking.

The filters

The sorting, then the class — regulated, free, competition or cup —, the speciality, the presence of a handicap, the length, the age, the race's name, and the jackpot.

Two of them deserve to be set lastingly. The jackpot filter isolates at a stroke the funded races, which are the ones where there is something to win. And the handicap filter separates two worlds: in a handicap race, the game has itself estimated the value of the horses and tells you so in metres or in kilos — a considerable piece of information, which a race without a handicap does not give.

Before clicking Bet

Open the list of entrants from the race's card: each one's earnings, score, age, number and handicap are there. See Start.

And cast an eye over the turf, which is displayed on the card within the hour before the start. Heavy turf does not suit every horse, and it is the kind of detail the other punters neglect.

Then Betting.