Royal Ascot is an important and extremely popular meeting in the UK’s annual flat racing calendar. In this guide, we’ll tell you about the many valuable Royal Ascot betting offers that bookmakers provide to help you make the most of it. We’ll tell you how to get free bets, extra places, Best Odds Guaranteed, and more.
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Here are the odds of the top runners for the main event at Royal Ascot – the Ascot Gold Cup – for 2024 at our top five picks for the best Royal Ascot betting offers site.
Site | Kyprios | Gregory | Vauban |
Betfred | 5/6 | 5/1 | 5/1 |
BetGoodwin | 4/5 | 5/1 | 6/1 |
PaddyPower | 4/5 | 5/1 | 11/2 |
QuinnBet | 4/5 | 5/1 | 6/1 |
Bet365 | 4/5 | 6/1 | 6/1 |
Did you know that Ascot Racecourse has been around since 1711? It was founded on the suggestion of Queen Anne and is on land leased from the Crown Estate. Meetings take place throughout the year but the main meeting is in June each year and is known as Royal Ascot. Not only is this meeting popular with horse racing bettors and horse racing fans, it is also considered a highlight of the social calendar and is attended by many who have little-to-no interest in the races themselves.
The first Royal Ascot meeting was run over four days in 1768, although it wasn’t until the introduction of the Gold Cup in 1807 that interest in the event began to swell. Royal Ascot has become the UK’s most valuable flat race meeting, with millions of pounds in prize money attracting the world’s top owners, trainers and riders … and luckily, they bring their horses too!
The meeting now runs over five days, from Tuesday to Saturday. The 2024 meeting gets underway on Tuesday, 18th June, and concludes on Saturday, 22nd June. A full schedule of the races to be run is provided later in this guide.
The total prize money on offer at Royal Ascot for 2024 is £10,500,000 with the top prize pots at £1million a piece being for the Prince of Wales’s Stakes on Wednesday, and the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes on Saturday.
So, what kind of betting offers might you find available for the 2024 running of Royal Ascot? Do bookies usually offer free bets for Royal Ascot? Can your betting at Royal Ascot be enhanced by special promotions? To answer these questions, we’ve picked out a few popular types of offers that you may be able to uncover in the run up to this prestigious and popular UK horse racing betting event.
Sites are likely to offer free bets on meetings at Royal Ascot. To grab a Royal Ascot free bet, you are probably going to need to place a bet yourself using your own money. Other restrictions are likely to apply, such as minimum odds. You may not even have to place a bet on a Royal Ascot race to get your free bet – any wager will do. You will then earn a free bet to use on any Royal Ascot race, but as is usual with free bets further restrictions will apply, and your free bet stake is not returned with any winnings from your free bets at Ascot
All Royal Ascot betting markets for every race will have an official opening time, but you can place bets on your chosen mounts long before the markets open. This is known as ‘ante post’ betting and is popular with horse race betting punters as more often than not, the prices offered are better than those available when the market opens. Betting sites may offer Royal Ascot betting promotions to encourage you to place ante-post bets.
If you place a bet on a race (including any race at Royal Ascot) and the horse you backed fails to start and is declared a non-runner, then your bet is lost. With no-runner no bet (NRNB) deals, you get your money back if this happens. Your money is usually returned as a free bet, but some superior deals may offer your money back as real cash you can use to bet elsewhere, or withdraw. Check out our list of recommended sites for Royal Ascot non-runner no bet deals.
The number of places that qualify for a place (the non-win part of an each way bet) is usually fixed for flat racing. For under eight runners it’s two, for eight or more (or between twelve and fifteen in a handicap) it’s three and for sixteen or more in handicap, it’s four. For certain races at Royal Ascot bookies may add extra places that they pay out for. This makes these races ideal for your each way Royal Ascot bets.
This offer is losing popularity with UK bookies but there are still a few sites that have it. If a site offers ‘best odds guaranteed’ then all races at Royal Ascot are likely to be covered. This means that your winning bets will be paid out at the best price – the price at which you placed your bet or the starting price of your winning selection. Sites with BOG are the best for betting at Royal Ascot.
Another among examples of the best Royal Ascot betting offers to look out for at the leading betting sites in the UK is enhanced odds for specific horses. If you then go on to back the horse, you get the enhanced odds and not the normal SP. Note, that if your chosen horse does win then it may be the case the money you win in excess of the normal odds is paid as bonus or free bet money, and not money you can simply withdraw.
An acca or accumulator is a bet that contains multiple selections – usually a minimum of four. Of course, all bets or legs within an acca must win else your entire acca fails, but if it does succeed your returns are likely to get you smiling! What may get you smiling even more are acca boosts – an extra percentage applied to your winnings. The more legs you add to your acca, the bigger the potential boost! This is another excellent potential Royal Ascot betting bonus.
You may be in receipt of something a little extra special during the Royal Ascot festival. All site have welcome bonuses but you might find that betting sites during Royal Ascot will tailor their welcome bonus to the event. We suggest you hunt around UK betting sites you have not joined during this period to see if some extra-special benefit is available in terms of Royal Ascot sign up offers.
