Ante post betting in 2026 — what the price really costs

Updated October 2026

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Ante post betting sits in that awkward gap between the racing press and the betting app. The race is months away. The card in front of you quotes a price that will move twelve times before declarations are due, and the rule on a horse that fails to line up is not the rule on a horse that falls in running. Most punters treat that gap as decoration. It is not. The settled result, the price you actually got, and whether your stake comes back at all are decided in it. The shape of a wager on the Grand National in October is decided in March, and the shape of a wager on the Cheltenham Gold Cup in December is decided at the Festival the year before. This is what the page is for.

*Data current as of 27 October 2026 and verified against the Gambling Commission’s public register.*

How ante post betting sits inside the market

The market the price sits inside

Ante post is one of two ways to bet on a British horse race. The other is the on-course book, the price at the off after the stalls open. The two sit at opposite ends of a calendar: ante post opens weeks or months earlier, the on-course price is the last price the market quotes before the flag goes up. Most punters move between them without noticing the change of regime. The bookmaker does not. An ante post bet is a contract written against the race, not against the day’s betting. A non-runner rule, a Rule 4 deduction, and a starting price all behave differently on each side of the line.

That distinction matters because every major festival runs an ante post cycle. Cheltenham is the centrepiece: the Supreme, the Champion Hurdle, the Champion Chase, the Gold Cup and a dozen supporting Grade 1s open months before the Festival, with most of the volume going through between New Year and the final declarations a week before the off. Aintree follows in April, the Punchestown Festival in late April and early May, Royal Ascot in June, Goodwood, York, the Galway Festival and the Ebor, then the autumn campaigns at Cheltenham and the major National Hunt opens. Flat and jump ante post calendars do not run in parallel. The biggest jump ante post books close in the days before a Festival starts.

Why the price is not the on-course price

A price on an ante post selection is a price the bookmaker has set against an event that has not happened. Form is read off trials and reappearances, weights are published, ground conditions are forecast, the going is read, the market is shaped by the racing press, and the price moves with every key piece of information. The headline price on a Gold Cup favourite in October is rarely the price the favourite starts at in March. That is the gamble. The headline price on a 50/1 outsider at the Festival a year out is, almost without exception, a price that is never on the betting slip of a settled bet.

The on-course price does the same job at a different point in the calendar. SP — starting price — is the last industry price, set by the on-course book, applied to bets taken without an explicit price. Best Odds Guaranteed — BOG — is a bookmaker rule that pays the SP when SP beats the price the punter took, but BOG does not apply to ante post. William Hill’s own help page makes that point clearly. The same rule appears across other major operators. Any reader betting on British racing needs to know which side of the ante post line they are on before they take a price.

Selection of the right bookmaker

Ten bookmakers make the cut of this comparison. All hold a remote general betting standard (real events) licence from the Gambling Commission. None of them is the only licensed bookmaker in Great Britain: the register lists hundreds. Each was picked because its ante post offer reads differently on the page — a feature, a rule, a margin or a limit. The point of the table below is to set the licence and the ante post policy side by side so the reader can match the brand to the wager they want to place.

The bet builder, the price boost, the acca builder and the cash out button on a football page do not appear on a horse racing ante post page. The names of those features are not how this comparison is won. The licence is. The ante post rule is. The settlement method is. Everything else is decoration.

Two things are worth pulling out of the table before any individual review. Every brand sits under a separate licence holder. That is the simplest way to settle a question that recurs on forums: the operator behind the app is the licensee, and the licensee is the company the Commission names on its register. The Tote is the only brand in the list whose ante post product is a pool, not a fixed-odds price, and the way a Tote pool settles is not the way a fixed-odds book settles. Both are ante post. They are not the same bet.

What the licence means in practice

A Gambling Commission remote licence is the only licence the Gambling Act 2005 requires of an operator whose remote facilities are used in Great Britain. Since the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, that requirement applies wherever the operator is based — a Gibraltar or Curaçao or Maltese licence is not a substitute. The Commission’s public register is the test of who holds one. A reader who wants to check that a brand holds a licence searches by business name, trading name, domain or account number.

