Starting price (SP)
The starting price, or SP, is the official price returned for each runner at the moment a horse or greyhound race begins, and it settles any bet you placed without taking a fixed price. Pick SP on your slip and you accept whatever the market says at the off, shorter or longer than the odds you saw. It is a consensus figure, not one bookmaker’s quote.
How is the starting price worked out?
In British racing, the Starting Price Regulatory Commission publishes the rule. Prices from a sample of bookmakers are listed from longest to shortest and split into two equal halves, and the SP is the shortest price in the longer half. That means at least half the sample offered the SP or better.
The sample runs to 24 firms at most, normally no fewer than six, and never fewer than three at thin all-weather fixtures.
Irish SPs are published by Horse Racing Ireland in the Irish Form Book, but we did not confirm the exact Irish sampling method, so don’t assume it mirrors the British one.
SP against a price taken early
The usual confusion is between SP and the price you could have locked in earlier. Take a horse at 4/1, an implied probability of 20%; if it drifts to 6/1 at the off, about 14.3%, the SP pays more.
Many operators also offer best odds guaranteed, paying the bigger of the two, though terms vary by bookmaker.
Starting price or fixed early odds?
Here is how the two settlement choices compare on the points that decide your return.
Starting price | Fixed early price |
|---|---|
| Price unknown until the off | Price known when you bet |
| Gains if the horse drifts | Gains if the horse shortens |
| Reflects the whole market | Reflects one bookmaker's quote |
| Default when no price is taken | Must be requested on the slip |
| Can be adjusted for Rule 4 | Can be adjusted for Rule 4 |
Where you meet SP on a bet slip
You see SP as a tick-box or dropdown beside the quoted odds, and on results pages after each race. Exchanges such as Betfair run their own SP, built by matching backers and layers with no bookmaker margin added, so it is a different number from the industry SP.
Check which one your bet settles at.
