How to Approach Tote Racing Promos
The vast majority of promos on horse racing will relate to 'Fixed Odds' bets. However, you may also see some promos that require bets to be placed on the 'Tote' market.
If you do not know what a tote bet is, please read this article first before going any further.
Tote promos are more difficult to deal with when matched betting due to the fact that the back odds are not known until after the race has started. This makes it impossible to accurately calculate the appropriate lay stake.
Tote odd on favourites are also regularly much lower than fixed odds. This can be especially true if there is a promotion running.
The result of these two things is that Tote promos have a lower expected value, and a higher level of variance, than fixed odds promos. However, the EV is still positive, so these promos are worth doing.
Here are steps you can take to minimise the risks associated with tote betting:
Bet close to the start
Tote odds continue to fluctuate right up until the race starts. The closer you bet to the start time, the less chance of a large fluctuation moving the odds against you. It helps if you can watch a stream of the race for this so that you can wait until the last one or two horses are loading into the gate. Just remember that your stream will have a slight delay, so don't wait too long.
Underlay
Underlaying will help you absorb any drop in the tote odds if the horse that you back wins. We recommend underlaying tote bets by at least 20%. However, if you have the bankroll - and the right mindset - you may want to underlay by more.
Reducing your lay stake will increase your expected value due to the fact that you pay less Betfair commission, but it will also increase variance. You could easily go on a run of large losses. Figure out what kind of loss you are comfortable with when deciding how much to underlay.
The Lock
TAB is one bookie that regular runs tote promos, but they also have a feature that can remove the tote risks.
If you place a tote bet and your horse wins, 'The Lock' guarantees that you will receive the higher of the tote odds or the fixed odds. This means that, if you have the lock available you can use the fixed odds when calculating how much to lay.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when it comes to using the lock though:
- The fixed odds that you receive will be the odds at the start time, not the fixed odds when you placed your bet. For that reason it is still important to place your bets as close to the start time as possible.
- Once the lock has been used (i.e. once you have had a winner where the fixed odds were higher than the tote odds) it will be removed from your account until the following day.
A common approach for Bonusbank members is to only play the TAB tote promos up until the point that they lose the lock. By doing this they can treat the promo in the same way as any fixed odds promo. With a bit of luck the lock may never be activated and you can approach all the promo races this way.