Every brand in this comparison appears on the register. Every brand takes part in GAMSTOP. None is presented here as the only licensed brand, and the register’s full list of remote general betting standard (real events) licensees is the test a reader applies when they want to check beyond this ten.

The ante post rules every punter needs to know

The non-runner rule

The single rule that defines ante post is the non-runner rule. In an on-course bet, a horse that fails to line up generally voids the bet and returns the stake. In ante post, a horse that does not run loses the bet, so the stake is not returned. That is the default position the bookmaker writes into its ante post terms, and every brand in this comparison applies it.

The rule exists because an ante post bet is a contract against the race, not the horse’s connections. The bookmaker has set a price on the runner’s chance, the punter has taken it, and the bookmaker has reserved the right to settle on the result of the race — not on the day the runner’s connections decide to declare for it. The trade-off is that the price is bigger than the on-course price, sometimes several times bigger, and the punter is being paid for the risk that the horse will not run at all.

Rule 4 deductions

A Rule 4 deduction is a separate mechanism, and it does not behave the way most readers assume. Rule 4 applies when a horse is withdrawn from a race after the betting market has already formed a price. The deduction is applied to the winning market. The simplest case: a horse at 10/1 is withdrawn after the market has been set, the deduction is, say, 10 pence in the pound, and the punter’s winning price is adjusted from 10/1 down to 9/1. The same mechanism applies on ante post when a withdrawal falls inside a period the operator defines in its terms.

Rule 4 is a bookmaker rule. It is not a statute. The size of the deduction depends on the withdrawn horse’s price, and the application varies by operation. Some operators publish a deduction table, others apply a single rate per withdrawal, and the rate rises sharply when a short-priced favourite is pulled. The relevant point for the ante post reader is that Rule 4 works the same way on the ante post book as on the on-course book.

Balloted out and the accumulator

An ante post accumulator has its own rule for a selection that is balloted out or eliminated from a race. A treble becomes a double; the remaining leg runs at its original price. The single ante post bet on the same runner is void and the stake is not returned.

The mechanic is built for combination bets, where a single non-runner would otherwise blow up the whole stake. Most ante post punters place singles, but the rule is worth knowing for any punter moving from singles into accumulators in the final days of a Festival. The rule applies on top of the standard non-runner rule. A horse that is balloted out before declarations is not the same as a horse that is scratched after declarations, and the ante post rule for the latter is the harder of the two.

Race abandoned or moved

An ante post horse race bet is void if the race is abandoned or the race is moved to a different track. The stake is returned. That is the one rule on ante post that behaves the way the on-course rule behaves. A non-runner loses, a void race refunds, and the punter is on the wrong side of the line for the first and the right side for the second.

Settling at the price taken

Ante post bets are settled at the price available when placed. The trade in front of the bettor at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday in February is the price the punter is paid if the horse wins in March. That is what makes ante post the bet it is — the price does not move against the punter in a way the SP on an on-course bet can. The opposite side of that same trade is the trade the bookmaker makes: the price it took in February is the price it pays out in March, and a horse that shortens dramatically through the season leaves the bookmaker on the wrong side of a contract.

That asymmetry is why ante post is harder to predict than on-course betting. The punter is paid for accepting the non-runner risk, the bookmaker is paid for accepting the movement risk, and the price in front of the punter is the price both sides agreed on. The market’s own terms settle the matter.

Bets that are not accepted

Place-only, conditional and forecast bets are not accepted on ante post markets. A place-only bet is a bet that pays on the place terms rather than the win; a conditional bet is a bet that depends on a runner; a forecast bet is a bet on the order in which two horses finish. None is offered on ante post. The bettor who wants any of those bets is on the on-course book. The ante post book offers win singles, win accumulators and the trailing speciality bets some operators attach to the ante post product.

