Category: Big Races

The Melbourne Cup stands as one of Australia’s most anticipated sporting events, drawing in seasoned punters and casual spectators alike. During this high-stakes race, betting becomes part of the excitement, and understanding the odds is a key part of joining in. These numbers do more than calculate potential returns—they represent how bookmakers and the market assess each horse’s chance of winning.

Whether you’re backing a favorite or eyeing a long shot, knowing how to interpret odds gives you a clearer picture of where your money is going. It adds purpose to your picks and gives you an edge beyond pure guesswork.

Read on to understand exactly what Melbourne Cup odds mean and how to use them to place smarter bets.

Types Of Betting Odds (Decimal vs Fractional vs American)

Understanding how odds are presented is a key part of knowing what you’re betting on. The format can vary depending on where you’re placing your bet, and it affects how you interpret potential payouts.

To make things clearer, the following are the three most common odds formats you’re likely to come across:

• Decimal odds (most common in Australia): These are straightforward and easy to calculate. A horse listed at 4.00 means a $1 bet would return $4 (including your stake). So, if you bet $10, you’d get $40 back if the horse wins.
• Fractional odds (Common in the UK): Written like 3/1 (spoken as “three to one”), this means you’ll earn $3 profit for every $1 you bet. A $10 bet returns $30 profit plus your $10 stake, totaling $40.
• American odds (rare in Australia): These appear as +300 or -150. A positive number shows how much you’d win on a $100 bet, while a negative number shows how much you need to bet to win $100.

If you’re comparing odds or trying to make sense of different formats, it helps to use a reliable source. A platform that provides Melbourne Cup odds along with expert tips, betting guides, and historical results can save time and make the betting process clearer—especially when switching between bookmakers.

The history books still record that, on May 26, 1880, the unbeaten 2/1 favourite Bend Or, ridden by Fred Archer, edged out Robert The Devil, ridden by Edward Rossiter, to win the Derby by a head. However, shortly afterwards, a rumour began to circulate that Bend Or was not, in fact, Bend Or, but another three-year-old chestnut colt, named Tadcaster. Like Bend Or, Tadcaster was homebred by Hugh Grosvenor, First Duke of Westminster, at his Eaton Stud in Cheshire and, like Bend Or, was sired by the 1873 Derby winner Doncaster, but out of a different dam.

According to Richard Arnull, a soon-to-be-former stud groom at Eaton Stud, the two colts had been inadvertently switched as foals. His motivation for revealing that information, after the fact, remains unclear, but the rumour resulted in the joint-owners of Robert The Devil, Charles Brewer and Charles Blanton, who also trained the horse, lodging a belated objection against ‘Bend Or’ on the grounds that he was ‘not the horse he was represented to be’. In the absence of irrevocable evidence, one way or the other, the Epsom stewards faced a nigh on impossible task to resolve the matter and, based on what was effectively hearsay, unanimously overruled the objection, such that the result was allowed to stand.

Fast forward 130 years or so and, in 2012, evidence came to light that suggested, whatever his original intentions, Richard Arnull was right. A research project compared mitochondrial DNA taken from the skeleton of Bend Or with that taken from the living relatives of Tadcaster and proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that the 1880 Derby winner could not have been out of Rouge Rose, believed to be the dam of Bend Or, but proved a perfect match for Clemence, the dam of Tadcaster. A fascinating chapter in racing, of course the gambling world has changed significantly since then with wolfwinner online pokies for real money and the like, though racing is as popular as ever!

Nowadays, the Japan Cup is one of the most prestigious and valuable races not just in Japan, but anywhere in the world; in terms of international appeal, is often mentioned in the same breath as the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the Melbourne Cup. At the last count, the total prize money was in excess of ¥1 trillion, or just over £6 million, with ¥500,000,000, or £2.78 million, going to the winner.

Run over 2,400 metres, or approximately a mile and a half, on turf at Tokyo Racecourse on the last Sunday in November, the Japan Cup is a Grade 1, weight-for-age, conditions race open to horses aged three years and upwards. The race has a safety limit of 18, but, rather generously, up to ten foreign-trained starters are allowed.

Established in 1981, the Japan Cup is, and always has been, an invitational race. However, it has always had an international flavour, with winners from Europe, including Britain and Ireland, North America and Australasia featuring on the roll of honour down the years. However, one of the aims of the Japan Racing Association (JRA) in creating the Japan Cup was to provide an opportunity for locally-trained horses to compete with rivals of international calibre at the highest level.

It would be fair to say that the specified aim has been achieved in spades in recent years. The brilliant 2023 winner, Equinox, trained by Tetsuya Kimura, was, in fact, the eighteenth Japanese-trained horse in a row to carry off the lucrative first prize. No-one could argue that the stoutly-bred son of Kitasan Black – who was beaten favourite in the Japan Cup in 2017 – was not a deserved winner, having won his three previous starts of 2023, all at Grade 1 level.

The last ‘overseas’ winner of the Japan Cup was, in fact, Alkaased, a five-year-old Kingmambo colt, trained in Newmarket by Luca Cumani and ridden by his compatriot, Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori. In what proved to be his last race, Alkaased was all out to win by a head.

Inaugurated on September 26, 1987, the Festival of British Racing was a forerunner of British Champions’ Day at Ascot. However, the Festival of British Racing was a far cry from the star-studded meeting that, since 2011, has marked the finale of the British Flat racing season. It featured just one solitary ‘championship’ race, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, which was upgraded to Group One status for the first time in 1987. The supporting card did include the Group Two Diadem Stakes, which would become the British Champions Sprint in 2011 and upgraded to Group One status in 2015, but the only other Pattern race, the Group Three Cumberland Lodge Stakes, was not included in the British Champions Day programme.

In truth, the Festival of British Racing is probably best remembered as the backdrop against which Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori achieved his so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’ in September, 1996. In 2011, British Champions Day was created by cherry picking the best races from the Festival of British Racing and the Champions Stakes Meeting at Newmarket, including the Champion Stakes itself; thanks to a massive injection of prize money by an enthusiastic and committed sponsor, Qipco, the meeting finally became the spectacle that the Festival of British Racing had always aspired to. Punters love the possibility of big money races and wins to get involved in. In much the same way, players of slots gravitate towards the likes of online pokies real money for their chance to win big!