Tote Bet Types Explained

The Tote offers an alternative way of betting for racing fans from the traditional bookmakers. Just like the fixed odds bookies you can bet win, place or each way. However, there are also some Tote specific bets that you cannot really do elsewhere, all of which give you the chance for a big win off small stakes.

Tote betting works by pooling all the money together that is wagered into the pot. A cut is taken by the Tote for their running costs, and the rest of the money is the prize pool. This prize pool is divided between any winners of the bet - the fewer the winners on the Tote, the higher the returns.

There are four main Tote bets to look at here.

Placepot

The placepot is the most popular of all these bets, one that many people play on a daily basis, and the number of players goes up dramatically when we reach a big meeting.

A placepot covers the first six races of a horse racing meeting, and the objective to win the bet is to find a horse that places in every single one of those six races. Places are worked out using official place terms of the race.

When playing, you can choose to pick one horse from each race, or stake more and choose multiple runners, for each runner you add, you are adding an extra line to your bet.

A placepot at a small midweek meeting where all the favourites are placed will return just a few pounds but is easier to predict. Get one right at a big meeting, where bigger priced runners cover the places and more people take part, and your winnings could be into four or even five figures.

Quadpot

The quadpot is a bet known to many, but not as popular as the placepot, for the simple reason being that this is easier to win and that means the returns are less. The quadpot works in exactly the same way as the placepot, with the one difference being that this bet covers just four races, which are the final four races of the placepot.

If you are in a placepot, and your bet is a loser on the first or second leg, you can place your remaining selections in a quadpot bet, if you want to have another try and hope the final four land.

This bet is probably the least popular but can be an option for those looking to find an easier winning opportunity, those who want to have insurance on their placepot, or if you’ve missed the start of the placepot, or if your placepot goes down on the first or second race and you still want an interest in the final four races at that meeting.

Jackpot

The jackpot bet is a bet that you can only place at one meeting per day. Look out with your bookmaker or on the Tote and you will see which meeting is classed as the jackpot meeting. This is usually the biggest meeting of the day.

A jackpot bet is all about getting winners. It uses the first six races on the card, same as the placepot, but this time instead of finding a horse to place in each race, you need the six winners from these races.

For this reason, the jackpot is not won too often, and have multiple rollovers across many days, where the prize pool builds each day. It is not uncommon to see a five figure prize pool, and sometimes this stretches to six figures when we have had many rollovers.

If you are looking for small stakes and the chance to win big, although a difficult bet to win, the jackpot certainly offers that.

Scoop6

The Scoop6 bet is the final bet to look at, and the first thing to note here is that this bet runs only on a Saturday, the main horse racing day of the week.

It works in exactly the same way as the jackpot, to win you need to have all six winners, however there are some differences. Firstly, this is not at a specific meeting, but instead, spread across six of the best races that day, so you could be betting across two or three meetings.

There is a fixed cost of £2 for the Scoop6, rather than you staking whatever you want. However, because of this, there is a consolation dividend for those who get a horse to place in each of the six races, so look out for this.

You might also be interested in:

Each Way Betting and Place Terms Explained

What is "The Going" in Horse Racing?

What is "Best Odds Guaranteed" and why you should ALWAYS take it!