ANTE POST BETTING EXPLAINED

What is Ante Post Betting?

Sometimes a bit of planning ahead can be a good thing. Think about this. Well before the start of a new Premier League season the entire fixture list will be released. Well before the kick off at a World Cup punters will know well in advance which games are being played when. This can lead you to making some long-term wagers or maybe it is the middle of the week and you just want to get prepared with your wagers for the weekend because you won’t have time to do it on the day.

This is called ante post betting. What is ante post betting? This is a bet placed on an event at least a day before it actually happens. You will actually find this term most commonly used in horse racing. On the day before a race, the runners in a race have to be declared (this usually happens around 10 am). So before this point, punters will be able to snap up an ante post price on a horse which can be looked at as a futures bet really.

So what does ante post betting mean and why is it even a term if it is just a regular bet? Well it is a popular time to get a wager down on a selection because this is when you will generally find the best prices on a selection. For example if your ante post selection on a horse is 5/1, then by the time that the actual day of the race comes, the bookmaker could well have taken a significant amount of backing on that particular horse who then may go off at a starting price of 4/1 perhaps. So the longer you wait to get your wager down, you could sacrificed some odds.

Remember on horse racing betting, bookmakers will NOT offer Non-Runner No Bet coverage on ante post bets. This means that if you have backed a runner at the declaration stage (generally 48 hours prior to a flat race and 24 hours before a national hunt) then if that horse for some reason becomes a non-runner then you will not get your stake back, it will void and declared a loss.

One big advantage of taking an ante post bet on horse racing is that you may be able to skip any Rule 4 deductions. Rule 4 in horse racing is where another horse in the race is declared a non-runner. So, if for example the 2/1 favourite pulled out, the odds on your selection winning will be cut, so you would be faced with a deduction. This only happens after the final declarations have been made on a race.

Ante post bets aren’t limited to horse racing of course you can find them on a whole host of sporting events. Maybe you want a big ante post bet on the winner of the FA Cup for that season before the start of the third round of action. Maybe you want to throw a wager on the winner of the next Rugby World Cup two years in advantage of the tournament even being staged. The advantages of doing an ante post bet really is in the fact that there is likely to be a much better price on your selection, that is because if you backed Germany to win the World Cup in two year’s time but qualification for the tournament hasn’t even been settled yet, the final field is unknown and so there is a bigger risk involved.