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Exclusively to TRF (as far as we know!) Betfred have agreed to take question directly from TRF members relating to their acquisition of the Tote.
So, if you have any questions regarding their plans for this business you can send them straight to Betfred right here.
We’ll leave this Q&A open for questions until next Sunday lunchtime.
Post your question on this thread, we’ll them send them straight to Betfred who will then respond and we’ll post each answer individually.
Let me know if any queries.
As the Tote is pool based does this mean that even Barney Curley will get paid out on a winner or will you be thumbing through your rulebook again?
Cormack15 note – I am sure we all understand the potential difficulties/constraints faced by Betfred in answering the above question (and some below on the same subject) on a public forum at present.
Following your disgraceful decision not to honour bets struck in relation to the curly horses, why should punters feel safe handing their hard earned over to you?
Betfred.com cannot answer these questions at the present time
I have a couple of ideas for ‘improvements’ to the Jackpot and Placepot, so I guess my question is whether these suggestions will be considered?
I believe the Jackpot is currently often wasted by carrying over large pools to minor meetings with very little advance notice to punters. For example, if the pool isn’t won over the four days of the Cheltenham Festival, there’s a big sum carried forward. But that money is distibuted within one or two days via a meeting at Southwell or Lingfield etc. I actually won part of a Cheltenham carry forward at Lingfield in 1993.
The key problem with the current approach is the lack of time to properly market the carry forward pool. Although the big syndicate players and full time punters like myself are aware of the opportunity, most of the players that contributed to the pool will never have the chance to get involved.
If the Jackpot was tied to the track, then the carry forward would go to the next meeting at that track, not some minor meeting the next day. That would allow for better marketing, would provide a motivation for the tracks to promote the Jackpot as they would get the benefit of greater interest in their next meeting. And with up to sixty separate pools in operation, you’d almost always have at least one big carry forward to promote somewhere in the coming month. For example, the Cheltenham Festival pool would carry forward to the next Cheltenham meeting a month later in April. Given how much publicity a Scoop6 carry forward gets in one week, imagine the build-up you could do in the shops and online given a month to prepare!
With the Placepot, I believe there are two changes that would make the bet much more attractive. Firstly, the number of places that would count in each race should be fixed at a point say two hours before the first race, with later non runners making no difference. Thus if an 8 runner race becomes a 7 runner race because a horse doesn’t go into the stalls, the Placepot would still pay three places. Since the bet has a fixed rate of deduction, this makes no difference to the operator, but would make the bet much more attractive to the occasional punter. I’ve dealt with corporate punters, told them before the first that they need a horse in the first three, and they don’t understand when that becomes the first two three hours later!
Secondly, I believe serious punters would be more likely to play this bet if they were able to nominate a substitute to replace any non runner, rather than have their bet automatically switched to the favourite. This change would also be a good for the Jackpot and Scoop6. It would be a fairly simple change to make for online bets, although clearly a bet slip redesign would be needed for Tote Direct terminals.
Apologies for the length of the post,
AP
No need to apologise about the length of post. It’s good to hear from someone who clearly cares passionately about the pool. Over the coming months we would like to listen to everybody who has ideas to improve the pool. One of the first things we will be doing is sitting down with the people who work there now to discuss new ideas and how to take the Totepool forward. I also know Fred is bursting with ideas. The Totepool really excites us and we can’t wait to get stuck into it. I will certainly be passing your comments and ideas onto Fred and anymore would be much appreciated.
Hi Betfred, best of luck with the Tote.
As I understand it you have refused to pay out on winning bets to members of Barney Curley’s family (while other bookmakers have paid).
Did you return stakes to these winning bet holders?
Would you have returned these stakes had the bet been a loser?Betfred has obviously increased profits by refusing to pay out on bets and simply keeping the money instead. I think it is fair to say that it has tarnished the Betfred brand in horse racing circles.
With racing struggling and Betfred keen to increase profits further, what can horse racing fans look forward to now that Betfred has ownership of the Tote?Our philosophy is quite simple, we believe we can grow the cake and ultimately racing will receive more money. In our bid Racing will receive more than £155 million over the next seven years. We are lucky to have fantastic racing in this country and we want the sport to thrive. Our bid for the Tote was always about growth and a commercial commitment to racing. It’s very early days but we are already talking to various stakeholders in the sport.
Secondly, I believe serious punters would be more likely to play this bet if they were able to nominate a substitute to replace any non runner, rather than have their bet automatically switched to the favourite. This change would also be a good for the Jackpot and Scoop6. It would be a fairly simple change to make for online bets, although clearly a bet slip redesign would be needed for Tote Direct terminals.
