The fourth day of Royal Ascot last month was an afternoon that a lucky handful of punters betting into the Tote’s popular Placepot pool will never forget. The favourite missed the frame in three of the six races that comprise the bet, there were just 18.15 winning units in the pool and the dividend to a £1 stake was an eye-watering £26,420.10.
This was a brilliant advertisement for a bet that can be won without finding any of the six winners. But following a recent update to the Tote’s website which offers more information about its Pool Guarantee Service (PGS) – a system by which the Tote itself places bets into its own pools – it also raised the interesting question of whether the operator took a share of the payout too.
