What is Rule 4 in horse racing, and how does the deduction work?
When a horse is withdrawn after you have bet, how the deduction is worked out and what it does to a winning bet.
Read the guideThis independent comparison website helps consumers choose the best available gambling product matching their needs. We offer a high-quality advertising service by featuring only established brands of licensed operators in our reviews. Please note that although we endeavour to provide you with up-to-date information, we do not compare all operators on the market.
Betting guides
Betting guides: how the terms and the sums work
Eight pages on the things that change what a winning bet pays: Rule 4, Best Odds Guaranteed, each way terms, the bet types and the words used for them, plus three guides to the big racing meetings, the Grand National, the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot. They have worked examples, and each links to the calculator that does the arithmetic.
What is Best Odds Guaranteed, and how does it work on a racing bet?
How the guarantee pays the better of your price and the starting price, and where it stops.
Read the guideEach way betting explained: the win part, the place part and the sums
Win and place parts, fractions and places, and the price at which a placed horse covers both stakes.
Read the guideTypes of bets explained, from a single to a Heinz
Singles, multiples, each way, full-cover bets, forecasts, ante-post and bet builders, with the cost of each.
Read the guideBetting glossary: the terms you meet on a UK bet slip
Odds, bet types, racing terms and safer gambling words, explained in plain language with links to the figures.
Read the guideGrand National betting: each way, a big field and what changes a bet
The race facts, each way on a big field, ante-post risk, Rule 4 and the sums for a bet on the National.
Read the guideCheltenham Festival betting: four days, four feature races, the terms
The four days and their feature races, ante-post risk, extra places, Rule 4 and a four-day bet worked out.
Read the guideRoyal Ascot betting: five days of flat racing and how the terms work
The five days, the Gold Cup, the big handicaps, each way and Best Odds Guaranteed, with the sums shown.
Read the guideHow the guides are written
New to betting terms? Start with the betting glossary, then read types of bets and each way betting explained. Racing readers can go on to what Rule 4 is and how Best Odds Guaranteed works. The seasonal guides cover the Cheltenham Festival, the Grand National and Royal Ascot, and each one links to the calculator that does its sums.
Each guide explains one idea with figures worked out by the same code that runs our betting calculators, so the numbers on the page match what the tools give. They describe how the terms usually work and where the bookmakers’ own rules take over, and they do not tell you what to bet. Where a bookmaker’s terms differ, the guide says so and points to the review.
Guides do not carry a publication date because the ideas do not change from month to month. The bookmaker terms they refer to do change, so the horse racing and football pages and each review carry the month in which we read them. Betting is for people aged 18 and over. GambleAware offers free, confidential support.