Across the 2024 Cheltenham Festival, Flutter Entertainment processed almost 35 million individual bets through Paddy Power, Sky Bet and Betfair alone, according to Gambling Insider. That’s one operator group. One four-day racing event. And the 2026 renewal, running 10 to 13 March, looks set to attract even heavier interest; William Hill has noted that not a single odds-on favorite exists in any of the 28 races. For first-time bettors, that’s a rare setup.
If you’ve been curious about horse racing betting but never found the right moment, this is it. Betway has dedicated Cheltenham odds pages already live for the Gold Cup and Stayers’ Hurdle, and learning how to bet on Betway takes minutes rather than hours. What follows is a practical walkthrough of the festival, the races worth your attention and the bet types that make sense when you’re starting out.
What You’re Walking Into
The Cheltenham Festival is the centerpiece of the British and Irish jump-racing season. Staged at Prestbury Park in Gloucestershire, it packs 28 races into four days, 14 of them graded at the highest level, with a combined prize pool north of £6 million. The Betway Insider reports that an average of 251,960 fans have attended over the past decade, and 1.8 million people tuned in to watch Inothewayurthinkin win the 2025 Gold Cup on television.
The betting numbers are just as striking. On-course Tote pool betting hit a record £11.34 million during the 2025 festival, according to Racing Post, even though overall attendance dipped by nearly five percent that year. People who showed up bet more per head than ever before.
For a US audience familiar with the scale of March Madness brackets or Kentucky Derby parlays, think of Cheltenham as the British equivalent; a week where casual fans and seasoned bettors converge on one event. The difference in 2026 is that no single horse dominates the markets. That means the field is genuinely open, and a newcomer studying form for the first time is on more equal footing than usual.
Two Races Worth Your Attention and Your Stake
Rather than trying to cover all 28 races on the card, a first-timer benefits from focusing on two with the deepest markets and clearest storylines. The Gold Cup and Stayers’ Hurdle fit both criteria.
The Cheltenham Gold Cup (Friday 13 March, 16:00) carries a £625,000 purse and serves as the festival’s finale. According to the latest odds from Cheltenham Races, Fact To File leads the market at 7/2, followed by Jango Baie at 9/2 and The Jukebox Man at 11/2. Galopin Des Champs, a two-time winner trying to join Arkle and Best Mate as a three-time champion, sits at 8/1. The defending winner, Inothewayurthinkin, has drifted to 12/1 after a quiet season. It’s a wide-open race with several plausible outcomes, which is exactly what makes it interesting for a first bet.
The Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle (Thursday 12 March, 15:20) offers a £325,000 purse over three miles of hurdles. Teahupoo heads the betting at 9/2, with Ballyburn at 5/1 and Jasmin De Vaux at 6/1. Defending champion Bob Olinger is further back at 16/1, according to the Cheltenham Festival ante-post preview. Staying races tend to reward horses with stamina over raw speed, and the narratives (a defending champion at big odds, a potential improver in Ballyburn) give you something concrete to research before committing.
One thing worth remembering: the 2025 Champion Hurdle proved that nothing in jump racing is guaranteed. Constitution Hill, unbeaten in ten starts over hurdles, fell at the fifth flight. Sky Bet estimated that race alone cost punters (and saved bookmakers) in excess of £10 million, largely through collapsed accumulators. Favorites are favorites for a reason, but fences have a say too.
Placing Your Bet on Betway
Betway’s Cheltenham section offers several bet types, and knowing the difference before you start saves a lot of second-guessing. Here are the main options:
- Win: you back a horse to finish first. Straightforward, but your stake is lost if it finishes anywhere else.
- Each-way: two bets in one. Half your stake goes on the win; the other half goes on your horse placing (typically top two, three or four depending on field size). Betway regularly offers extra places on select Cheltenham races, widening your safety net.
- Accumulator: you combine selections from multiple races into a single bet. All picks must win, but the odds multiply together; a four-fold across each day of the festival is a classic Cheltenham punt. The risk is binary; one loser and the whole bet falls.
- Forecast and tricast: you predict the first two (forecast) or first three (tricast) finishers in exact order. Higher difficulty, higher reward.
Beyond the bet types, Betway builds in a few protections that first-timers should know about. Best Odds Guaranteed applies from 9am on race day for all UK and Irish racing; if you take a price of 7/1 and the starting price drifts to 10/1, Betway pays the bigger number. According to British Racecourses, this applies to singles and each-way bets up to a maximum of £25,000. Non-Runner No Bet, which Betway has offered in previous years per Oddschecker, refunds your stake if a horse you’ve backed ante-post is withdrawn before the race. And if you want to follow the action, Betway’s app includes live streaming of races.
If every race is wide open and you’re covered by Best Odds Guaranteed, what’s really stopping you from backing an each-way outsider in the Gold Cup?
Your Move at Prestbury Park
The 2026 Cheltenham Festival is arriving without a standout force in any of its 28 races. That kind of parity tends to reward the bettor who puts in the reading rather than following the herd. Record winter crowds at Cheltenham (44,151 on New Year’s Day 2026, per BBC Sport) and across British racing suggest the appetite for jump racing has rarely been stronger heading into March.
Start with one or two races. Pick a bet type that matches your comfort level. Use the protections that platforms like Betway offer, and treat the festival for what it is: four days of high-quality sport with genuine uncertainty baked into every contest.
The first race goes off at 1:20pm on 10 March. When it does, will you be watching from the sidelines or with a stake in the outcome?
