Pool betting is an alternative to fixed odds, exchange or spread betting where all stakes on an event are pooled, a commission subtracted, and the remainder divided among the winning bettors. This page will dive deep into pool betting and explain where you can pool bet online.
The concept of pool betting is very simple. If you’ve ever entered a sweepstake where the winner takes all, then you’ve already made a pooled bet! All the entry fees were gathered (pooled), the names were drawn, and the winner was awarded the pot. Pool betting at the leading UK betting sites or companies works in exactly the same manner.
Pool betting for horse racing has been around since 1928, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, Winston Churchill (you may have heard of him), decided he wanted a way for people to safely ‘bet’ on horses as opposed to using what were then illegal bookmakers. A proportion of the money generated via pool betting would also go towards the sport of horse racing itself. This led to the establishment of ‘The Tote’.
You could pool bet on the Tote at horse racing courses all over the UK. All bets for a particular race were pooled up, tax and a commission subtracted, and whatever remained was redistributed among those (by and large) who had backed the winning horse. The Tote also began opening betting shops and via Tote Direct (set up in 1992), which allowed bets to be placed on Tote pool betting at high street bookmakers. Although no Tote betting shops remain today, you can still bet on the Tote at UK betting shops and online via desktop sites or a pool betting app.
With Tote pool betting, the winning pool is split into dividends. Say the pot (once the commission is removed) is £100, and the three winners bet £7, £2 and £1. The pot would then be shared as £70, £20 and £10, with each dividend being £10 per £1 bet.
As we have established, the Tote has been around since 1928, but was originally at racecourses only. It eventually appeared in its own betting shops, and then the betting shops of other brands. Like most things in the 2020s, the Tote has now moved online too. You can place all the usual Tote bets, and as a bonus, you can see the size of each pool so you know your likely share should you be a winner. You also get a great deal of choice, as the Placepot is always available at a number of meetings (usually five or six, in the UK and Ireland).
If you are a regular Tote bettor you can also join the ‘Tote Tournaments’ series where you can compete with other Tote users for a top place on the leaderboard. The leaders then qualify for the World Pool series Finale where a top prize of £10,000 is up for grabs!
There is much more to the Tote than horse racing pool betting though. The Tote betting site gives you access to ‘Colossus’ which is a company that’s separate from the Tote. Here you can play pool-style football games, either betting on your own or via a syndicate. You can also create your own syndicate if you wish.
In March 2024 the Tote added another dimension – fixed odds sports betting. This was a fully-fledged sport book with access to all the sports you would normally find at a sports betting site aside from one – horse racing! Naturally, the Tote wants you to use pool betting for horse racing, which is why horse racing is not available for fixed odds betting here.
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There are now plenty of ways in which you can bet on the Tote beyond simply selecting the correct winning horse. Here we will go through the most popular bets that are placed daily throughout the UK.
Still the easiest way to bet – select a horse from the race you are betting on that you think is going to win. If it is first past the post you get to share in the winning pot.
Almost identical to win Tote pool betting except that you are betting on a horse to place as opposed to winning. Note that what qualifies as a place differs from race to race and depends upon the number of runners in the race and the race type.
This is called a forecast in fixed odds betting. With an Exacta bet, you are betting on the horses that will finish in the top two positions in a race. There are two types of Exacta bet – a Straight Exacta, where you choose which horse will win and which horse will finish second, and a Reverse or Combination Exacta, where you pick the horses which will finish first and second but in any order. Note a Combination Exacta involves placing two bets – horses A and B to finish in the order AB, or in the order BA.
A Quinella is just another name for a Reverse Exacta. The term ‘Quinella’ is now seldom used at UK pool betting sites.
The Tote swinger bet gives you a little more leeway than an Exacta. You select two horses, and both of them must finish in the top three for you to be able to claim a share of the winners’ betting pool.
A Trifecta will see you attempt to pick the three horses that will finish in the top three positions and in the correct order. There is a Combination Trifecta, too, which is six bets, as all possible combinations are covered. If we name the horses A, B and C, then the six possible finishing combinations are ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB and CBA. Note that only the single combination bet that gets the order right is the winning one.
The placepot is the most popular horse racing betting pool bet. Each day, six races are selected from the UK racecard. For each race, you must select a horse which you think is going to place. If you get all six right, then you will win a share of that day’s Placepot. Remember that the definition of a place depends on the number of runners and whether it is a handicap or non-handicap race.
There are two definitions of a Quadpot. With the first (most common), all selections will be at the same meeting, and you will be choosing a horse from races three, four, five and six. With the second, the site at which you are Tote pool betting will choose six races, and you must select a mount from four of them.
No matter which Quadpot you choose, you will be again choosing horses to place along the same lines as the Placepot.
This is the biggest guaranteed prize in official pool betting, with a minimum betting pool value of £10,000. A UK meeting will be selected, and it will be up to you to select the winners of the first six races. As this is such a rare achievement, it is possible the returns for a small bet could be very high.
This is a special pool bet via the Tote every Friday and Saturday. Each day, six races are selected across the racecard, and you need to select the winning horse in each. Scoop 6 bets (or ‘lines’) have a fixed cost of £2 per single line, but you can, of course, buy as many lines as you wish, using the same selections or different ones.
Colossus is a separate entity from the Tote, but you can place Colossus bets via the Tote and other betting sites. These are pool betting wagers on football and horse racing. With football, you usually have to pick 5, 6 or 8 winning teams from a selected range of matches, and with a horse race, it’s either a win or place six. You can bet solo with Colossus or you can join syndicates to pool your bets and share them out again if you win.
Before being eclipsed by the National Lottery, football pools gambling was the main source of ‘get rich quick’ dreams of ordinary UK folk. Companies such as Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters would run football pools, allowing people to fill in coupons in which they predicated which eight English or Scottish football league games would end in an all-score drawn.
Players would be awarded points (3 for a score draw, 2 for a no-score draw, 1.5 for an away win and 1 for a home win) and could enter in various ways, with all monies collected then shared (once the administration fee and tax had been deducted) between the entrants who scored the most from their eight highest point scoring games. The dream was to score the maximum 24 points which would likely mean the winning player would share the pot with no one else. Such was the interest in pools betting that the big winners became famous, such as Irene Powell who won £882,000 in 1979 (worth £6 million today).
The football pools still exist today but not in the classic sense, and interest in them is minimal.
Want to bet with Pools betting? Then here are three tips that should help to get you started.
The main method of betting on the Tote online is to bet at the Tote site itself. You can click the link below. This will allow you access to all of the Tote’s betting options, such as the popular Placepot, plus the Quadpot, Swinger and Colossus too. The Tote functions as a fully-formed sports betting site as well, so you can mix up your pool betting with fixed odds betting too.
As we have explained earlier, you can bet on the Tote online at other top sports betting sites in the UK, via Tote Direct. This is an extension of the betting shop Tote Direct service, which allows you to place Tote bets at some UK betting shops. Online, you can also bet on the Tote at bet365, Betfred and Betfair.
Bet £5, Get £20 in Free Bets
Bet £5, Get £20 in Free Bets
Pool betting is an alternative to fixed odds betting, spread betting or exchange betting that you should definitely consider. If you can get in among the winners and the winners are scarce in number, then you could find yourself the sole winner of a nicely chunky pot. We hope you will at least explore the options that Pool betting offers.