Sports Betting Guide: What is a Horse Racing Superfecta?

Let’s start with the main question: What is a Horse Racing Superfecta? With the question out of the way, here is the answer: a superfecta is a wager placed in pari-mutuel horseracing betting that has the player pick the first four finishers in a horse race in order. If the order turns out to be correct, then the payout is considerable, due to the unlikelihood of success.

Within horse racing, most exotic bets like this carry a $1 minimum.

However, because the superfecta is so hard to pull off, some racetracks allow betting for as little as 10 cents on it.

This has become popular with fans who don’t have a huge bankroll but still want to cover a lot of different combinations and increase their chance for a big payoff.

What is a Horse Racing Superfecta?
Superfecta Explained: Increase Your Odds of Success!

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The Hardest Bet in Horse Racing

One of the most lucrative but most difficult horse racing bets to master is the superfecta.

Since 2017, the superfecta payout for $1 at the Kentucky Derby hasn’t paid less than $7,925.80.

With so much potential dollars to win, the superfecta is for sure a horse racing bet to consider playing.

What is exactly is the superfecta in horse racing and how do we set up strategies that allow us to make the most possible while lowering our investment cost?

Check out everything pro horseplayers and newbie horseplayers must know regarding one of the potential life altering horse racing bets at the track.

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What is a Superfecta?

A superfecta is a roll of the dice of horse bet, meaning hitting a superfecta takes both skill and a lot of luck.

When a superfecta bet comes in, it can pay up to six figures (no joke!) depending on the race.

The superfecta sounds like an easy bet.

Pick the first four finishers of a race.

That’s it.

Nothing special about it but it’s one of the most difficult races to hit because unlike the Pick 4, the superfecta is a horizontal race.

There are vertical exotics and horizontal exotics.

The difference is that a vertical race like the Pick 4 involves four straight races: Race 1, Race 2, Race 3, and Race 4 as an example.

Horizontal exotics happen in a single race.

So why is it more difficult to hit a horizontal exotic like the trifecta or superfecta as opposed to a Pick 3 or Pick 4? In a horizontal race, we pick the first four finishers not the horse to win.

It’s much more difficult to find the horse that finishes second, third, or fourth as opposed to just finding the winner, which is why in almost all cases, the superfecta pays out massively compared to the Pick 3 or Pick 4.

Superfecta Horse Racing Bets

What is a superfecta in horse racing?

A horse racing superfecta involves picking the first four finishers of a single race.

The task isn’t easy because of the nature of single races where if a horse has no shot of winning, the horse itself will slow down demonstrably towards the end of the race.

Horses are intelligent animals.

Thoroughbreds often know they are competing and tend to fall flat, like most athletes, when they feel they are overmatched.

There is only so much a jockey can do if the horse is having a bad day or the equine doesn’t believe it can compete, which is why in a race like the Kentucky Derby, the superfecta payouts have been huge in the past.

Past Kentucky Derby Superfecta Payouts

Check out the superfecta payouts for $1 at the Kentucky Derby since 2017.

I added the name of the horses that won that year’s Run for the Roses.

• 2024 Mystik Dan – $8,254.07
• 2023 Mage – $15,643.65
• 2022 Rich Strike – $321,500.10
• 2021 Medina Spirit – (DQed post payouts) – $9,456.40
• 2020 Authentic – $7,925.80
• 2019 Country House – $51,400.10
• 2018 Justify – $19,618.20
• 2017 Always Dreaming – $75,975.50

Even though the superfecta is on of the toughest betting options to hit in all of gambling, it’s worth taking a shot due to the huge potential payout.

All of the above payouts makes the superfecta worth playing in big races like the Kentucky Derby, Breeders Cup Classic, and other Breeders’ Cup races.

One thing to note is that many racebooks have superfecta payout limits.

Always check so that you know the superfecta payout limit for your specific racebook. 

How to Bet the Superfecta

What is a Superfecta Box?

The simplest way to bet the superfecta is to box four horses and go for it.

You can add more to your box, but we must be careful.

We get into superfecta costs in the next section.

To bet a superfecta box, simply pick the horses you want to include in the box and then click box.

No matter which horses finish first, second, third, or fourth doesn’t matter because you boxed the horses.

Again, playing superfecta boxes is easy but as you’ll learn in the next section, betting a superfecta box can lead to massive investment if you add more than 4 horses.

So we must be careful about putting too many horses into our superfecta box.

How Much Does a Superfecta Box Cost?

The minimum a $1 superfecta box costs is $24.

The reason is because we must add at least 4 horses into our box because we are choosing the first four finishers in a single race.

Check out the costs for adding 4 horses, 5 horses, 6 horses, 7 horses, and 8 horses into a superfecta box.