In truth, betting at Royal Ascot is no different to any other form of horse racing betting. If you already bet on the horses, then keep doing what you are doing. If not, take a look at our guide on How to Bet on Horses. Here are some popular Royal Ascot betting markets that you can explore.
The simplest bet of all. Just peruse the racecard and – by whatever method you choose to employ – put your money on the runner you think will be the first to gallop past the post.
An each-way bet is two bets in one. Half of your stake goes on the win, and half of your stake goes on a place bet. A place bet wins if your horse finishes in a place, which usually is first, second or third and occasionally fourth. The odds of your place bet are a quarter or one-fifth of the ‘to win’ odds. If your horse wins, then both parts of your bet win, but if your horse only places, then only the place part wins. Naturally, if your horse fails even to place, then neither part of your bet wins.
Forecasts and tricasts have higher odds but are more difficult to predict. With a forecast, you have to predict which horse will finish first and which will finish second in the correct order. There is a reverse forecast, though, in which you only have to pick the first two horses to finish, with the actual order not being important.
A tricast is even more difficult. Here, you have to choose the first three places, and in the correct order. You may wish to decide upon a combination tricast instead, in which your chosen three mounts have to finish in the top three, but the actual order is not important.
Accumulators, or accas for short, are single bets that are chained together – the winnings from Bet A become the stake for Bet B, and so on. You can place all your bets in one go, though. To be considered a true acca, your bet must have a minimum of four selections. Accas generate impressive odds but the downside is should one of your acca legs fail, then your entire acca fails.
The Ascot Racecourse was the scene of one of the most famous ‘acca’ wins of all time. On 28 September 1996, jockey Frankie Dettori rode all seven winners on that day’s race card. Lucky punters who followed him enjoyed odds of 25,095 to 1, and Dettori’s achievement that day cost the bookies around £40 million.
Multiples can be mini accas of just two or three selections, or they can be system bets such as a Yankee or a Heinz. For a Yankee bet, for example, you choose four selections, and your bet is covered multiple ways – a fourfold, six doubles and four trebles – for a total selection of eleven bets. Only two of your selections need to win for your bet to generate some returns. Of course, the higher the number of selections, the more money you will get back.
Want to bet on Royal Ascot but are not really sure on how to go about it? Well, just for punters like you we asked our horse racing betting experts how they would bet at Royal Ascot and this is what they came up with.
With the prize money at 2024’s Royal Ascot topping £10 million for the first time in history, interest in the flat racing calendar’s most popular event is likely to be higher than ever. Indeed, every race at the royal meeting has prize money in excess of £110,000, a rise of £10,000 per race. Here is the full schedule for the 2024 Royal Ascot Festival five-day meeting, with the most prestigious race of each day in bold:
Day | Time | Race | Distance | Prize Money |
Tues 18 June | 2.30pm | The Queen Anne Stakes | One mile | £750,000 |
Tues 18 June | 3.05pm | The Coventry Stakes | Six furlongs | £175,000 |
Tues 18 June | 3.40pm | The King Charles III Stakes | Five furlongs | £650,000 |
Tues 18 June | 4.20pm | The St James’s Palace Stakes | Old Mile | £650,000 |
Tues 18 June | 5.00pm | The Ascot Stakes | 2M 4f | £110,000 |
Tues 18 June | 5.35pm | The Wolferton Stakes | 1M 2f | £120,000 |
Tues 18 June | 6.10pm | The Copper Horse Stakes | 1M 6f | £110,000 |
Wed 19 June | 2.30pm | The Queen Mary Stakes | Five furlongs | £150,000 |
Wed 19 June | 3.05pm | The Kensington Palace Stakes | Old Mile | £110,000 |
Wed 19 June | 3.40pm | The Duke of Cambridge Stakes | One mile | £225,000 |
Wed 19 June | 4.20pm | The Prince of Wales’s Stakes | 1M 2f | £1,000,000 |
Wed 19 June | 5.00pm | The Royal Hunt Cup | One mile | £175,000 |
Wed 19 June | 5.35pm | The Queen’s Vase | 1M 6f | £265,000 |
Wed 19 June | 6.10pm | The Windsor Castle Stakes | Five furlongs | £110,000 |
Thu 20 June | 2.30pm | The Norfolk Stakes | Five furlongs | £150,000 |
Thu 20 June | 3.05pm | The King George V Stakes | 1M 4f | £110,000 |
Thu 20 June | 3.40pm | The Ribblesdale Stakes | 1M 4f | £250,000 |
Thu 20 June | 4.20pm | The Gold Cup | 2M 4f | £650,000 |
Thu 20 June | 5.00pm | The Britannia Stakes | One mile | £120,000 |
Thu 20 June | 5.35pm | The Hampton Court Stakes | 1M 2f | £150,000 |
