Tote update for March

10 March 2022

Introduction

Welcome to our second update from the Tote for 2022. This month it’s all about the Cheltenham Festival!

As ever, we are very grateful to the team at the ROA for sharing these updates on our behalf.

If you have any questions, or there are any areas you would like to discuss with us in more detail, please email our Communications and Corporate Affairs Director, Susannah Gill, on [email protected].

 

The Tote and ROA at Cheltenham

We are delighted to work with the ROA team to ensure that members enjoying Cheltenham in the ROA Marquee will have the chance to hear from Tote ambassadors, Danny Mullins and Richard Johnson, ahead of racing for each of the four days. We hope this will help your betting selections!

There is also a Daily Tipping Challenge where attendees can win £100 in Tote bet credits and a pair of tickets to a Tote Sponsored race day. The full details will be available in the marquee.

Best ever value from the Tote at Cheltenham 

The Tote will be more visible with more extensive branding, and offering the best ever value at Cheltenham, both on-course and online at tote.co.uk

Tote Guarantee will be available to racegoers betting with the Tote on-course at Cheltenham. Tote Guarantee gives you the best of the Tote return or the Starting Price, whichever is bigger. Where the Tote Win price is higher than SP, the customer will be paid at the higher price.  With Tote Guarantee in place, racegoers can have the confidence to bet on any horse with the Tote and get the Best Price Guaranteed on Win bets every time when they bet on a racecourse or at tote.co.uk.

This “Best of Both” guarantee has proven popular with racegoers, seeing Win turnover on racecourses increase by over 40% on participating racecourses since it began in November.

For those who can’t make it to the racecourse, the Tote will be offering all online customers a free £1 placepot for every day of the Festival. Across the town and on train routes to Cheltenham, the Tote will be distributing a special edition of the Racing Post to inform and help racegoers with their picks throughout the week.

The Tote’s digital customers (betting on tote.co.uk, via the app or via text betting) will also benefit from Tote+ (Tote Plus) which is a 10% price boost on all bets, underpinned by Tote Guarantee.  As a result of these initiatives, the Tote Win dividend online would have beaten SP 61% of the time over the last three Cheltenham Festivals with an average overpay per £1 bet of £5.59, and it would never have paid less than the SP.

Alex Frost, UK Tote Group Chief Executive, said: “This feels like one of the most eagerly anticipated Cheltenham Festivals and the Tote’s offering is the best it has ever been. The new Tote’s online Win offering now averages an overround of c.109%, dropping to 103% for the major festivals. This compares very favourably to SP overrounds of c. 117%+ and we expect Placepot pools in the region of £1million each day. With racecourses and the industry directly benefiting from every bet placed with the Tote, both on-course and online, we hope as many racing fans as possible bet with the Tote this Cheltenham week.” 

Tote Ten to Follow 

For the second year, the Tote has launched a Ten to Follow Mini Game for the Cheltenham Festival. It costs £5 (€5.50) per stable to enter the paid game (entries unlimited), with 60% of the pool going to the winner and prizes down to 10th place. The more people who enter, the bigger the prize pot to be distributed.  The 2021 winner of the Mini Game took home over £10,300, and this year we’re guaranteeing a minimum top prize of £10,000. In the free-to-play game (one free entry per person), the winner will receive two annual members badges to a racecourse of their choice, with £100 for second place and £50 for third to fifth.

Customers score points when one of their horses wins or places, based on the of quality of the race and the price of the horse. The Mini Game has seven bonus races which are worth an additional 25 points for a win and 12 points for finishing second. These races during the Cheltenham Festival are:

  • Arkle Challenge Trophy

  • Champion Hurdle

  • Queen Mother Champion Chase

  • Festival Novices Chase (formerly the RSA Chase)

  • Stayers Hurdle

  • Ryanair Chase

  • Cheltenham Gold Cup 

Players have until 11am on Tuesday 15th March to submit their stables. The full list of eligible horses, scoring system and rules are available on tote.co.uk.

At the same time, Ten to Follow players in the 2021/22 Jumps Season game also have until 11am on Tuesday to make the most of the transfer window to change up to two horses in their stables and be in with a chance of winning the top prize of £39,150, or one of the cash prizes down to 500th place.

Any Tote customer looking for tips for Ten to Follow can listen to the Tote’s new “Pool School” podcast, which is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and SoundCloud, with the latest trends and stats on Twitter @ToteRacing. This includes insights from Tote Ambassadors Danny Mullins and Richard Johnson.

For more information about the UK Tote Group please visit www.uktotegroup.com and follow us @UKToteGroup and @ToteRacing.

 

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