Placepots – Today’s Results and the Horse Betting Strategy Explained

What Are Tote Placepots?

The Tote Placepot is the leading horse racing pool bet in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It gives players a chance to win larger payouts from small bets without having to pick an overall winner.

Placepots can be made at online bookmakers as well at horse racing meetings (Several horse races being held at a particular track on the same day or across several successive days) and at real-life bookmakers. In fact, if you’ve ever been to a real-life bookmaker you may have noticed long rectangular papers covered in numbers and checkboxes. While they look like lottery tickets, they’re actually placepots!

The average Placepot dividend is £407 to a £1 stake. However, a Placepot at the 2015 Cheltenham Festival broke records with a dividend of £91,774.50 to a £1 stake.

How Do Placepots Work?

Essentially, Tote Placepots require players to select horses in the first six races of a meeting and have them place in the race. Players bet on their selection with their stake going into the Placepot pool. The pool is then divided amongst the winners after all six races.

It’s incredibly easy to understand once you get the swing of things. You simply need to select a horse in each of the first six races at the chosen horse racing meeting and stake on them.

To work out the cost of your Placepot bet, you need to first decide how much horses you want to select for each of the first six races. You can select one horse per race, two, three or more if you’d like. However, it’s important you understand that the more horses you select, the higher the cost of the bet.

For example, selecting two horses per race would give you a calculation of 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 and a total of 64 lines. Selecting three horses per race gives you the calculation 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 729 and selecting four horses works out as 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 = 4,096. You can also mix the number of horses you select. For example: 1 x 2 x 1 x 4 x 1 x 1 = 8 lines.

Once you’ve worked this out you need to decide on your unit stake. The minimum is 10p but you can stake as much as you’d like as long as it’s in 10p increments and the total spend of the bet is over £1.

So, if we take the perma bet (2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64) and decide on a stake of 10p, the overall spend would equal £6.40. To figure out the total spend, you take the total lines, 64 in this case, and multiply it by 0.1 as your 10p stake. Does that make sense?

If we take the same perma bet and raise our unit stake to 50p we’d spend £32 and if we raise the unit stake to £1 the total spend would be £64.

However, there are two other bets that are popular with players. They are:

• Straight Lines: Pick one horse in each of the six races and stake a minimum of £1. Your calculation would be 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 for a total of one line multiplied by your £10 unit stake for a £10 total.
• 4 Bankers: Pick one horse in four races and two horses in the other two races and stake a minimum of £1. Your calculation would be 2 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 2 for a total of four lines multiplied by your £2.50 unit stake for a £10 total.

Another thing you must remember when calculating the spend is that you must always round up to the nearest pound.

How To Win

To win a Tote Placepot, all the horses you’ve selected must place in the race. However, the number of places can vary depending on how many horses are participating in the race. For example:

• Four or fewer horses: You must select the overall winner
• Five to seven horses: Your selected horse must finish in first or second
• Eight to 16 horses: Your selected horse can finish in the top three
• 16 or more horses: Your selected horse can finish in the top four

As long as you follow the above requirements, you’ll be sure to win the Placepot but… hang on… how is the prize pool divided out?

The Prize Pool

The first thing we have to tell you is that most companies offering Placepots take a percentage out of the final pool to cover administration and to keep some revenue. The rest of the prize pool is then divided out amongst the players with one simple calculation.

So, if Betfred (Or any other bookmaker offering Placepots) takes 25% of a £100,000 prize pool (Leaving 75% for the players) and has 1,220 winning tickets following the six races, the calculation would be:

For the payout: £100,000 (The overall prize pool) x 75% (The remaining prize pool after deductions) = £75,000.
Then: £75,000 divided by 1,220 (The number of winning tickets) = £61.47.

As mentioned above, everything must be rounded up to the nearest pound so the total is actually £61. This means the dividend would pay £61 for every £1 placed.

Placepot Strategy

While you may get stuck deciding on which horses to bet on, you should try to avoid favourites because more people bet on them. This causes the payouts to drop as a higher number of people can win. One of the most popular strategies used by Placepot players is to pick bankers in which you put all of your faith into one horse for four of the six races.

It may seem daunting having to select just one horse to get you through the Tote Placepot but you have to remember that the horse simply needs to place, not win the overall race. And when the time comes to finally select your horse, you should look for a horse that frequently places in the top four and runs well overall. Prioritise that over the fastest or favourite horse and you’ll be more likely to win.

Where To Make Placepot Bets?

We’ve mentioned that Placepot bets can be made at bookmakers and horse race meetings, but they can also be done online. All you need to do is find an online bookmaker or betting site that support Tote Placepots, register and then make a bet. What’s great about betting online is that many bookmakers offer newly registered users with welcome offers consisting of free bets which you may be able to use on Placepots!

Right now, you can make Placepots at the following bookmakers:

Why Are Tote Placepots So Popular?

Placepots are popular for multiple reasons. The biggest is because you’re basically betting against other people and not the bookmakers which many people get more enjoyment from. You have to remember that the more people that have bet on your same horses, the smaller the payout will be.

In addition, the fact that horses don’t need to win the overall race for you to win is much more convenient and gives you an actual chance to win. You win as long as your chosen horses place which, depending on the number of horses participating in the race, is much easier than having to select the overall winner.

Lastly, one of the main appeals to Placepots is that you can win large payouts on small stakes. What more could you want?

Are Placepots Worth It?

Placepots are great for someone looking to bet on horse races but have limited funds. As mentioned above, one of the main appeals is that players can win large payouts on somewhat small stakes. In addition, Tote Placepots are easier to win than general horse races since you only need to place, this means you’re more likely to win something compared to other horse races. It’s also incredibly fun as you’re competing against other players rather than the bookmaker.

While it may seem difficult and daunting attempting to select horses on your first try, you’ll soon learn how to pick the best horses to win a great payout. And since it’s available at some of the leading online bookmakers, why not try it out?