Top Santa Anita Derby Betting Sites (2025)
Updated: 2025
Every spring, horse racing bettors want to tune in to one of the nation’s top races—spring’s Santa Anita Derby—that serves as a critical prelude to the Triple Crown races. Calumet Farm’s Bold Venture won the inaugural Santa Anita Derby in 1935, and this year’s running will be the 88th. Santa Anita Derby betting sites are so vital because the Santa Anita Derby is that important. Indeed, knowing how to select the best betting sites allows you to enjoy the action along with pensioned-off 20 horses who won the Derby since past heroes do not fade.
Seeking the premier betting sites for the Santa Anita Derby that are currently accessible? Look no further. We present to you our foremost recommendations:
| Rank | Gambling Site | Deposit Bonus | Get Started | |
| #1 |
|
250% Up To 6,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #2 |
|
VIP Program + 250 free spins | Visit Site | |
| #3 |
|
250% Up To 5,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #4 |
|
225% Up To 8,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #5 |
|
100% Up To 3,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #6 |
|
200% Up To 5,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #7 |
|
100% Up To 3,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #8 |
|
60% Up To 1,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #9 |
|
240% Up To 2,500 USD | Visit Site | |
| #10 |
|
100% Up To 1,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #11 |
|
200% Up To 5,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #12 |
|
280% Up To 14,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #13 |
|
100% Up To 500 USD | Visit Site | |
| #14 |
|
100% Up To 1,000 USD | Visit Site | |
| #15 |
|
100% Up To 8,000 USD | Visit Site | |
Every day, hundreds of horse races are held around the world at all hours of the day and night. These races attract betting interest from people who can actually attend the event and bet in person. But the Internet has opened up the possibility for anyone to bet on any of these races, no matter how far away they may be from the actual event.
In fact, the Internet has opened up all sorts of betting opportunities that weren't available to people in their own backyards. But not all of the sites that offer these betting opportunities can be trusted to deliver on their promises. That is why you need to know how to separate the ones that deserve your money from those that should be avoided.
That's not as easy as it sounds, because the world of online gambling is now big business, and everyone wants a piece of the action. As a result, there are new sites opening their digital doors every day in an effort to get your business. It can make choosing a real headache, especially for someone who might be new to the process of online betting on horse racing.
This can be especially true when the event is as big as the Santa Anita Derby. The media will be covering the runners in this race for weeks, which means that bettors who might not otherwise know about it may be drawn in. In addition, the prestige of the race will attract horse racing bettors who want to be involved in the top events.
You will easily find a number of sites that allow you to bet on this prestigious race. But the best Santa Anita Derby betting sites can provide you with a betting experience that's second to none, one that you'll want to return to for other horse races and sporting events. Once you have the tools to find these sites, your betting activities will be all the better for it.
In the following article we will provide you with the lowdown on the best Santa Anita Derby betting sites on the internet. Not only will we give you our specific recommendations for sites that you can feel comfortable choosing, but we'll also explain what qualities they possess that make them so desirable to regular horse racing bettors. And we'll also talk a little bit about the Santa Anita Derby and what makes it such an intriguing race out of the hundreds that take place at any given time.
Qualities of the Best Santa Anita Derby Betting Sites
This group of Santa Anita Derby betting sites really doesn't include a single clunker. Each of the sites we've listed has been tested over time and through many major wagering events. Their day-to-day operations run smoothly and their customers are consistently satisfied with their work.
These are things that should never be taken for granted. Many sites out there haven't been around long enough to give you the benefit of their experience. Others, quite frankly, may not be on the level and may be actively trying to scam you.
This can be extremely problematic because you have no real recourse if things go drastically wrong. It's not like there's an Internet gambling police force out there waiting to solve your problems. Online gambling is pretty much an unregulated gray area in terms of the law, which means that you play at your own risk when you gamble with one of these sites.
Right off the bat, we can tell you with absolute confidence that none of the Santa Anita Derby betting sites we've listed are cheating. They know that the best business practice for them is to treat their customers fairly, which keeps them coming back for more. But there is more to a gambling site than just being trustworthy.
What you'll find when you research the Santa Anita Derby betting sites we recommend is that they all share certain core qualities. These qualities relate to the process of online gambling, from creating an account to placing bets to collecting your money. It's a process that can be fraught with pitfalls if the site in question does not have these key facets in order.
What are these key qualities that all Santa Anita Derby betting sites should have? Well, they can be broken down into six main areas.
These are the main things that should pique your interest as you choose among these sites. You'll find that they all rank pretty well in these categories. Some Santa Anita Derby online betting sites are stronger in certain areas, and you should check them out for yourself if those areas of strength are really important to you when making your bets.
