Best Preakness Stakes Betting Offers

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The total betting handle on Preakness Stakes Day in 2024 reached approximately $57.9 million. The card handle (all races conducted on Preakness Day) totaled about $98.9 million in 2024. 

You can bet on the Preakness Stakes at the racecourse and online, including on legal betting sites worldwide.

Common Preakness Bet Types

The betting markets include standard Win, Place, and Show bets, along with a variety of exotic wagers such as:

• Exacta: Pick the first and second horse home in any race in the correct order.
• Trifecta: Predict the first three home in the correct order.
• Superfecta: Select the first four to finish the race in exact order.
• Quinella: A Quinella functions like a boxed Exacta—you win if your two picks finish in the top two, in any order. You can also box a Trifecta and Superfecta.

Over the years, the Preakness Stakes has been dominated by favorites, but recent trends suggest a shift toward more competitive and higher-priced winners. 

For instance, from 2013 to 2024, only three favorites have won. Bettors should consider this shift, weighing the potential value in favored and longshot contenders. 

Here are some other tips to help you find a winner:

• The draw: Pimlico is generally a fair track, with no post position being a major disadvantage. However, the higher the gate number, the wider the draw, and the more ground a horse must cover.
• Kentucky form: In the past two decades, only one Kentucky Derby winner has not run in the Preakness, and 11 have won. 
• Top jockey: Among active jockeys, Kent Desormeaux and Victor Espinoza have won the Preakness Stakes three times.
• Top trainer: Bob Baffert is the winningest active trainer, with eight victories.

First run in 1873, the Preakness Stakes purse is $2 million and usually features the Kentucky Derby winner and many of the U.S.’s premier three-year-old thoroughbreds. It is the main attraction of Pimlico’s three-day horse racing event in May. 

The Preakness Stakes is run over 1 mile and 1 3/16 furlongs on the dirt track at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland. The track is a 1-mile oval with a rise on the infield, earning it the nickname "Old Hilltop." It opened in the fall of 1870, with the colt Preakness winning the first running of the Dinner Party Stakes. Three years later, the first Preakness Stakes was held.

Pimlico is also famous as the site of a legendary match race on November 1, 1938. A crowd of 43,000 watched as 1937 Triple Crown winner War Admiral was defeated by the underdog Seabiscuit in the Pimlico Special, run at the same distance as the Preakness.

The Preakness Stakes field is limited to 14 runners, though more than 300 horses are often nominated. To participate, connections must pay $15,000 to enter by the early deadline, or a steeper $30,000 closer to race day. If more than 14 horses are entered, the final field is determined based on earnings.

The first seven places are filled by horses accumulating the highest earnings in Graded stakes races. The next four places go to horses accumulating the highest earnings in unrestricted stakes races (those limited only by age or sex). The final three places are given to horses with the highest total earnings in all races.

Additionally, up to two "also-eligible" horses may be designated in case of scratches before the race.

The Preakness Stakes can often throw up a shock, as the challenging course and the race’s placement on the calendar, only two weeks after the Kentucky Derby, make it notoriously tricky to win. 

The most recent recipients of the famed carnations have not been favorites. Triple Crown winner Justify was the last favorite to win the Preakness in 2018.

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