A quaddie, also known as a quadrella, is a popular horse racing bet that involves selecting the winners of four nominated races at a single race meeting.

How does a quaddie work?

The quaddie is typically offered on the last four races of an 8-race meeting at metropolitan tracks. Sometimes, other races may be nominated by the bookmaker.
To win the quaddie, you need to select the winning horse in each of the four nominated races.
It is essentially a parlay or accumulator bet across four races rather than just one.
There is usually a large betting pool for quaddies, which allows for substantial potential dividends.
If there are multiple winning quaddie tickets, the pool is divided amongst the winning punters.
You can box horses when betting quaddies to cover more combinations.
Most Australian betting sites and bookies allow flexi-betting on quaddies, where you can purchase a dividend percentage.
The quaddie offers a chance at a significant return for a small outlay, but is difficult to win with four legs.

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How Much Do Quaddie Bets Cost?

There is no fixed cost for placing a quaddie bet – the price depends on a few factors:

Number of selections – The more horses you include in each leg, the more the bet will cost. The minimum is four selections (1 in each leg).
Type of bet – You can box horses or take them to win. Boxing costs more as it covers more combinations.
Bet amount per combination – This usually starts at $1 per combination, but you can spend more per combo.
Betting percentage – You can take a ‘flexi’ quaddie and only bet 10% or 20% of the full amount.

Some example costs:

1 horse in each leg with $1 per combination = $1
2 horses per leg, boxed with $1 per combo = $16
3 horses per leg boxed at $5 per combination = $540
20% flexi-bet on the above three horse boxed quaddie = $108

As you can see, costs can range dramatically based on your selections and bet size.

However, even small 20c or 50c combinations can yield significant dividends.

Building multiple low-cost combinations is a popular approach.

How is a Quaddie Payout Calculated

The quaddie dividend pool starts with the total amount of money invested in the quaddie for that race meeting.

After the last quaddie leg, the total pool is divided by the number of winning units to determine the dividend.

A unit is a single combination of selections. So a $1 quaddie bet would equate to 1 unit.

If 100 winning units are sold and the pool is $50,000, each unit would receive a dividend of $500.

For example:

Quaddie pool: $200,000
Total winning units: 40
Calculation: $200,000 pool / 40 winning units
Dividend per unit: $5,000

So, if you had a $1 quaddie unit that won, your return would be $5,000. Having fewer winning units results in a higher dividend for each unit.

Jackpotting also comes into play if no one picks all four winners, in which case the pool is carried over to the next race meeting.

About Ben Leighton

Ben has been an avid horse racing, AFL, NRL, NBA and EPL fan for as long as he can remember. Born and bred in Melbourne, Ben loves nothing more than getting along to the footy to cheer on his beloved North Melbourne Kangaroos and getting trackside for as many Flemington and Caulfield horse racing meets at possible. Ben is our head writer at Betting Sites Australia.