Field

In betting, the field is the group of all competitors not listed as individual selections. In golf, a field bet covers every player outside the named favourites; in horse racing, a field runner is any horse bundled together rather than priced on its own. One field bet thus backs many participants at once, which is why the odds are short relative to a single named runner. Worked example: in a golf tournament the leading dozen players are each priced individually, while the field — everyone else — is offered at, say, 2.50. If any unnamed player lifts the trophy, the field bet wins. You are covering scores of golfers, so the price is far shorter than backing one outsider at 150.00. Field betting matters in deep, unpredictable events where a longshot win is plausible but you cannot say which longshot. It packages that uncertainty into a single wager. The common mistake is confusing this grouping sense of the field with the unrelated craps Field bet, a one-roll wager on 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 or 12. Always check which players the field actually includes, as books differ on where the line between named and unnamed runners falls. Compare with Each Way betting, outright markets and Craps.