How ante post odds are set and what the margin costs

Reading the price

Ante post odds are quoted in fractional form on British racing. A price of 5/1 means a stake of £1 returns £6 (£5 profit plus £1 stake). A price of 11/4 means a stake of £4 returns £15 (£11 profit plus £4 stake). Decimal odds are the same price in another form: a 5/1 becomes a 6.00, an 11/4 becomes a 3.75. The conversion is a/b → a ÷ b + 1.

Ante post is set by the bookmaker, not by the market. The on-course book is set by the layers at the track and quoted by the betting exchange. The ante post book is set by the bookmaker’s traders, taking in form, market intelligence and the racing press. The difference shows up in the price: ante post on a top-priced favourite is rarely tighter than on-course, and ante post on an outsider is often significantly bigger than the SP the book would have offered on the day.

Margin in the price

The margin is what the bookmaker keeps of every unit bet on a market. It is the difference between the price the punter sees and the true price the market would give, expressed as a percentage of the stake. A market with a 5% margin keeps 5p of every £1 bet on the book.

The margin is invisible to the punter at the betting slip. It shows up when the same selection’s odds on different outcomes are summed back into a payout. The simplest illustration: a two-way market priced at 1.90 and 1.90. The payout share — the share of every unit bet that is returned to winning punters on average — is 1 ÷ (1 ÷ 1.90 + 1 ÷ 1.90) = 0.526, or 52.6%. The margin is 1 − 0.526 = 0.474, or 47.4%. That is an extreme case; a real ante post book on a five-runner race with a popular favourite runs closer to a 20% to 30% margin on the win market, and a competitive each-way book on a handicap sits below 15%.

The reader’s reading of margin matters because the ante post book carries a margin in every quoted price. A punter who prices a horse at 6/4 on the racing press will see a different number on the betting slip, and the difference is the margin. The arithmetic is the same on every market the bookmaker offers, and the result is the same: the punter pays the margin on every bet they place.

The payout formula

The return on a winning bet is stake × odds. The net profit is stake × (odds − 1). On a £10 single at 5/1, the return is £60 and the profit is £50. On a £10 single at 1.90 decimal, the return is £19 and the profit is £9. The formula is the same on every bet, and it carries from single to accumulator without change: the legs of an accumulator multiply into one price, and a £10 treble at 3.00, 4.00 and 5.00 pays out £10 × 60.00 = £600.

The arithmetic is straightforward. The reader’s job is to know what the odds imply, what the margin costs, and how much they are paying the bookmaker to take the bet. Those three numbers, set against the punter’s own reading of the horse, are the whole decision.

How the bet is placed and settled

The practical order

An ante post bet is placed the same way a regular bet is placed: the punter selects the market, chooses the stake, confirms the price, places the bet, and the bet is written into the bookmaker’s system with the price taken at the time of placement. The bet is then held against the race, and it settles when the race settles.

The pre-race calendar shapes the placement. Most ante post books on major Festival races open months ahead; most ante post books on midweek handicaps open a week or so ahead. Some operators offer ante post pricing the day before a race, and some draw a cut-off the day before declarations. The punter’s placement decision is shaped by the trade they want to take — the earlier the placement, the bigger the price, but the longer the stake sits at risk against a non-runner.

The pre-race day carries the rule for a horse that becomes a non-runner after declarations. A bet taken the day before declarations is settled on the non-runner rule if the horse fails to line up. A bet taken after declarations, on the day’s on-course book, settles on the on-course rule. The cut-off matters.

Reading the bet slip

A £10 ante post bet at 5/1 on a Festival favourite pays £60 if the horse wins. If it loses, the stake is lost as the market is win-only. An each-way bet — two equal stakes — pays the win part at the full price and the place part at a fraction of the price, depending on the operator’s terms.

A non-runner voids the bet and the stake is not returned. A Rule 4 deduction on the race reduces the price the punter is paid. A balloted out accumulator loses the leg, and the rest of the accumulator runs at its original prices. The punter sees the result in the settled column of the betting slip on the day after the race.