Thu 20 June | 6.10pm | The Buckingham Palace Stakes | Seven furlongs | £110,000 |
Fri 21 June | 2.30pm | The Albany Stakes | Six furlongs | £125,000 |
Fri 21 June | 3.05pm | The Commonwealth Cup | Six furlongs | £650,000 |
Fri 21 June | 3.40pm | The Duke of Edinburgh Stakes | 1M 4f | £110,000 |
Fri 21 June | 4.20pm | The Coronation Stakes | Old Mile | £650,000 |
Fri 21 June | 5.00pm | The Sandringham Stakes | One mile | £110,000 |
Fri 21 June | 5.35pm | The King Edward VII Stakes | 1M 4f | £250,000 |
Fri 21 June | 6.10pm | The Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes | Five furlongs | £110,000 |
Sat 22 June | 2.30pm | The Chesham Stakes | Seven furlongs | £110,000 |
Sat 22 June | 3.05pm | The Jersey Stakes | Seven furlongs | £150,000 |
Sat 22 June | 3.40pm | The Hardwicke Stakes | 1M 4f | £250,000 |
Sat 22 June | 4.20pm | The Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes | Six furlongs | £1,000,000 |
Sat 22 June | 5.00pm | The Wokingham Stakes | Six furlongs | £175,000 |
Sat 22 June | 5.35pm | The Golden Gates Stakes | 1M 4f | £110,000 |
Sat 22 June | 6.10pm | The Queen Alexandra Stakes | 2M 6f | £110,000 |
The rights to the terrestrial broadcast of Royal Ascot are held by ITV. During the festival, broadcasting of the races will be shared between ITV and ITV4. The first six races each day will be broadcast live, with only the 6.10pm race missing out (we presume as ITV will be broadcasting the news at 6pm). There is also a preview show from 9.30am to 10.30am on ITV4 each day. All races will be available to live stream on ITVX.
You can also live stream each race at most of the betting sites on our top ten Royal Ascot betting offers and free bets betting sites. The full list of UK betting sites which will live stream Royal Ascot is as follows:
The Gold Cup is the most prestigious race at Royal Ascot, even if it’s no longer the race with the biggest prize pot at the end. It has been run almost every year since 1807 and has been won by many legendary horses, including the famous stallion Yeats that won four years in succession from 2006 to 2009. Here now is a complete list of winners since 2010.
Year | Horse | Jockey | Trainer |
2023 | Courage Mon Ami | Frankie Dettori | John & Thady Gosden |
2022 | Kyprios | Ryan Moore | Aidan O’Brien |
2021 | Subjectivist | Joe Fanning | Mark Johnston |
2020 | Stradivarius | Frankie Dettori | John Gosden |
2019 | Stradivarius | Frankie Dettori | John Gosden |
2018 | Stradivarius | Frankie Dettori | John Gosden |
2017 | Big Orange | James Doyle | Michael Bell |
2016 | Order of St George | Ryan Moore | Aidan O’Brien |
2015 | Trip to Paris | Graham Lee | Ed Dunlop |
2014 | Leading Light | Joseph O’Brien | Aidan O’Brien |
2013 | Estimate | Ryan Moore | Sir Michael Stoute |
2012 | Colour Vision | Frankie Dettori | Saeed bin Suroor |
2011 | Fame and Glory | Jamie Spencer | Aiden O’Brien |
2010 | Rite Of Passage | Pat Smullen | Dermot Weld |
Whether Royal Ascot means to you the UK’s leading flat racing festival or the chance to pop on a posh dress and a silly hat, we hope our guide to the best Royal Ascot free bet offers and Royal Ascot betting sites has been useful. You should now know all you need to know to be able to bet successfully and responsibly on this highlight of the UK’s flat racing calendar. Don’t forget to check out all the Royal Ascot betting promotions highlighted at the sites we have mentioned to add a little extra to your betting at Royal Ascot.
The festival will start, as is tradition, with the Queen Anne Stakes on Wednesday, the 18th of June and conclude with the Queen Alexandra Stakes on Saturday the 22nd.
Of course! Royal Ascot betting is very popular at UK betting sites with promotions such as Betfred Royal Ascot offers and deals at sites such as bet365, PaddyPower and BetGoodwin always worth checking out too.
You can bet at the course itself (if you can afford a ticket!), at UK betting shops and of course, at the best and safest online betting sites in the UK. Just remember to look out for the best Royal Ascot betting offers.
In terms of history, the Gold Cup is traditionally the ‘biggest’ race at Royal Ascot however, in terms of prize money, both the Prince of Wales’s Stake and the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes have prize pots of £1 million.
Peter is one of the most well-known and well-respected names working in the field of online sports betting today. Having a Bachelor of Arts degree, Peter has worked for many high-profile publications in the industry, both online and in the real world. He joined the SafestBettingSites team in 2021 and has provided millions of words ever since. When not writing, Peter enjoys performing and writing music, gaming, reading and he is a massive movie buff, with a particular love of Japanese cinema and anime.
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