A Superfecta is one of the most popular exotic bets in horse racing. It requires you to pick the first four horses home in a race, in the correct order. Hitting a winning Superfecta is a rare feat, even for the shrewdest of horse racing fan. However, it can yield some truly huge payouts for a relatively small investment. A Superfecta bet is one of the few horse racing bets that can yield a potentially life-changing sum of money.
“A Superfecta bet requires selecting the first four finishers in a race in the precise order to win.”
The great thing about a Superfecta is that you can make it as simple or complex as you want. A Superfecta pick as a straight wager is the cheapest option available at just 1x your stake (minimum bet $1.00), making it a good option for novices.
More experienced handicappers tend to prefer boxing up their selections, which means that they can finish in any order and increase their chances of winning. A Superfecta Box Bet with four selections carries 24 possible combinations, which means a $1 bet would cost a total of $24.
There are other options, like a Superfecta Key, Superfecta Full Wheel, and Superfecta Part Wheel, all of which allow you to combine specific combinations to fill those top four positions. So let’s show you more about horse racing betting and how to bet a Superfecta.
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The Straight Superfecta bet keeps things super-simple, and inexpensive. You simply pick a horse to finish first, second, third, and fourth, and select a stake (minimum total stake usually $1). Occasionally, there may be a maximum stake but that will vary from sportsbook to sportsbook.
Remember, to win on a Superfecta Straight wager, you’ll need to be correct on all four places. If you do, you could be in line for a mega payout!
If you had placed a $1 Straight Superfecta wager on numbers 3-2-11-4 in the 2024 Kentucky Derby, you would have hit a $8,254.07 payout. Not a bad day’s work by anyone’s standards!
The image below shows how a bet slip looks and how you would place one of these straight wagers.
A Box allows you to select several horses to finish in the top four spots, in any order. In this scenario, your chances of success with the Superfecta horse racing bet are greater, but the total cost of the bet is greater because of the increased number of combinations. So, if you want to select four horses for a Box bet in an 8-horse race, then the total cost of betting those four runners to fill the first four places in any order, is 24x your unit stake. If you were betting a $1 stake, your $1 Superfecta box cost would be $24
With a Superfecta Box wager, the only restriction on the number of combinations you can choose is the number of runners in the race. If you want to box up six selections, for example, there are 360 possible combinations, so the bet will cost you 360x your unit stake.
| No of Selections | No of Bets | Total Cost to a $1 Stake |
|---|---|---|
| 4 horse Superfecta box cost | 24 | $24 |
| 5 horse Superfecta box cost | 120 | $120 |
| 6 horse Superfecta box cost | 360 | $360 |
The Superfecta Key bet centers around a key horse that you think will win the race. You will then select three horses that can finish in any order behind the winner. You are not restricted to the number of place horses you can choose, but the more you choose, the greater the number of combinations, so the more expensive the bet is.
Unlike a Superfecta Box, where selections can finish in any order, the Key bet only lands if your key horse wins the race. Below, we’ve used the 2024 Kentucky Derby Superfecta result as an example.
You would have needed to have selected Mystik Dan as the key horse, with Sierra Leone, Forever Young, and Catching Freedom among your place selections. This particular Superfecta paid $8,254.07.
| Number of Key Selections | Number of Secondary Selections | No of Bets | Total Cost to a $1 Stake |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 6 | $6 |
| 1 | 4 | 24 | $24 |
| 1 | 5 | 60 | $60 |
| 1 | 6 | 120 | $120 |
A Superfecta Full Wheel is a full-cover bet on the four horses required to fill a Superfecta. This means that all possible combinations are covered. With this bet, you select a horse to fill one specific position (usually first, but it’s not unknown for players to choose a horse they think will finish second, third, or fourth), and then multiple horses to fill the remaining positions. It’s known as ‘wheeling’ all possible combinations for those positions.
