Swinger Bet
In a Swinger bet, the punter picks two horses you believe will finish in the first three places in a race.
In a Swinger bet, the punter picks two horses you believe will finish in the first three places in a race.
Horse racing, and parimutuel or tote betting, have a wide range of exotic bets with higher odds of winning than straight wagers. One of these is swinger bets, which have better chances of winning than a winning wager.
How can swinger bets win easily? Are they worth making for the next race? We answer these questions by looking closely at this exotic horse racing wager.
Swinger Bets Explained
A swinger bet is an exotic wager that lets you predict at least two horses that will finish in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
While the wager sounds like an exacta bet, the swinger bet's significant difference is how the horses can finish in any of the top three positions. You win the wager as long as two of the horses you backed with this wager ends the race in the top three positions. Neither of the two has to get 1st place for you to win this bet.
A critical factor of the swinger bets is that you are not limited to just two or three horses. It is possible to have up to five horses in one swinger bet.
To make a swinger bet, select the horses you believe will take the top positions in a race and mark the box that says "SW." If you cannot find SW on the ticket, the bet also goes by Omni bet. A swinger bet needs to be at least two horses.
Advantages & Disadvantages Of Swinger Bets
Swinger bets have shallow risk due to the condition of the wager. You only need your horses to place regardless of the order. Bettors will take this wager if two or three performing thoroughbreds have incredibly high odds of winning. A win bet on either of the firm favorites has less than a 30% chance of succeeding.
What makes bettors avoid swinger is its low payout. Expect a $1 swinger bet of three favorites to return around $1.10 to $1.20. Swingers are also not good wagers to Dutch since there is a chance of losing one or more of those bets.
An excellent way to use swinger bets is for horses with higher prices or ones with a slightly good chance of beating the favorites. These are selections that have odds of around 4/1 - 10/1. Adding these horses to a favorite with odds of 2/3 can give you a decent payout while having a good chance of winning.
Another method for offsetting the low payout is Dutch swinger bets, which make two or more swinger bets. Dutching should result in winnings covering the stake for all the swinger wagers. A good to Dutching swingers is to have several combinations of a favorite and a highly-priced horse. For example, one swing bet will have a 2/1 horse & a 5/1 horse, while another has the same 2/1 horse & a 6/1 horse. To keep the wagers profitable, limit the number of horses per ditched bet to just two.
Alternatives To Swinger Bets
If the payout possibility of a Tote swinger bet seems too low and you are looking for wagers with higher odds of winning, below are several good alternatives.
Place Bet
Predicting a single horse to finish in 1st or 2nd is a place bet. Your chances of winning this bet are slightly lower than a swinger since you will lose if your backed horse ends in 3rd place. However, the added risk has given place bets a much higher payout.
Low payouts are a common issue with place bets despite being higher than that of show or swinger. Like swing bets, the place is much more profitable if your selection is horses with higher prices than the favorites or ones that are likely to reach 2nd place. These are horses with odds of 3/1 to 5/1.
Exacta Bet
Exacta bets are exotic wagers that are risky and hard to win since it involves predicting two horses that will finish 1st and 2nd in the correct order. If your wager has horse A taking 1st place and horse B taking 2nd place, horse A needs to be ahead of horse B and every other participant to win the wager.
Risk is the main disadvantage of an exacta bet. Not only do you need to predict the horses that will reach the top two places, but you also need to predict which ones will finish in order. Because of the risk, the payout of this wager is much higher than a winning bet.
FAQ
What are swinger bets?
Horse race Swinger bets predict which of the two, three, four, or five horses will finish the race in one of the top three positions. The order in which horses place does not matter as long as two of your selected horses finish 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.
Can you choose more than two horses for your swinger bets?
Bettors can have up to five horses in their swinger bets. You need to have at least two horses to make this wager.
Why are bettors avoiding swingers?
Payouts for swinger bets are meager, primarily if the wager consists of mostly favorites. The best way to profit from these wagers is to back horses with a good chance of beating the race's favorites.
Are swingers valued bets in the long run?
Professional bettors can still find value in swinger bets after researching the race's participants' true odds extensively. Proper selection in a swinger bet can still grant a good ROI.
How are swingers different from the place and exacta bets?
Place bets are a wager on which horse will end in either 1st or 2nd place, while exacta bets are a prediction on the 1st & 2nd place horses. Both of these horse racing bets have a better payout than swinger bets.
Swinger bets are easy to win due to their lax condition of having at least two horses finish in the top three positions. Due to their low risk, swingers do not have an attractive payout as other exotic wagers.
