Right on the heels of last Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby Challenge, Xpressbet has another online event coming up—the Belmont Stakes Challenge on June 20. You can win a $3,000 entry to it here on Sunday. It’s one of 21 featured tourneys on tap this weekend. The featured fun begins on Friday.
We have six guaranteed cash games this weekend—the first of which is Friday’s $10,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray. Entries cost $190.
Again this weekend, we have a qualifier a day for the August 15-16 Spa & Surf Showdown. A $2,000 entry will go to one of every 20 entries in each one. The buy-in each day, starting on Friday when it’s a Pick & Pray, is $113. Winners will square off on August 15-16 for two full days of racing from Saratoga and Del Mar. On the line will be an all-cash prize pool guaranteed to be at least $150,000.
Regulars will know what’s coming up on Friday at HorsePlayers.
Friday’s $75 NHC Pick & Pray qualifier at HorsePlayers offers two guaranteed spots to the big dance next February and beaucoup de NHC Tour points. It’s a Pick & Pray with a winning ratio of 1 in 143.
Also a Pick & Pray is Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier. One $10,000 entry is guaranteed to be awarded in this $500 play-in, which carries a winning ratio of 1-per-23.
Contest races this Friday at both HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers are the 7th through 9th from Gulfstream; the 6th through 8th at Laurel; and the 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th from Belmont—10 races in all.
Another $35,000 in Guaranteed money will be in the HorseTourneys cage on Saturday.
The Saturday $25,000 Guaranteed tourney is a live-format game this week. An entry fee of $260 gets you in, and there is no limit as to how high the purse can grow.
The $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks game is always a Pick & Pray on Saturday. It has an $1,150 buy-in and signups are limited to 20, though occasionally the field can be a touch higher via last-minute qualifiers. The purse could grow as high as $20,000 (or even a little bit more). Payouts go to the top three scorers on a 70%/20%/10% split.
As promised, there’s another Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier on Saturday. This one will be played in live format, though the entry fee is again $113, and the winning ratio remains at 1-per-20. Winners get a $2,000 entry to the $150,000 Guaranteed online cash event (August 15-16) in which players attempt to solve two days of full cards from Saratoga and Del Mar.
Also in live format is a “regular”, 2-seats-guaranteed NHC qualifier. One of every 65 entries, at $165 per entry, will earn a “Bally’s Berth.”
The other Saturday feature is a qualifier to the Lone Star Park Spring Betting Challenge (live format as well). The entry fee is $80, and the winning ratio is 1-per-15. Winners pick up a $1,000 entry for the June 27 onsite tournament at Lone Star (where racing WITH spectators is expected to resume this weekend).
There’s also an NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers on Saturday…and a Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge play-in too.
The NHC tourney is a live-format “Maiden Special” restricted to players who have yet to pick up a 2021 seat. One prize is guaranteed, and the entry fee is $165. Because it is a restricted competition, no NHC Tour points will be awarded.
There’s also a “regular,” Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers on Saturday. The entry fee is $179, the winning ratio is 1-in-65, the format is live and at least one $10,000 BCBC entry is certain to be awarded regardless of participation.
Twelve races make up the featured-tourney test on Saturday: the 8th through 11th from Gulfstream; the 6th, 8th and 10th at Belmont; the 8th through 10th from Laurel; and the 5th and 7th at Golden Gate.
Ten more features are on the Sunday docket—eight here at HorseTourneys and two at HorsePlayers.
As noted at the top, the new addition to the Sunday lineup is the $177 qualifier to the June 20 Belmont Stakes Challenge at Xpressbet. Winners (1 per 20) in this Pick & Pray receive a $3,000 entry to the online event. Note that you must have an Xpressbet account by June 20 in order to participate in the Belmont Stakes Challenge.
Another Big Bucks tourney is set for Sunday. This one will be run in Live format. The buy-in is again $1,150, and the guaranteed purse is $7,500. Once again, as with all Big Bucks events, sign ups are limited to 20, and prizes go only to the top three.
More guaranteed cash is on the table in Sunday’s $12,500 Guaranteed No Limit tourney. The buy-in here is $195, and the format this week is Live.
Sunday’s live-format qualifier to The BIG One offers a guaranteed first prize (which includes an upfront cash payment of $500 to go along with the paid-up entry to the finals). The barrier to entry for this play-in is $395, and no more than 27 entries will be accepted. In The BIG One, which will be contested here on September 19-20, the top 10 finishers receive their choice of a seat to the NHC, BCBC or Pegasus World Cup plus they share in a cash pool that is already up to $83,000 (and counting). Finishers 11-15 get a choice of either $1,500 or a Horse Players World Series entry. The final field will be have no more than 57 entries in it.
It goes without saying that there’s another qualifier on Sunday to the Spa & Surf Showdown. One of every 20 entries, at $113 per entry, will earn $2,000 tickets to the Showdown where at least $150,000 will be in the pot on August 15-16. The format for the Sunday qualifier is Live.
We switch over to a Pick & Pray for Sunday’s Low Ratio NHC qualifier. The winning ratio is 1-per-21. (Note that, per NHC Tour rules, Tour points will only be available here if there are enough entries to award two seats.) This event carries a $500 entry fee and requires at least 10 entries for the contest to be a “go.”
Sunday’s up-to-$5,000 Exacta tourney with $1,000 Guaranteed is always run as a live-format affair. Entries are $125 each and players have to pick a three-horse exacta box in each contest race. No payoff caps are in effect in these Exacta games.
On Sunday, we’ll again try to hand out a large Jackpot for a small entry fee in our live-format, $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourney. Seventy percent of the net pool gets paid to top finishers via the normal, $2 win/place scoring method, while the other 30% gets directed to the Jackpot pool. You win (or share) the Jackpot if you pick the winners of all six races. This week, the Jackpot is up to $13,166.
Pick & Pray is the format of the day at HorsePlayers on Sunday.
There’s a “regular,” 2-seats-guaranteed NHC qualifier. It carries a winning ratio of 1-per-65, and an entry fee of $165.
Breeders’ Cup, meanwhile offers a Low Ratio BCBC qualifier with an entry fee of $500, and a winning ratio of 1-per-23. At least one $10,000 BCBC entry is guaranteed to be awarded no matter how many (or few) sign up.
As mentioned earlier this week, we now have tourneys available on racing from England and Ireland. We’re now basically in action morning, noon and night. So whatever time works for you works for us. Good luck whenever you decided to hop aboard this weekend.