Settling a void race

A void race is a settled-on-refund outcome. The punter’s stake is returned and the bet is closed out. An abandoned race and a race moved to a different track are both void; a race moved to a different day is generally settled at the operator’s discretion and varies by operation.

The price on the day

The price the punter took is the price they are paid, not the SP and not the on-course book. Best Odds Guaranteed does not apply on ante post. A horse that wins at 10/1 SP having been taken at 14/1 ante post is paid at 14/1. A horse that wins at 5/1 SP having been taken at 4/1 ante post is paid at 4/1. The trade-off is the trade-off the punter agreed to when they placed the bet. The price on the day is the price the punter locked in.

Legality, regulation and what the Gambling Commission does

The frame

The Gambling Commission is a non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It licenses the whole commercial market under the Gambling Act 2005. The Act covers Great Britain — England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is outside the Act and runs under separate legislation; a GB licence does not extend to Northern Ireland.

Since the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, any operator whose remote facilities are used in Great Britain needs a Commission licence wherever the operator is based. A Gibraltar licence, a Maltese licence, a Curaçao licence — none is a substitute. The Commission issues a remote general betting standard (real events) licence for fixed-odds sports betting, a remote general betting limited licence for smaller operators, a remote pool betting licence for pool products, and a remote betting intermediary licence for exchanges. Each licence category carries its own conditions and codes of practice. The Commission’s public register is the test of who holds which.

Identity and verification

Identity verification has been a condition of holding a customer account since 7 May 2019. Name, address and date of birth are verified before the customer can deposit or gamble, and the verification applies to a free bet or a bonus as well as to a paid bet. There is no anonymous play at a licensed site. Source-of-funds questions at higher spend are part of the anti-money-laundering regime, and a punter who does not expect to be asked should read the operator’s source-of-funds page before placing a large bet.

What may be bet on

There is no statutory list of permitted markets. An operator holds a licence for a category and offers markets under its own rules. In-play betting is offered by GB bookmakers, and the controls are the operator’s licence conditions and customer-protection duties. Esports are treated like any other event, virtual events are a separate licence category, bets on politics, novelty markets and bets on reality TV are offered by GB bookmakers under their own commercial judgement. No statutory cap on stakes in sports betting was found; operators set their own maximum stakes and may restrict customers.

Responsible gambling, GAMSTOP and the bettor’s safety net

GAMSTOP

GAMSTOP is the national multi-operator online self-exclusion scheme. It is a mandatory licence condition for online operators since 31 March 2020. A customer can self-exclude for six months, one year, five years, or five years with auto-renewal. After the minimum period the exclusion stays in place for a further seven years unless the customer asks GAMSTOP to remove it. GAMSTOP covers online sites and apps; betting shops use a separate service. Every brand in this comparison takes part in GAMSTOP.

Vulnerability and affordability

A financial vulnerability check has applied to licensed remote betting since 30 August 2024. The check is a public-record check — bankruptcy, county court judgments, the published register of debt — not an income check and not a credit reference check. It applies when a customer’s deposits minus withdrawals exceed £150 in a rolling 30 days, with the threshold applied since 28 February 2025. Financial risk assessments — what the press has called affordability checks — are announced in a staged plan and have no start date. The Commission’s article of 7 July 2026 is the document that records the announcement.

Deposit limits

Operators must offer a gross deposit limit on a fixed time frame. The first changes applied since 31 October 2025. A second phase was postponed to 30 September 2026, and whether that phase is live has not been established. The state does not set a deposit or loss ceiling for betting. Limits are the customer’s choice.

Help

GamCare runs the National Gambling Helpline. GambleAware publishes information on the safer gambling tools licensed operators offer. The NHS gambling clinics are a clinical service in parts of England. Gamblers Anonymous runs mutual-aid meetings across the country. The bettor who finds their betting has stopped being the fun it was made out to be can reach any of them.