- Deposit and Withdrawal Practices
- Multiple Ways of Funding
- Customer Service Efforts
- Betting Variety
- Site Functionality and Mobile Betting
- Various Bonuses Offered
The other thing that knowing these qualities will do is that they will help you if you decide to go out on your own to choose a Santa Anita Derby betting site. While there's really no way for you to swing and miss with the sites we've listed, it's understandable if you want to do a little searching on your own. You may indeed come across certain sites that you feel warrant a closer look.
If that's the case, you can simply take the six qualities listed above and see how these sites rank in those areas. If you find one or more that you feel are adequate or better in all six, feel free to proceed. However, any that are lacking in one or more areas could cause some problems.
Understanding how the process of online betting works, whether it is horse racing or any other type of betting opportunity, will enlighten you on how these qualities come into play. So let's talk about the six categories in question and some key points related to each. This will help you understand the decision-making process when selecting sites to bet on the Santa Anita Derby and ensure that you don't make the wrong choice.
You should always check the deposit and withdrawal policies when you visit a website. If you find that the policy is not readily available, either on the site or when you contact a representative, you may be dealing with a site that is a bit opaque when it comes to deposits and withdrawals. These guidelines should be followed to the letter regardless of the situation.
Deposit and Withdrawal Practices
Depositing money into your account should be a completely intuitive and easy process. Some sites may have restrictions on when and how much you can deposit into your account. You should make sure that these restrictions aren't too daunting or unnecessarily harsh.
Withdrawing money from your account can sometimes be a tricky business at Santa Anita Derby betting sites. No site is going to be too eager to see money leave them and return to you. If the money isn't in your account, you can't bet with them, and that means they lose your business.
While withdrawal limits are common, they aren't always fair to the bettor. That's why you should only look at online Santa Anita Derby bookmakers that don't make it an overly complicated process to actually get your money. Sites that require you to jump through too many hoops or constantly put conditions on you getting your money will take a lot of the fun out of betting.
You may not consider funding flexibility to be a big deal when choosing between Santa Anita Derby betting sites. But it can become a big deal if your preferred funding method isn't available to you. You may be forced to fund your account with a method you are not really comfortable with.
Multiple Ways of Funding
Credit cards are the go-to option for many people who frequent betting sites for horse racing or other events. But not all credit card companies are keen on releasing funds for online gambling. Besides, you don't want to use a card that has a high interest rate, as that would cut into your profit margin, but you may have to if the site in question doesn't give you many options.
Ideally, Santa Anita Derby betting sites will go beyond credit cards when it comes to the different ways to deposit money into your account. Wire or bank transfer may be a more convenient method for you. Or you may be interested in using a payment system like PayPal to get the job done.
One of the newest methods of funding at Santa Anita Derby betting sites for horse racing betting is the use of cryptocurrency. These digital coins are truly ideal for online gambling, as they offer great privacy and near instantaneous processing times for deposits and withdrawals. The sites listed above are able to accept bets in bitcoin and other popular forms of cryptocurrency.
Santa Anita Derby online bookmakers should promise to treat you the same as any other bettor, no matter how much you wager. It's not fair to the casual bettor to be tossed aside in favor of the high roller. All problems should be handled with the same energy and speed by the site's customer service department.
Not all problems are solvable at online betting sites, or at least not to the customer's satisfaction. Even if you don't get the answer you want, you should still feel that the site did everything in its power to help you. Being treated courteously can go a long way toward alleviating the frustration of not getting what you want out of a problematic issue.
Customer Service Efforts
Being able to contact the Santa Anita Derby betting sites of your choice at any time is really important to the process. Ideally, you should have a number of different ways to contact a site. It is even better if the site provides a customer service representative that can actually be assigned to your account so that the communication process is greatly streamlined.
Representatives of Santa Anita Derby betting sites will probably contact you from time to time with offers that they think would be suitable for you. Many of these offers may seem like they're not for you, and you have every right to turn them down. If you find that a site is trying too hard to sell you an offer, to the point of being rude or disrespectful, it is time to move on to another site.
You have probably come to this site because you are specifically interested in betting online on the Santa Anita Derby. If you know about this race, which is popular but not quite as casual as the Kentucky Derby, it proves that you are a horse racing enthusiast. And that probably means you're looking for exposure beyond a single race.
In fact, you might be interested to see how far the Santa Anita Derby betting sites you are researching go in terms of daily races. It might be fine for you to concentrate only on the big stakes races like the Santa Anita Derby. Or you may want to be involved in daily races from all types of racing anywhere in the world. Only the best sites can give you that variety.