So, as an example, in a ten-horse race, you want to place a Superfecta Full Wheel bet with Horse A to win and three other horses (B, C, and D) to finish second, third, and fourth in any order. You would create a Full Wheel by selecting Horse A for the first position and then including all possible combinations of the other three horses for the remaining positions:
This full-wheel wager would cost you 6x your unit stake.
A Superfecta Part Wheel wager provides more flexibility than a Full Wheel bet. In a Part Wheel, you choose one or more ‘key’ horses to finish in specific positions (e.g. first and second) and then include other horses to fill the remaining positions, in any order. This method is more cost-effective than the Full Wheel because of the fewer possible combinations.
So, if you believe horse No. 1 will win, and a combination of horses 2-8 will finish in the second, third, and fourth positions, you can do this via a Superfecta Part Wheel bet. You’ll put No. 1 first, along with combinations of the other seven horses. The below table shows you some different combinations.
So if you take the first row of the table below as an example we are betting on this basis:
| Key 1 | Key 2 | Key 3 | Key 4 | No.Of Bets | Total Stake |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,3 | 4,5 | 6,7,8 | 12 | $12 |
| 1 | 2,3 | 4,5,6 | 6,7,8 | 18 | $18 |
| 1 | 2,3,4 | 5,6,7 | 6,7,8 | 27 | $27 |
| 1 | 2,3,4,5 | 6,7,8 | 6,7,8 | 36 | $36 |
Exotic wagers are a group of popular horse racing wagers that are used to try and generate higher wins. There are several different types of exotic bets, along with the Superfecta, so we thought it would be a good idea to give them a mention. You can place these at many offshore sportsbooks.
There is so much information to digest when assessing which horses you want to put in your Superfecta bet. Trying to find that winning combination to a big payout is not easy. In this section, we’re going to focus on some of the main factors that need considering if you want to maximize your chances of hitting that jackpot payout.
Now, we’re going to walk you through the steps required to place a Superfecta bet at an offshore sportsbook. We’ve chosen BetOnline as an example because they have a hugely popular racebook that allows you to do Superfecta betting on racing all around the world every day of the week.
The Kentucky Derby is a big race that has produced some unbelievable Kentucky Derby Superfecta payouts in recent years. If you are wondering how much does a Superfecta pay?
Here are five examples of huge winning tickets when finding the top four finishers in the correct order of finish in the Run For The Roses. These would have resulted in a life-changing payout (especially in 2005!).
| Kentucky Derby Year | First 4 Horses | Total Return to a $1 Stake |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Rich Strike, Epicenter, Zandon, Simplification | $321,500.10 |
| 2017 | Always Dreaming, Lookin At Lee, Battle Of Midway, Classic Empire | $75,974.50 |
| 2010 | Super Saver, Ice Box, Paddy O’Prado, Make Music for Me | $101,284.60 |
| 2009 | West Side Bernie, Musket Man, Mr. Hot Stuff, Advice | $278,503.20 |
| 2005 | Giacomo, Closing Argument, Afleet Alex, Don’t Get Mad | $864,253.50 |
As you can see, the rewards of Superfecta betting can be off the scale. This is why it’s such a popular wager. It’s a perfect opportunity for smaller-stakes players to win big. This is a good wager, especially in bigger-field races where the win odds of each horse are bigger.
The flip side should be fairly obvious by now. It’s an incredibly difficult bet to pull off, so should only be played to small stakes.
There is a whole range of great sportsbooks to bet on horse racing but we love BetOnline because of its dedicated Racebook, which is unrivaled in its coverage of horse racing from around the globe.
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Gambling responsibly is vital for your health, mental health, and the well-being of your family. You mustn’t overstake on Superfecta bets and risk running into financial difficulties. If you feel that gambling is becoming an issue and would like some help, we have a dedicated Responsible Gambling page that contains lots of helpful and free advice.
Alternatively, there are many other resources available, including the following:
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