When you place a Tote bet, your stake goes into a pool with the stakes of other punters, and the payout is only worked out after the race. This is fundamentally different from a fixed-odds bet, where the price is agreed when the bet is struck.
How pool betting works
In pool betting, all stakes on a bet type in a race go into one pool. The operator takes a deduction, and the rest is shared among the winning tickets. Each bet type has its own pool, so the win pool on a race is separate from the place pool on the same race.
The payout is called the dividend, and it is declared after the race for a £1 unit stake. Winnings on a larger stake are paid in proportion to the dividend, so a bigger stake receives a bigger share of the pool. Because the dividend depends on how much ends up in the pool and how many winning tickets there are, the price is not known when the bet is placed.
That means the popularity of a horse affects the return. If a lot of money goes on the winner, the pool is shared among many winning tickets and the dividend is smaller. If few punters backed the winner, the same pool is shared among fewer tickets and each one receives more.
Pool betting vs fixed odds
With fixed odds, the price is agreed when the bet is struck. You see a price, place your money, and that price stays yours whatever happens to the market afterwards. The biggest difference for bettors is that fixed odds give a known payout from the start.
With a Tote bet, the payout is not decided until the pool has closed and the result is in. A dividend can turn out better or worse than the fixed price that was available on the same horse, and there is no way to know which in advance. What stays the same in both cases is that the operator's deduction or margin is built into the return.
The main Tote pools
Tote pools cover several bet types:
- win, for backing a horse to win the race
- place, for backing a horse to finish in the places
- exacta and trifecta, which involve naming the leading finishers in the correct order
- placepot, which covers several races at a meeting
- jackpot, which also asks for success across a series of races
The signature Tote bet in UK racing is the placepot. It requires a selection to be placed in each of the first 6 races at a meeting. Every leg has to come in for the ticket to win, and because the pool builds from punters across the meeting, the dividend is only known once the sixth race is over.
The placepot is the clearest contrast between pool betting and bookmaker prices. No price is offered before the first leg, and the return depends entirely on the size of the pool and the number of winning tickets. Tote bets can offer a different way to follow a race meeting, but, like any bet, they cost money and there is no guaranteed return.
Gambling is for adults 18 and over and costs money; UK players can set deposit limits, use GAMSTOP or call the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133.