Betting Variety
A sports book is another way a Santa Anita Derby betting site can give you the variety you crave. Being able to bet on football, golf, soccer or any other major sport, team or individual, means that you never have to go without action for very long. A site that allows you to bet on these sports in creative ways can really be beneficial.
Finally, many people are interested in the possibility of online casino action. After all, why deal with the traffic and hassles of going to a casino when you can play all your favorite games for real money from the comfort of your own home? The best online Santa Anita Derby racebooks can offer you poker, blackjack, slot machines, video poker, and any other casino entertainment you can imagine.
It may seem a bit obvious to say that the Santa Anita Derby betting sites you focus on should have a solid reputation for functionality. Signing up with a site that does not work properly seems like a no-brainer. However, many people can be seduced by big bonuses tied to the Santa Anita Derby or other top horse races and they may overlook the fact that the site offering them bonuses has a poor reputation in the area of simply being consistently operational.
When it comes to this category, it goes beyond the fact that the site should always work. The site should be easy to use and navigate. Getting from page to page effortlessly so that you can place your bets should be a high priority for you. You should also be aware if some of the pages on the site are slow to load as this can be a problem area when trying to place bets in a hurry.
Site Functionality and Mobile Betting
Mobile betting is something that should be an absolute must in this day and age. Santa Anita Derby betting sites need to have apps attached to them in some way to make betting on the go easier. Just like the website itself, the apps should be free of glitches and easy to use even for newcomers to online betting.
When you are looking into Santa Anita Derby online racebooks, you really should take a quick tour of the sites you might be considering. This will help you uncover any problems that might be evident in terms of the site working properly. And it will let you know if you can get to your wagers in a hurry, which could come in handy when it comes to last minute wagering.
Don't get too excited if you come across a site that offers you a big deposit bonus or even a free bet on the Santa Anita Derby just for signing up. This is par for the course in the online gambling world. The key is to know how to tell the big bonuses from the run-of-the-mill ones, and to be able to determine if the site will consistently give out these bonuses.
Many Santa Anita Derby online betting sites will approach you with big bonuses for signing up. But how many will also reward you with perks for playing a lot at the site, making you a "VIP"? And what if you're not a high roller, but would like something to get you back into the betting game after a long period of not betting?
The top Santa Anita Derby betting sites will offer you bonuses from the moment you sign up until the moment you close your account with them. Best of all, they will be able to tailor these bonuses to your specific betting interests. That means you'll get the most bang for your buck on the events that matter most to you.
Various Bonuses Offered
When you see bonuses offered at online Santa Anita Derby racebooks, you'll probably also notice references to rollovers. A rollover is a policy that ensures that you take your bonus and bet with it, and then some, so that you can't just cash it out. Look for the sites with the lowest rollovers for the events you are most likely to bet on consistently.
Understanding how to choose a horse racing book is only half the battle of placing horse racing bets. You also need to understand the process of betting on the Santa Anita Derby itself. That means understanding simple horse racing betting terms and practices, learning how to pick horses, and getting the lowdown on what makes the Santa Anita Derby such a special race.
Learning betting terminology can be a tricky thing for a newcomer. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that certain bets are called different things depending on the type of race or the part of the world you're in. This can make for an extremely confusing situation.
Fortunately, you can overcome this by simplifying the process as much as possible and taking it one step at a time. Think about whether you want to bet on a single horse or multiple horses at once. Along with that, decide if your goal is to come away with a small profit as a sure thing, or if you want to try for a big payout on a small bet.
Which Bets Can I Place on the Santa Anita Derby?
Straight Bets to Make on the Santa Anita Derby
- Win: Your horse must win the race for you to win your bet.
- Place: Your horse must finish first or second for you to win your bet.
- Show: Your horse must finish first, second, or third for you to win your bet.
Exotic Bets to Place on the Santa Anita Derby
- Exacta: Bet on the first two horse in the order of finish in a single race.
- Trifecta or Triple: Bet on the first three horse in the order of finish in a single race.
- Superfecta: Bet on the first four horse in the order of finish in a single race.
- Daily Double: Pick the winner of two consecutive races on the card.
- Pick 3 (4, 5, 6, etc.): Pick the winners of three races in a row or however many are listed in the name of the bet.
Once you have made these decisions, which can vary from race to race depending on your wagering budget, everything else will fall into place. If you are concentrating on a single horse in a race, a straight bet is probably the way to go.