Predictions, strategy and what the punters actually do

What the racing press sells

The racing press publishes ante post previews from October onwards for the following year’s Festivals. The previews name a headline selection, a staking plan, a price at which the selection is the bet, and a portfolio of shorter-priced trades for the longer-priced selections. The previews are written by tipsters, not by the bookmaker’s traders. A tipster at 20/1 on a horse the bookmaker has at 14/1 is recommending a trade that costs more than the price in front of the punter.

The published tips carry their own bias. A tipster who recommends ten horses for a Festival is recommending a portfolio of bets, not ten sure things. A punster who reads ten tips and finds the same horse named in seven of them is reading consensus, not truth. The odds in front of the punter reflect that consensus, and the price on the tipster’s headline selection has shortened as a result.

The staking plan

Ante post punters stake in different ways. The headline staking plans in the press carry one of two structures: a level-stake plan where the punter places the same unit on every selection, and a proportional plan where the stake scales with the price. A 1 pt level-stake plan on 20 selections at 1 pt each is 20 pt of stake. A 0.05 pt proportional plan on a 20/1 selection is 1 pt of stake on the same horse. The two structures carry different risk, and a punter who cannot afford the larger stake on the proportional plan should drop the horse rather than stake more than they planned.

The bankroll

The bankroll is the total the punter has set aside for the season. Most published staking plans assume the punter stakes a small percentage on every bet — 1% to 2% of the bankroll is the rule of thumb the racing press uses. The bankroll is the same number through a meeting, even after a winner. A 1% bank on the first race of the Festival is the same 1% on the last race of the Festival, and a punter who raises the stake after a winner is staking more than the plan they read.

Reading the form

Form is read off the trials, the reappearance, the going and the trip. An ante post price is set before most of those trials are run, and the punter is pricing the horse against form the bookmaker has not yet read. The longer the calendar between the ante post price and the race, the more form the punter has to take on. A £10 bet at 20/1 in November is a bet on form the punter has not yet read; a £10 bet at 20/1 in February is a bet on form the punter has read.

The form the punter reads is the form the bookmaker reads. The bookmaker’s price moves on the form, and a horse that wins a key trial at 14/1 ante post in February is rarely the same horse at 14/1 in March. The punter’s edge is in the form the bookmaker has not priced, not in the form everyone has read.

The advice that holds

Three pieces of advice hold across most published staking plans. Stake small. Diversify. Read the terms. A £10 bet on twenty horses is a different shape from a £200 bet on one horse, and a punter who finds the second shape tempting is on the wrong side of a bankroll discipline that the racing press has been writing about for decades. The terms are the terms: ante post means non-runner loses, Rule 4 reduces the price on a withdrawn runner, and the punter who has not read the terms has not read the bet.

The licensed bookmakers in this comparison

Fitzdares

Fitzdares runs under Gambling Commission account 400, held by Fitzdares Limited. The Fitzdares app offers ante post markets on horse racing, football, tennis, rugby, cricket, golf and American football, alongside cash out, accumulators, Lucky 15s, specials and in-play live odds. The ante post product is set across the major jump and flat Festivals. The product range is wider than most on the racing side, and the inclusion of American football is unusual in the British ante post market. The brand is the kind of bookmaker that sets a position on the bets it offers rather than chasing the headline price.

The reading of Fitzdares is that a punter looking for ante post on a sport other than racing has a working book. A punter looking for a headline price on a Cheltenham favourite has a competitive book, but the racing product is not the headline product. The brand’s focus is on product breadth rather than specialising in deep racing ante post.

Tote

Tote runs under Gambling Commission account 54779, held by TDCO Limited. The Tote’s ante post product is a pool product, not a fixed-odds product. The settlement is by dividend, and the stake is paid into the pool with the rest of the betting public. The dividend depends on the pool size and the winners, and the Tote’s ante post pool on a major Festival race can be a significant share of the dividend.

The reading of Tote is that a punter who wants a fixed-odds ante post price should bet with a fixed-odds bookmaker. A punter who wants to bet against the pool, with the pool’s own dividend, has the Tote. The two are different bets. The Tote’s ante post dividend is not the same number as a fixed-odds price, and a punter comparing the two should compare the dividend, not the fixed-odds price.

