Tote vs Fixed Odds: How Pool Betting Actually Compares
Tote and fixed odds are two very different ways to back the same horse, and most punters only ever really understand one of them.
Here's how tote betting actually works, and when it's worth using instead of a bookmaker's price.
Two Completely Different Ways To Bet
Fixed odds betting is the type everyone knows and most people use.
You're quoted a price, you take it, and that's what you get paid out on if your horse wins. That could be a 4/1 bet struck first thing in the morning or the Starting Price if you leave it late. The bookmaker sets the price and takes the risk.
Tote betting works very differently. Every pound staked into a tote pool goes into one shared fund with everyone else backing in that race.
Once the result's known, the pool (minus a standard deduction) is divided up among the winning tickets. There's no price to "take", rather you find out what you've actually won after the race, once the pool has been split.
That's the bit that trips a lot of people up. With fixed odds, you know exactly what you stand to win the second you place the bet.
With tote, you're betting into a pool that's still filling up right until the off, so the eventual dividend can change depending on how much money's gone in and where.
Who Runs The Tote
In Britain, tote betting is run by the Tote itself, which has an interesting history. It was owned by Betfred for close to a decade before being sold in 2019 to UK Tote Group, a consortium of people from within racing, mostly owners and breeders.
Since then, it's put money back into the sport and introduced Tote Guarantee, which promises the tote win dividend will always match or beat the industry Starting Price.
That's worth knowing, because it takes away the old worry that a favourite winning might leave you with a worse payout through the tote than you'd have got with a bookmaker.
The Tote is now also part of World Pool, which links its pools with the Hong Kong Jockey Club and other tote operators around the globe on the biggest racedays.
More money in the pool from different countries generally means bigger dividends.
The Bet Types Available With Tote
This is really where tote betting stands out, because there are bet types you simply can't get anywhere else.
The Placepot is the most popular with punters. To enter the Placepot, you need to pick a horse to place in each of the first six races at a meeting, and if you get all six right, you share the pool.
It's normally the first bet racing fans have a punt on at any meeting, and payouts on a modest stake can be surprisingly big if a few of your picks are outsiders.
Another type of bet is the Quadpot, which covers only races three to six, and the Jackpot, which asks you to find the winner - not just a placed horse - in the first six races at a chosen meeting.
Winning the Jackpot can be genuinely tough, and the pools can roll over and grow when nobody gets there.
The Scoop6 is the Saturday special bet, picking winners across six televised races at different meetings, again with the option of a rollover if it's not won outright.
On top of those, there are less popular bets like the Exacta and Trifecta (picking the first two or three home in the right order) that also exist with bookmakers and betting sites, but are still most closely associated with tote pools.
Fixed Odds Still Wins For Certainty
None of that means fixed odds betting has been made redundant.
If you want to know exactly what you're being paid before you place a bet, fixed odds wagering is still the only way to get that.
It's also simply easier to shop around, since you can compare prices across different bookmakers before deciding where to have your bet.
For straightforward win or each-way bets on a single horse, most punters are probably better off sticking with fixed odds, particularly on a well-backed favourite where the tote dividend can sometimes come in tighter than a bookmaker's price once a huge amount of money's gone on the same selection.
When Tote Is The Better Option
Tote comes into its own on exactly the bet types that fixed-odds betting sites and betting apps don't really do justice to.
A Placepot, Jackpot or Scoop6 simply doesn't exist as a fixed-odds product. There are no bookmakers quoting you odds on picking six placed horses in a row, so if that's the kind of bet you fancy, Tote's the only real option.
It can also pay off on a genuine outsider in a big, well-supported field, where a small stake into a large pool can return a much bigger dividend than the same horse's starting price would have paid with a bookmaker.
The Bottom Line
Fixed odds and tote betting aren't really competing for the same job.
Fixed odds give you certainty and a price you can compare before you bet, whereas tote gives you access to bet types that don't exist anywhere else, plus the chance of a bigger dividend on the right selection in a big pool.
Knowing which one actually suits the bet you want to make is the real takeaway here.
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