Michigan Online Horse Betting

Michigan horse racing betting sites

Wagering on horse racing via your mobile apps and tablets has become a relatively seamless experience. There are horse racing betting websites and apps that offer online and mobile wagering in Michigan. Some of the more reliable and trustworthy legal sites for wagering on horse racing include Amwager, BetPTC, BetAmerica. NYRA Bets and TVG horse betting app are not operating in Michigan. As far as mobile apps are concerned, all of these brands are all compatible with both iOS and Android operating systems. 

Bonus offers

Several of these online horse racing wagering websites will offer signup bonus packages to entice new Michigan players, especially ahead of major events, such as Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and so on. BetAmerica offers new players a 100 percent matching bonus worth up to $100. And Amwager offers a risk-free first deposit matched bonus worth up to $100.

Horse betting tracks in Michigan

• Detroit Racecourse
• Great Lakes Downs
• Hazel Park
• Jackson Raceway
• Mount Pleasant Meadows
• Pinnacle Race Course
• Saginaw Valley Down

Most of Michigan’s racetracks have are long closed and the land is now used for other purposes. Detroit Racecourse, Great Lakes Downs, Hazel Park, Jackson Raceway, Mount Pleasant Meadows, Pinnacle Race Course, and Saginaw Valley Downs are among the tracks that today are just a memory of days gone by.

There’s hope that Northville Downs might soon have company when it comes to live racing.  Sports Creek Raceway stopped offering live harness racing when it closed on Jan. 1, 2015. However, the track was purchased in 2018 by AmRace and Sports LLC. The company has plans to eventually convert Sports Creek into a thoroughbred track and reopen for live racing.

There is one operating race track in Michigan at Northville Downs. It hosts local pari-mutuel horse racing under the Horse Racing Law of 1995. More recent amendments to the law have made it possible for gamblers to make bets on their smartphones and online.

Live races are held at Northville Downs over the weekend. Following the 2020 coronavirus lockdown, Friday and Saturday night racing resumed.

All races are harness racing, featuring a driver on a two-wheeled cart, known as a sulky. Anyone wanting to race at Northville Downs must first apply for a horse racing license from the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB).

Northville Downs also screens simulcast races from across the Five Lakes State and further afield. Visitors can place bets on a host of races as they happen.

Participating tracks include Thistledown Racecourse in Ohio and Belterra Park in Cincinnati. It’s also possible to place wagers on major annual races like the Kentucky Derby.

Gamblers at Northville Downs, Michigan can place bets in person at the track. There are around a dozen different types of wager, including a straight Win, a Place, or Show. You can also bet on Across the Board, a wager on your horse c5oming first, second or third.

Riskier bets like the Trifecta and Superfecta are also popular. The Trifecta is a bet on the first three horses in finishing order. The Superfecta, meanwhile, is a bet on the first four horses in exact order of finish.

All race betting at Northville Downs is pari-mutuel. That means all bets are pooled between all participating gamblers. Prizes are paid out depending on the total amount of cash collected before a race.

However, Michigan gamblers can also place bets online with TVG, the official wagering provider of Northville Downs. New players can enjoy a risk-free bet when they sign up, and read picks from top figures in US horse racing. It’s now legal to place bets via smartphone on the TVG site.

Can you bet on horses in Michigan? Legal status

While online sports betting and casino gambling are about to explode on to the Michigan gaming scene, the sport of kings no longer wears a crown. Horse Racing, which dates back to over a century ago with the state, is on its last legs as far as live racing is concerned. 

At one point, horse racing offered the only legal form of gambling across the state of Michigan. Over the years, the development of lotteries and the opening of retail casinos chewed away that advantage. The Michigan state government collects taxes from horse racing on wagering, both live and simulcast, racing fees and licenses. However, revenues have been in steady decline for more than a decade.

Now you can bet place bets on horse racing online as Michigan now has several sites accepting bets on horses, such as Amwager.

You can also bet in-person. For example, Northville Downs, a harness track in Michigan, is the last racetrack offering live horse racing within the state but that won’t be the case for much longer. The 48 acres upon which the track is located was purchased in 2018 by housing developer Hunter Pasteur Homes.

The original plan was for the land to be developed in 2021 but that plan has since been put on hold, offering a lifeline to Northville Downs. Live racing is guaranteed to continue through 2024.

At one time, horse racing was booming in Michigan. Hazel Park Harness and Detroit Race Course for thoroughbreds thrived with the City of Detroit. But both of those tracks are long gone.

The majority of current horse-racing revenue is generated via simulcast wagering on races from tracks across the USA and around the world.

How to bet horses: types of bets

Traditionally, horse racing has offered two style of betting options. However, Amwager, online horse betting site (legal in Michigan), offers all of these bets below. Pick your strategy and claim your bonus in form of free bets when you deposit and place your first bet.

Straight bets are the most basic type of horse racing wagers. These are the standard win, place, and show wagering offer on the outcome of a race.

A win bet is the simplest and most popular form of horse racing wager. You cash a winning ticket if the horse you’ve bet is on finishes first in the race. 

With a place wager, you cash if your horse finishes in the first or second position. The show bet pays out on horses that finish in the first, second, or third in a race. 

Exotic bets entail the outcomes of a race in a specific order. An exacta asks bettors to choose the horses that will finish first and second in a race, while a trifecta calls for bettors to pick the top three finishers in a race and a superfecta requires bettors to pick the top four finishers. Tracks will also offer Pick 4 wagers, where bettors are required to select the winners of a series of four successive races on that day’s card.

Bettors are able to box and wheel selections in these exotic wagers. With a box, bettors select horses that the feel will occupy the finishes called for in the exotic bet. For instance, by selecting three horses in a trifecta box, the ticket cashes no matter the order in what the horses finish, as long as they are all among the top three.

It’s also possible to box more than the minimum limit of horses for a bet. For example, suppose you think three horses are all legitimate contenders to finish in the top two places. Simply put all three in an exacta box and you’ll be a winner if any two of the three occupy the top two placings at the end of the race. 

Wheeling involves a different horse racing betting strategy. If you’re fairly confident that a specific horse is going to win a race but you like four or five others to finish either second or third, you can wheel this trifecta bet. You’re putting the favored horse on top – meaning that horse must win the race. But as long as that horse wins and any of the other four horses you’ve wheeled underneath finish second and third, you’ve got a winning wager.