Geoff Banks

Geoff Banks runs under Gambling Commission account 54095, held by GB Sports Advisors Limited. The Geoff Banks app offers live in-play prices and ante-post prices on future events. The brand’s product is a smaller book than the major operators, and the depth of the ante post book on a midweek handicap is thinner than on a Festival Grade 1. The trade-off is the price on the headline races, which is sharper on the Festival Grade 1 than on the midweek handicap.

The reading of Geoff Banks is that a punter with a small, well-priced ante post book has a working book. A punter looking for breadth on the midweek card should look elsewhere. The operator’s strength lies in its headline price, though the midweek racing selection is less extensive.

Lottoland

Lottoland runs under Gambling Commission account 38991, held by EU Lotto Limited. The Lottoland UK app combines casino, lottery betting, sports betting and scratchcards, and the ante post product sits inside the sports betting vertical. The brand is a lottery-led operation with a sportsbook attached, and the depth of the ante post book is not the brand’s headline product.

The reading of Lottoland is that a punter with a sportsbook account at Lottoland has a working ante post book on the major Festivals. The depth on the supporting races is thinner than a dedicated racing bookmaker. A punter whose ante post interest is a single bet on the Cheltenham Gold Cup has a working book. A punter whose ante post interest is a Festival portfolio has a thinner book than the dedicated racing brands.

Betmaster

Betmaster runs under Gambling Commission account 65699, held by BM Solutions GB Ltd. The brand is registered in Malta and operates in Great Britain under its Commission licence. The sportsbook offers ante post on major events, with the depth of the book on the headline Festivals working for a punter looking for a single bet or two.

The reading of Betmaster is that the brand has the Commission’s licence. The ante post product is a working product for a punter looking for a single bet on a major race. A punter looking for breadth on the supporting card should look at a deeper book. The brand’s headline product is not the racing ante post book.

10bet

10bet runs under Gambling Commission account 43173, held by Blue Star Planet Limited. The 10bet app covers football, tennis and horse racing, with Cash out, Bet Builder and Live Streaming. The ante post book is on the racing vertical, and the brand’s product is broader than the racing book — the football and tennis ante post books are also on offer.

The reading of 10bet is that a punter with a multi-sport ante post interest has a working book. The horse racing product is not the headline product, and a punter with a racing-heavy Festival portfolio should look at a racing-led brand. The offering’s primary benefit is the multi-sport variety across the ante post books.

bet365

bet365 runs under Gambling Commission account 55148, held by Hillside (UK Sports) ENC. The bet365 app offers Bet Builder+ on a single match, Super Boosts on selected markets, Winnings Boosts on Bet Builders and selected singles, and daily Bet Boosts. The ante post product sits inside the racing and football verticals. The Bet Builder+ is pre-match and in-play, and the Super Boosts apply across the ante post book on selected markets.

The reading of bet365 is that a punter looking for a deep book on a Festival ante post market has a working book. The brand’s product is broader than the racing book, and the Bet Builder+ and Super Boosts are features the racing-led brands do not match. The trade-off is the price on the headline race, which is competitive but rarely the sharpest in the market. The core advantage is the market depth, with headline prices often competitive but not always market-leading.

Copybet

Copybet runs under Gambling Commission account 537774, held by Copybet UK Limited. Copybet offers Best Odds Guaranteed all day, every day on UK and Irish racing, and pays first past the post on horse racing even if the winner is later disqualified. The ante post book is on the racing vertical, and the BOG rule does not apply on ante post. The brand’s product is the racing book, and the BOG rule is the headline feature on the on-course book.

The reading of Copybet is that a punter looking for a racing-led book with a BOG rule has a working book. The ante post book is a working product for a punter who knows the BOG rule does not apply. The operator is better suited for racing on the day, with the ante post market being a secondary product.

