Placepots Explained: Best Placepot Betting Strategy

The Tote Placepot is the UK and Ireland’s favourite horse racing pool bet, offering punters the chance to win large payouts from small stakes, without even having to pick a winner. Betting on the placepot is available for every racing meeting at all of the best horse racing betting sites.

To win by betting on the Placepot, bettors just have to select a placed horse in races 1-6 on a selected race card, with their stake then going into a pool, and that pool then being divided between the winners.

The average Placepot dividend is $407 from a $1 stake and the record Placepot dividend is $91,774.50 from a $1 stake, achieved at the 2015 Cheltenham Festival.

At the 2019 Cheltenham Festival, one punter landed $182,568 from a $2 placepot. At a massive $91,283.10 from a $1 stake, it fell just short of the biggest ever placepot.

If this sounds like your kind of bet, then read on as this page explains everything about how to bet on the placepot.

Placepot Betting Explained

To place a bet on the placepot pool, punters must first select one horse in each of the first six races at their chosen horse racing meeting. Any number of extra horses can also be selected for each race, but the more horses in the bet, the more the bet costs.

Calculating Placepot Costs

When calculating the total cost of your overall Placepot bet, you simply multiply your chosen stake by the number of selections picked in six races:

• e.g. if you have two horses in each race and your stake is 20p, your total bet would be: 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 0.2 = $12.80 (64 bets x 20p).

That is a very popular type of placepot bet, but there are any number of different placepot permutations to play with. Here are two other popular types of Placepots:

• Straight Lines - Pick one horse in each of the first six races. Stake a minimum of $1 to play: 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 - One line with a $10 unit stake = $10 total spend.
• 4 Bankers - Pick one horse in four races and two in two: 2 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 2 x 1 - Four lines with a $2.50 unit stake = $10 total spend.

The two things to remember are that the minimum unit stake is $0.10 ( $0.10 on each horse selected), and that the placepot dividend is paid to the dollar - so you get the amount listed in the placepot dividend for every dollar you staked, with rounding occurring for incomplete dollars.

Where to Place a Placepot Bet

The Placepot is a pool bet, controlled by the Tote Placepot in the UK or Tote Placepot Ireland in Ireland. You can make your Placepot bet on-course at the Tote Placepot betting window, via the Tote Placepot online, or at any of the best betting sites.

What Places Are In The Placepot?

The placings considered places for the purposes of the placepot change depending on how many horses run in the race. If you want to work out whether you horse has placed, this is how many places are paid in the placepot by the number of runners per race:

What Happens If You Have A Non-Runner In A Placepot?

If any horse you select for your placepot bet is a non-runner, your stake will be placed on the SP favourite - the horse that starts the race as the favourite. If there are joint or co-favourites, then your money will go on to the favourite with the lowest saddlecloth number.

Placepot Betting Strategy

Favourites are the placepot dividend’s enemy; the smallest payouts come when the favourite places in every leg of the bet as they will nearly always be the most-selected runner by players, so it pays to avoid the favourite when betting on the placepot if you can find something else to hit the places instead.

A popular placepot betting strategy is picking a few banker selections, and building a bigger group of runners in your placepot perm for trickier races. A placepot selection is considered a banker if it is the only horse you decide to choose in the race. It means you have put all your faith in that one horse.

Picking your placepot bankers is a key opening step to building your placepot perm. Look for a consistent horse, who might not always win, but always runs well and finishes in the placings the majority of the time - or go all in with the odds on a favourite who just shouldn't get beat. Once you have your banker, or bankers, aim to pick at least two horses in each of the other races to increase the chances when the choice is less obvious.

By picking a banker or bankers, you keep the number of bets in your placepot perm manageable rather than staking lots trying to cover all eventualities. There is lots of skill required in landing the placepot consistently, but there is lots of luck needed too. It's one of the bets that offers a chance for huge rewards from a small stake, allows for an interest throughout the card at a race meeting and truly adds to a day at the races or a day spent watching them at home on the TV.

Other Popular Pool Bets

If you enjoy betting on the Placepot, you might also be interested in betting on other race-by-race pool bets. The Tote Placepot has a wide array of horse racing pool betting options, all available to bet on through the sports betting apps and sites: