How Honest Is The Tote?

Quite a lot has been written about the Tote. Here is another incident which just does not make sense and which would certainly caution me about betting with that organisation.

I would welcome a rebuttal from the Tote but I am sure they will rather focus on hoovering up money from uninformed punters.

In recent years I have made a handful of unsuccessful attempts to actually confirm precisely what the takeouts are on all bet types. Responses have been evasive and vague at best so please don't blame me if the assumptions I make hereafter are not 100% accurate.

There is general consensus that the takeout on the 'exotics' ( Pick 6, PA etc.,) is 25%. Where it all becomes a lot more murky is with regard to Win & Place betting. When I started betting way back it was 15%. I am led to believe it is now 18% although I suspect it is even higher. A lot higher.

A brutal example of this is the Airlie Stakes (Group2) run at the Curragh over the weekend. Nothing exposes the dark underbelly of the Tote better than a small race.

Four horses jumped in this race. The figures make either interesting or alarming reading. (I took a screen shot of this race after it closed ).

Let's dispense with the easy stuff first :

Inner Beauty (SP 25/1. Plenty of fixed odds 40/1 available at the off) ran last of the 4. The closing price on the Tote was a remarkable R14-10.
Aloha Star ( SP 33/1. Limited 50/1 on offer before the start but plenty of 40/1) won the race. Tote win dividend was a stodgy R 23,20.
There was enormous business transacted in the UK and Ireland on Frenetic (SP 10/11) and Mother Earth (SP 1/1). At the 'off' the Tote was reflecting R 1,70 on BOTH horses for a win.
This is a problem and it takes a small race to highlight it.

1.) Is it possible that precisely the same amounts were wagered on two horses? It seems unlikely until you remember that the tote rounds up and rounds down. It's going to sound cynical but I doubt whether our Tote rounds up too often! So it is likely that both horses were see-sawing in price between R1,70 and R1,80 after takeout.
2.) The nett pool was R33,787 so one needs to add 22% to that figure to calculate the gross pool if there was an 18% takeout. If there actually is an 18% takeout on win bets (which seems increasingly unlikely) then I fail to see how the win dividend can conceivably reflect less than R1,80 when two competing horses are backed to almost the same degree. The fixed odds reflect this reality quite clearly.
3.) The nature of the stated provisional dividend suggests (I incorrectly assumed for the sake of simplicity that not one single bet was struck on the two unfancied horses; one of whom won! ) that the takeout was 30%. We can probably reduce that to 25% if both horses were actually reflecting R1,75 before possibly being rounded down.
4.) What this exercise suggests is that the Tote takeout on Win bets is actually in the order of 25%. If this is true you would be well advised not to strike this type of bet on the Tote under any circumstances.

This may well be ignoring the current reality as many posters regularly confirm that they have long stopped supporting the Tote for reasons that have nothing to do with an eye watering takeout.

The background noise you are hearing is not a vacuum cleaner. It is merely the Tote opening for July betting today.

Exactly Garrick,if you bet with the tote your R1 is only worth 75c.
You actually lose 1/4 of your money even before your horse has run.
And I got a feeling if the horse is paying R1-71 it will pay R1-70 and if it's paying R1-79 it will also R1-70.
But we will never know as no organisation checks on them and they know that so just imagine what they get up to.

The notion that a seasoned punter has to estimate tote takeout is again a demonstration of why racing is in ICU - You don't need to estimate bookmaker tax and payouts(we all know how bad the tote swings were before covid ) - Why the secrecy? The R20 punter is not going to rush to bookmakers to place his bets so put the info out there - I don't support the tote for various reasons

As far as ABC

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.....having a jol @hollywood....easy no fuss no hassle.....cant believe I plugged for the tote and they still suck.....no qualms about the open bet either.....not much of my tote spend ever found its way to stakes and racing.....it was taken home by okes earning large.....