It is hard to get away from the belief that spread betting on greyhound racing is the preserve of the man who will gamble on literally anything. Knowledge of dogs in a particular race is one thing, but many of the spread firms’ offerings are little more than tossing a coin. Sporting Index’s Barking Mad market may allow informed guess work—the trap numbers of the first two dogs across the line multiplied together across a whole meeting. So if one beats two, the score is 2. If five beats six, the score is 30.

 

Their Banana Bunch has the same mechanics as Barking Mad, but with the first three dogs across the line. So the minimum score for a single race is 6, the maximum 120— a sizeable volatility over a 12-race meeting makes this a lottery. Multi-distances (the collective winning distances between the first and second dog in every race in a meeting) and distance bets between different meetings are only for the hard-core gambler. Such markets are at best little more than looking at the record books and the average make-ups and trusting to luck.

 

At worst it is a case of ringing up and choosing on the spur of the moment to go high or low—and all the spread firms can vouch for clients like these. It is betting for the sake of it and none too clever. Sky’s occasional live coverage of the big meetings allows indices on individual races which may offer better value than fixed-odds, but greyhound spread betting is largely something to avoid.