What is tote betting?
Tote betting, also called parimutuel betting, is pool betting. Instead of betting against a bookmaker at fixed odds, your money goes into a pool with everyone else betting on the same race and bet type. After the race, TAB takes a commission of between 14.25 and 25 per cent, depending on the bet type, and the rest is shared among the winners.
How the dividend is worked out
In TAB’s example, which uses a simple 10 per cent commission, there’s $320 in a four-horse win pool and $40 of it is on Horse A. Take out the $32 commission and divide the remaining $288 by $40, and Horse A pays $7.20.
That’s why tote dividends move. If lots of people back the winner, the pool is split more ways. If a longshot wins, fewer people share it. Pre-race prices are approximate until betting closes, and TAB now shows them alongside fixed odds where those are available.
Bigger pools mean more money to share and more chance of a big exotic payout, which is the whole point of combining pools nationally.
Exotics: racing’s same game multi
Exotic bets are racing’s version of a same game multi. You combine several results from the same race, such as the first three home in the right order. The difference is that a same game multi is priced by the bookmaker at fixed odds, while an exotic pays out of the pool.
Flexi betting
Flexi lets you place any exotic bet for whatever amount you want, and you collect a matching share of the dividend. For example, a four-runner boxed trifecta covers 24 combinations and costs $24 for a full unit. Spend $4 and you’ll get 16.66 per cent of the dividend if it wins. Flexi is available in venues and online.
The bet types
Single-race bets
- Win: your runner has to finish first.
- Place: your runner has to finish first, second or third (usually the top two in small fields).
- Each way: a win bet and a place bet in one. If your runner wins, both bets pay. If it finishes second or third, only the place bet pays.
- Quinella: pick the first two finishers in either order.
- Exacta: pick the first two finishers in the exact order.
- Duet: pick two runners that both finish in the top three, in any order.
- Trifecta: pick the first three finishers in the exact order.
- First Four: pick the first four finishers in the exact order.
Multi-race bets
- Running Double: pick the winners of two races in a row.
- Daily Double: pick the winners of two set races at a meeting.
- Quaddie: pick the winners of four set races, usually the last four at a meeting.
- Early Quaddie: the same bet on an earlier set of four races.
- Big6: pick the winners of six set races.
Ways to cover more combinations
- Boxed: your runners can finish in any order.
- Standout: you fix one runner in a set position and cover several in the other positions.
- Field: you include every runner in one leg or position.
Better with mates
One of the best things about tote betting is that it’s made for sharing. Whether you’re at the track, at the pub or in a group chat, a bunch of friends putting in a few dollars each can take on a far bigger bet than any of them would alone.
The quaddie is the perfect example. Pool the money, agree on the total spend, and use flexi to cover as many runners as it buys.
It also gives everyone a job. Each person can take a leg, argue their case and put their runners in. Then everyone is cheering the same four races together.
And the upside is real. Because tote bets pay out of a pool, a couple of longshots getting up in a quaddie can turn a small shared stake into a very big dividend. Like a lottery syndicate, the thrill is in the chance of a big collect, but here your form study counts for something.
