Greyhound betting isn’t necessarily the easiest sport to crack when you’re just starting out. After all, it’s not like betting on football or NFL, where you might already have a strong background knowledge in the sport.
Many punters come to greyhound betting for the first time, having never really experienced the sport before.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t quickly develop a dogs bet strategy to act as your guide in future races. Paddy Power offers extensive odds and live streaming on greyhound races across the country, so we reckon we’re well placed to offer you a few tips.
Below are four greyhounds betting strategies that might just work for you. None of them are bullet-proof but they all aim to help you make smarter decisions, protect risk, and open your eyes to the options out there.
Paddy Power greyhound betting strategy guide
Betting on Greyhounds Strategy Tips
All four tips below are designed to give you something to think about. It might be the case than none of them suit your betting style – or you may realise that two or three work for you.
As with all Paddy’s tips, the main focus is on being smart with your choices and betting with your head, not your heart.
And with that, let’s dive into the four greyhound strategies that we reckon newcomers find most useful.
Start With Each Way Bets
There’s no getting away from it, Each Way betting is the best way for new bettors to start in a sport like greyhounds or horse racing. An EW bet gives you automatic insurance in case your pick doesn’t win. For greyhounds, you get paid 1/4 of your total payout if your dog finishes second.
Now, this might not sound like much but it all depends on the odds. If you back an outsider at 11.00 each way, then you’ll earn £2.50 for every £1 staked should it finish second.
Each way betting is a good way to get started because you’re covered for more eventualities, so you can make ‘mistakes’ and still not totally lose out. As you develop your game, you can then start to back dogs to win outright with more confidence.
Choose Inner Traps
There’s no definitive answer to what is the best trap in greyhounds betting, but it’s fair to say the inner traps deliver the most winners. We’re talking traps 1, 2 and 3 in a six-dog race. These are the first three starting gates on a racetrack.
Why are these better? Well, because the dogs have less distance to run compared to those in traps 4, 5 and 6 that have to cover the width of the racetrack before the first bend.
It’s a small extra distance but it could make all the difference.
Listen to Experts
Experts are experts for a reason. They’re the ones who follow the dogs around the country, who speak to trainers and owners, who know what’s going on. Greyhounds is not a popular sport compared to the likes of football, cricket and rugby – so you’re not going to see much chatter about it in newspapers or sports websites.
Experts therefore become invaluable. You can learn plenty from what they have to say, even if they don’t tip very well. Listen to them and digest what they say. You’ll soon get used to the language of greyhound racing, be able to spot dogs trained by the most successful guys in the business, and make smarter betting picks.
Play with Combos
Most experienced greyhound betting fans go beyond betting on single races and instead create combination bets. These require some or all selections to win, in order for you to earn a payout. Trifectas are commonplace in greyhound betting, where you bet on the first three finishers of a race in the correct order.
Or you might want to lump three picks from three separate races together in a greyhound accumulator.
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