London Bet

London Bet runs under Gambling Commission account 66162, held by Thistle Bet Limited. The London Bet app carries a 17+ App Store age rating. The brand’s product is a casino-led operation with a sportsbook attached, and the ante post book is on the racing and football verticals. The depth of the ante post book on a Festival Grade 1 is thinner than a racing-led book.

The reading of London Bet is that a punter with a London Bet account has a working ante post book on the major Festivals. The depth on the supporting card is thinner than a racing-led brand. A punter looking for a single bet on a Festival Grade 1 has a working book. A punter looking for a Festival portfolio has a thinner book than the dedicated racing brands.

BetMGM

BetMGM runs under Gambling Commission account 39198, held by LeoVegas Gaming PLC. The BetMGM UK app’s sports welcome offer for new customers who deposit £10 or more and place a sports bet within 7 days delivers four £10 free bets — two football accumulators of 4+ selections and two sports multiples of 2+ — valid for 7 days, with minimum odds and opt-in required. The ante post book is on the racing and football verticals, and the welcome offer is a separate product from the ante post book. The headline product is the casino-led operation, with the sportsbook attached.

The reading of BetMGM is that a punter with a BetMGM account has a working ante post book on the major Festivals and a sporting venue. The welcome offer is a separate product, and the trade-off between the free bets and the ante post book is the punter’s decision. The brand operates primarily as a casino-led platform, with ante post racing availability a secondary feature.

How the ante post punter reads the calendar

The cycle

The British racing calendar runs on two cycles. The flat season opens in March and closes in November, with the major Festivals in between — the Craven meeting at Newmarket, the Guineas, Royal Ascot, Goodwood, the Ebor at York, the St Leger at Doncaster, the Cambridgeshire, the Cesarewitch, and the closing day at Doncaster in November. The jump season opens in November and closes at Punchestown in late April and early May, with the major Festivals — Cheltenham, Aintree, Punchestown — in between.

The ante post book on a Festival opens months ahead. The Cheltenham ante post book opens the day after the previous year’s Festival, and the major selections are priced within weeks. The Royal Ascot ante post book opens in the autumn, with prices set by the new year. The Grand National cycle follows later, with major selections priced through the winter.

Reading the cut-offs

The cut-off matters. Most operators set a cut-off the day before declarations, and any bet taken after the cut-off is settled on the on-course rule, not the ante post rule. Some operators set a cut-off the day of declarations. Some set the cut-off at the time of the declarations, with the betting slip closing when the declarations are published. The punter who has placed an ante post bet should check the cut-off the operator sets for the race.

The cut-off is published in the operator’s own terms. The punter who has not read the cut-off has not read the bet. The punter who has read the cut-off has a working trade.

The day of the race

The day of the race is settled on the day. The on-course book opens, the ante post book closes, the race is run, and the result is settled. The punter’s ante post bet is settled on the result, at the price the punter took, with the non-runner rule applied, with the balloted-out rule applied, with the abandoned-or-moved rule applied, and with the Rule 4 deduction applied if a runner has been withdrawn.

A £10 ante post bet at 5/1 on a horse that wins is settled at 5/1. If the horse finishes second, does not run, or the race is abandoned or moved, the stake is lost or voided as per the race terms.

Reading the spreadsheet of betting offers

What the spreadsheet is not

The spreadsheet of betting offers is not a ranking. The brands in this comparison are listed alphabetically on the Commission’s register and ordered here in the same way. A reader who wants a ranking of brands by ante-post result on a Festival has to read the settled results, not the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet sets the licence and the ante post policy side by side, and the reader matches the brand to the wager they want to place.

What the spreadsheet is

The spreadsheet is a tool for a reader who knows the wager they want to place. The reader who wants a Festival ante post book with a working product on the supporting card has a different reading of the spreadsheet from the reader who wants a single bet on a headline race. The two readers will pick different brands. The spreadsheet is the test they apply.

