Today we’re going to take a look at the fun, inexpensive, and sometimes prosperous wager called the Superfecta.

The objective of a Superfecta is to pick the top four finishers in a race. There must be at least five wagering interests in a race for a Superfecta to be offered.

The difficulty of hitting a Superfecta is somewhat balanced by its low minimum wager. It’s unique among bets in that it can be played for as little as 10 cents at most tracks. The bet cannot be placed with a teller at a 10-cent denomination; only through a self-service terminal or a betting app, such as NYRA Bets.

Because of its low minimum, a 10-cent Superfecta sometimes does not pay as much as a 50-cent Trifecta, or even a $1 Exacta.

Last Saturday at Belmont Park, the median 10-cent Superfecta payoff was $19.60, in contrast to the $28.55 median on the $1 Exacta and the $33.50 on the 50-cent Trifecta. Although the percentage ROI is higher, the overall profit on a 10-cent Superfecta usually isn’t that high…but it can be.

The best time to play a Superfecta is in a race with a large, wide-open field. Those races have the highest potential for chaos, as longshots sometimes sneak into 3rd and 4th which can cause massive payoffs.

A textbook example came in the second race at Belmont last Saturday. The top four finishers went off at, in order, 6-1, 10-1, 80-1, and 22-1. The 10-cent Superfecta paid more than $4,700, far and away the highest payoff of the day.

It’s unlikely that anyone (except a grade-school English teacher) could have conceived that the 80-1 shot, PROPER GRAMMER, could have finished 3rd in that race.

Much like in Trifecta betting, many players will key their best horses on top in 1st and 2nd, using only one or two horses in those spots, and spread in the 3rd and 4th spots. They’ll use a bunch of horses in those spots, even those who they don’t think have a chance, in the hopes of catching a longshot and making a big score.

The Superfecta ticket pictured is a wager the Daily Racing Blog made earlier this year at Woodbine (where the minimum Superfecta bet is .20 cents) and as you can see we keyed the #11 horse on top with 6 other horses underneath. That was a good ROI.

Another common method of playing the Superfecta is playing a box, where the horses selected can finish in the top four in any order. If you play a Superfecta box with the #1, #2, #3, and #4, as long as those four horses all finish in the top four, no matter the order, you’ll win. A four-horse Superfecta box costs $2.40 for 10 cents (4 X 3 X 2 X 1 divided by 10), a five horse Superfecta box would be 5 x 4 x 3 x 2.

You should try the Superfecta wager, it’s not expensive, a lot of fun, and you could possibly Win BIG !