If you go into any bookmaker you will be faced with a wide range of different types of horse racing bet. From simple ‘win’ and ‘each way’ bets through to more complicated Yankee and Heinz accumulators, there is a huge choice of ways in which to profit from racing.

Anyone looking to profit from racing is on the lookout for the one bet that offers a life changing return. One of the most popular such bets is the Pick Six.

What is a Pick Six?

A Pick Six is a particular type of bet offered at racetracks which requires punters to pick the winners of six consecutive horse races. Trying to pick all the winners featured on a Pick Six slip (normally culminating in the featured race of the day) might seem almost impossible. Whilst the odds on correctly picking the six winners are considerable, so are the potential payouts.

Huge potential

One of the most celebrated Pick Six winners had their life changed at the 2003 Breeders’ Cup meeting in the United States. The winner of the Breeders Cup Mile (appropriately named Six Perfections) completed a winning Pick Six selection for a lucky punter whose $2 bet earned them the astonishing sum of $2,687,611. Whilst this might be an extreme example, the jackpot at any given race meeting is often tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Rollover

Selecting six consecutive winners is, evidently, pretty difficult. This means that there are many days when no Pick Six jackpot is won. On these days a smaller sum is paid to any punter who has correctly selected five winners, and if there are still no claimants (for example if several long shots have won races) then a payout to four winners is made.

If no-one wins the full Pick Six jackpot, the pool is then carried over to the following meeting until such a time as the cumulative pot is won by a correct Pick Six selection. Each Pick Six jackpot also has a designated day of payout when the proceeds are paid in full even if there is no Pick Six winner. On these days the pool is shared between punters with five winning selections.

How to bet a Pick Six

In order to make a Pick Six selection, you simply have to choose a horse in each of the six featured races. The simplest way is to pick one mount in each race and the minimum stake is normally around $1-2.

With some races featuring in excess of fifteen or twenty runners, trying to pick one winner from a large field may be difficult. This is why a Pick Six bet offers punters the option of picking multiple horses in the same race. Betters have the option of selecting one, two or more horses in each of the six races in order to increase their chances of success.

Adding several horses to your betting options for each race, however, significantly increases the size of your initial stake. For example, if you were to pick two horses in each of the six races at a $2 minimum stake you would increase your bet to $64.

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