What the spreadsheet does not carry

The spreadsheet does not include every licensed bookmaker in Great Britain. The Commission’s register lists hundreds. The ten in this comparison are the ten the editorial team picked. The reader who wants a longer list has the register. The reader who wants a shorter list has this comparison.

What the licence does and does not give the punter

What the licence gives

A Gambling Commission remote licence gives the punter a series of customer protections: GAMSTOP coverage, source-of-funds checks, the LCCP social responsibility code, a Commission complaints route, an approved alternative dispute resolution body, the £150 vulnerability check, the 10x bonus wagering cap, and the credit card ban. The Commission can remove the licence after a licence review, and the operator’s customer accounts are protected under the operator’s segregation of customer funds. The punter’s stake is held in a segregated client account.

The limits of the licence

The licence does not guarantee the operator will pay out. The licence does not guarantee the price the punter took. The licence does not guarantee the racing product the punter wants. The licence sets the frame; the operator sets the product. The punter’s reading of the operator’s product is the punter’s decision.

The take-home for the ante post punter

Three rules hold across every licensed bookmaker on the ante post book. A non-runner loses the bet. A Rule 4 deduction reduces the price on a withdrawn runner. A race abandoned or moved to a different track voids the bet. The trade-off the punter has accepted is the price on the ante post book, and the price is bigger than the on-course book for a reason: the punter is being paid for the non-runner risk.

The reading of the ante post book is the reading of a long-term contract. The punter takes a price in November and is settled on the price in March. The punter who has read the terms, set the bankroll, and placed the bet is the punter who has read the bet. The punter who has not read the terms has not read the bet.

The licensed bookmakers in this comparison are ten. The Commission’s register lists hundreds. The reader who wants to check that a brand holds a licence searches the register. The reader who wants to place an ante post bet reads the terms, sets the bankroll, and places the bet. The reader who wants a headline price on a Festival favourite has a working book. The reader who wants a Festival portfolio has a working book. The reader who has not read the bet has not placed the bet.

Frequently asked questions

What is an ante post bet?

An ante post bet is a wager placed on a horse race well before the day of the race. The price is set by the bookmaker, not by the on-course market, and the bet is settled at the price the punter took. Bets placed at least a day before a race are treated as ante post under most operators’ terms, and the bet runs against the race rather than the day’s betting. The key trade-off is that a non-runner loses the bet rather than refunding the stake.

What is ante post betting?

Ante post betting is the practice of betting on horse races days, weeks or months ahead of the race itself. The bookmaker sets a price on each runner, the punter takes the price, and the bet is settled on the result of the race at the price taken. Major Festival races run an ante post book that opens months ahead, with most of the volume moving in the final weeks before declarations. The non-runner rule and the Rule 4 deduction are the two mechanisms that distinguish ante post from on-course betting.

Does Rule 4 apply to ante post bets?

Rule 4 applies on ante post bets when a horse is withdrawn from a race after the betting market has already formed. The deduction is applied to the winning market and is sized against the withdrawn horse’s price. The mechanism is the same as on the on-course book, with the deduction rate rising sharply when a short-priced favourite is pulled. The application varies by operator, and a punter reading the terms should look for the operator’s Rule 4 table.

How can it be checked that a bookmaker holds a Gambling Commission licence?

The Gambling Commission’s public register can be searched by business name, trading name, domain or account number. The register is the whole test of whether a brand holds a Commission licence, and the licence categories are listed against each licensee. A reader who wants to check that a brand holds a remote general betting standard (real events) licence searches the register and reads the licence category against the licensee name. Every brand in this comparison appears on the register.

How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?

The return is stake × odds. The net profit is stake × (odds − 1). On a £10 single at 5/1 the return is £60 and the profit is £50. On a £10 single at 1.90 decimal the return is £19 and the profit is £9. The same formula carries from single to accumulator: the legs multiply into one price and a £10 treble at 3.00, 4.00 and 5.00 pays out £600. The arithmetic is the same on every bet and is the only arithmetic a punter needs at the betting slip.

Content created by the «Fast Payout» team