These bets are the kind you want to make if you are more interested in making a small profit with your best chance of winning. Unfortunately, the downside is that you don't have as much of a chance to win a lot in one fell swoop. In order to do that with a straight bet, you either have to bet a lot of money or bet on a long shot, which is a horse that doesn't have a very good chance of winning.
On the other hand, exotic bets are what you want to focus on if you really want to come out with a big score from a single race (or in some cases, multiple races). The basic gist of exotic bets, sometimes called accumulators, is that you have to include multiple horses in them. And each of those horses has to do what you expect them to do in the race (or races) or the bet is a loser.
Again, you may find that some of these races are called by slightly different names elsewhere. Or you might find different combinations allowed as bets. But for American Thoroughbred racing, which is what the Santa Anita Derby is considered, these are usually the exotic bets you will encounter.
It is by no means easy to win an exotic bet. You need a lot to go right to win an exotic bet, and even then it can be derailed by just one of the horses involved failing to live up to expectations. But winning one can often be like winning the lottery, as the average payout is significantly higher than what you can expect from a straight bet.
When it comes to the Santa Anita Derby or any other type of horse race, you should have some sort of system to help you choose the horses you want to bet on. It doesn't have to be an overly complicated system. But it should be consistent and include a few key factors that you want to focus on when you're examining the horse in the race.
There are many different things you may want to consider when deciding which horses to bet on at Santa Anita Derby betting sites. You can find the information you need in a racing form or perhaps by watching replays of past races.
The Santa Anita Derby would be a great horse race even if it had no connection to the larger picture of American thoroughbred racing. It is run at one of the most prestigious tracks in the country. In addition, its big purse draws some of the best three-year-olds in racing to California to compete for the title.
Choosing Which Horse to Bet on at The Santa Anita Derby
- Past performances: How well a horse has performed in terms of wins or losses in recent races. You can also look at the time that the horse takes to run the races, but that can be affected by track conditions, distance, the overall pace of the race, and many other factors. Wins and good finishes show how the horse has performed against others facing the same conditions.
- Class: This is a measure of the competition that the horse has been facing. If you see a horse that has been in a lot of races with big purses and it is racing for much less in the current race, it could be a sign that it is ready for a big effort. By contrast, a horse that is facing much tougher competition than usual might have a hard time hanging with the rest.
- Jockeys and Trainers: It is impossible to overlook the impact that the human element has on big races like the Santa Anita Derby. Trainers need to know how to have their horses peaking at the absolute right time for the race. And jockeys need to know what it takes to find a good trip for their horse as well as at what point during the race to ask them for the most effort.
But the Santa Anita Derby gains much of its importance as an indicator of horses that have a solid chance of doing well in American Thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown. In fact, many of the horses that have won the Santa Anita Derby in the past have gone on to win either the Kentucky Derby or the subsequent races in the Triple Crown series, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes. In fact, it's hard to imagine a Triple Crown that doesn't include the winner of the Santa Anita Derby.
The race is run at Santa Anita in April at a distance of 1 1/8 miles on dirt. The race is open to three-year-olds of both sexes (although usually only males are entered). Because of the excellent field and the long distance of the race, the race is really an interesting test for bettors looking for value at horse racing betting sites.
Santa Anita Derby Information
Horse racing bettors want to test their mettle on the biggest races in the sport, and the Santa Anita Derby certainly falls into that category. It delivers in terms of showcasing the sport's rising stars. And because these horses are still in the early stages of their careers and haven't raced that often, there's still an air of unpredictability about the race.
What that means is that it's a race that you want to have a good chance of winning without any hassle, which means you need to know how to choose the best Santa Anita Derby racing sites. If you don't take the time to choose the best site, you may regret it later. Fortunately, our list at the top of this page and our guidelines should help you make a solid choice for this important decision.
The race is held at 1 1/8 miles on the dirt surface at Santa Anita in April. Only three-year-old horses are allowed to compete in the race, both genders (although it is usually only male horses who are in it). Because of the excellent field and the long distance of the race, the race really makes for an interesting test for bettors looking for value on horse racing betting sites.
Conclusion on Santa Anita Derby Betting Sites
Horse racing bettors want to test their mettle on the biggest races in the sport, and the Santa Anita Derby can certainly be put in that category. It delivers in terms of showcasing up-and-coming stars of the sport. And because these horses are still in the early stages of their career and haven’t raced that often, there is still an air of unpredictability about the race as well.
What that means is, it is a race that you’ll want to have a good chance to bet on without any hassles, which means you need to know how to choose the top Santa Anita Derby racing sites. If you don’t take the time to choose the best site, you could regret it later. Luckily, our list at the top of this page and our guidelines should help you make a solid choice for this important decision.