• $1 superfecta with 4 horses – $24
• $1 superfecta with 5 horses – $120
• $1 superfecta with 6 horses – $360
• $1 superfecta with 7 horses – $840
• $1 superfecta with 8 horses – $1,680

Playing a superfecta with more than 5, maybe 6 horses isn’t tenable.

Hitting the superfecta with 6 horses in our box in a 20 horse race like the Derby or even a 14 horse race like the Breeders’ Cup races is difficult to accomplish.

So adding more than 5 horses into our superfecta box does not constitute value.

The cut off should be 6 for sure.

Putting $360 on a single bet in a single race is often the recipe for disaster.

So consider to sticking to 4 horse, 5 horse at the most superfecta boxes.

Don’t Run to the Track Just Yet

Turning $2 into $48,000 sounds like an amazing result – and it is.

These finish-order bets are known as the exotic bets, and they feature huge winnings.

However, the vast majority of these types of horse racing bets end up going to the track (or the house) rather than the person who made the bet in the first place.

If you have a couple dollars to spend and don’t mind chasing a little bit of luck, the exotic bets can end up being a lot of fun.

If you’re a serious horse racing gambler, you’ll want to hedge that bet with some higher-probability action.

One of the fun things about betting at the horse tracks is letting a bet ride that you know shouldn’t win – and then hoping that it does.

Horse Racing Betting Superfecta Payout

One particularly unusual story from the 2013 Kentucky Derby illustrates both the difficulty and the intrigue that accompany the superfecta.

A woman at Churchill Downs was putting bets down for the first time in her life at the horse track.

She made 120 $1 bets. She predicted the winner (Orb) as well as the second, third and fourth place finishers.

Before income taxes were taken out, that meant that she had won $28,500.

Orb

The Horse was the 5-1 favorite to win the race outright, and so picking him in the first position wasn’t that big of a reach.

However, Golden Soul, who finished second, entered the race as a 34-to-1 long shot.

Picking him to come in second involved either a huge amount of luck or a certain amount of extrasensory perception.

Revolutionary, who came in third, was a 6-1 contender for the win, and fourth place Normandy Invasion, with 9–1 odds, were not surprises, but simply getting the order was amazing.

The race could certainly have turned out a lot differently, as both Revolutionary and Normandy Invasion looked like they were headed for a 1-2 finish until the last quarter mile saw Orb and Golden Soul gallop past them both.

Of course, if she had placed more on each bet, the woman would have won even more.

However, turning $120 into $28,500 is an amazing bet in any situation – especially the very first bet that someone placed at a horse track in her lifetime.

Orb, of course, won a lot more, taking home a purse of $1,439,800 – or $11,802 for each second that he faced on the track.

At the Kentucky Derby, a $2 superfecta bet brought in a payout of $48,126 before taxes. In contrast, the trifecta (which involves choosing the 1-2-3 finishers in order, paid significantly less — $3,952.40 before taxes.

The exacta (first and second place in correct order) would yield $329.80 for a $2 bet.

The low bet required for all three of these fairly large payoffs shows you just how difficult it is to predict the order of finish.

Such bets as the “win place show” which allow the bettor to choose the three top finishers and win no matter what order those top three actually achieve, have a significantly smaller payout but are (not surprisingly) much easier to win.

Best Horse Racing Superfecta Betting Strategy

This is my favorite superfecta betting strategy because it keeps the cost down low and I can play multiple superfecta tickets with the favorite on top, my second choice on top, and my favorite longshot to win.

$1 superfecta horse racing key betting strategy.

Take a look and I’ll explain the strategy.

1 w/2,3,4 w/2,3,4,5 w/2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

I choose a key horse to win.

Then I add 3 horses to finish second.

I add my 3 horses to finish second and another horse to finish third.

Then I add 4 more horses to the horses I choose to finish third to finish fourth.

The cost for the above superfecta is $54.

So what I like to do is play 3 tickets on a race like the Derby.

My key horse on my first ticket is the horse I believe wins the roses.

My second ticket is the horse I believe can beat the horse I like to win.

So my second choice.

My third ticket is the best longshot in the race, a horse offering at least 15/1 odds or higher.

Sometimes, I play with a fourth ticket because I like 2 longshots at 15/1 odds or higher.

Even if I play 4 tickets, the total cost for my superfecta plays comes out to $54 x 4, a total of $216, which I can live with because I only play superfectas on the biggest races with the highest potential payouts.

Always remember money management when playing the superfecta.

Good luck and may your life altering superfecta dreams come true.

MyBookie’s Sportsbook Betting Guide | Betting on Horse Racing

Check out our Sports Betting Guide to increase those winning when Horse Racing betting.

• Horse Racing Bets Explained
• How Horseracing Quinella’s Work?
• Win, Place and Show Wagering Explained
• The Horse Racing Multiple Betting System Explained
• Horseracing Betting Guide: Quinella
• What is a Horseracing Betting Superfecta?
• Horse Betting 101 – How to Bet On Horses

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