Apologies for the length of the post,
AP
What happens when your original horse and your subtitute are non runners, you cant give all like a betting version of AV.
Lowest price runner is best way in such cases. I think though instead of bookmakers fav it should be decided by one with most money in the tote win pool for that race.Cormack, my question is near me the is a totesport betting shop, which was another chain before [Mick Dines]; does it mean a refit for the shop with Dones rules and staff, or will it operate under same name [Totesport] with Betfred been a silent partner.
The Tote shops on the high street will be rebranded Betfred but you will now benefit from bonuses and offers that the Tote have never offered. Just last week Fred pushed out Frederick Engels, Banimpire, Fame and Glory, Sagramor, Brown Panther and Nathaniel to top industry price in the morning and they all duly obliged. .
1. Will bets taken for the Tote by rival bookmakers still be available UK wide? Will these bets all go into the Betfred Tote pool or not?
2. Will punters currently refused bets be offered Tote betting instead at rebate rates for larger bets?
3. Will online Betfred Tote betting be available (UK, Ireland and overseas) and will punters not be knocked back in any way? What is being done for providing estimated Tote odds and total pools before the off?
4. Does the Betfred Tote come under UK or Gibraltar jurisdiction?
Robert
Following your decision not to pay out the winning bets placed by members of Barney Curley’s family please would you confirm whether you are prepared to honour bets generally from those connected with the owner or trainer of a racehorse? I run a small syndicate and if we pick one of our horses with another couple of fancied runners from our stable and put them all in a multiple bet I want to know that I won’t be wasting my time.
Two questions about the ‘New Tote’:
1. Will you be decreasing the takeout from the pools to make it a more attractive betting proposition?
2. Will you use the Tote pools to hedge your own liabilities on the fixed-odds side of your business?
We will be looking to grow the Tote pool both on course, in betting shops and internationally. That will be our main focus and we’ve had no discussions internally about using the pool to hedge.
Will fixed-odds betting by phone with Tote Credit in their Wigan office continue?
A phone betting service will be available and we will be in a position to reveal the full details to existing and new customers in the near future.
It is my opinion that there are far too many bets available on-course from the Tote. The offering is far too complicated to the average Joe.
Do you agree with me that the offering should be streamlined..and the ‘core’ product better marketted thereafter ?
Scoop Six
Placepot
Win
Place
Reverse Forecast
Straight ForecastI would suggest that slips for Jackpots, Quadpots and Swingers just confuses less experienced punters.
One final question if you don’t mind…do you have a longer-term vision on how the Tote could compete with the established exchanges in terms of their turnover levels ?
Do you feel there is space in the market for a Tote-run betting exchange ?
Thank you for your opinion on the Tote bets available on course. We will be looking at the liquidity in the pool, working with international partners and working on marketing. One of the first things we want to do is to sit with the current staff and throw some ideas around. We believe the pool is a sleeping giant and we are really excited by it. We are full of ideas for the pool, we now just need to discuss them, then start putting them into practice.
why during derby week were your newmarket shops promoting fobt comps
We didn’t have a specific Derby poster but we did have a cracking offer. We were offering money back on win only singles if Carlton House won. We’ve recently had posters for Royal Ascot, Grand National and Cheltenham. Horse racing is our core product and will always remain so. We are committed to horse racing in this country.
Since your taking over the tote. If I bet with the tote in future, will some of the levy be put back into racing to help
it?All Betfred shops contribute to the levy and this will continue. We want racing to thrive in this country. Racing is the core product in the Betfred shops and this will always remain the case
Many thanks to Betfred and, in particular, Head Of Media Mark Pearson who helped set this up for us.
Clearly, it is early days for Betfred with the Tote and they will be feeling their way for some time, one imagines.
For many, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating regarding Betfred’s involvement with the Tote so
I’m delighted to let you know that Betfred have agreed to reappear on TRF’s Q&A section in six months time when I’m sure things will have started to take shape at the Tote. Great news that we’ll all have a chance to comment/ask further questions at that time.
Cormack15
My beef with the direction the British tote has gone in is that the rollover tail is wagging the dog.
With most of your exotics on most days, the pools simply aren’t large enough to give a suitable reward.
Let’s look at yesterday’s results, as they’re the ones I have handy.
The tote trifecta is billed as returning 74p in the pound. Yesterday’s punters actually got returned 50p in the pound, which is probably above average for a weekday.
The super7 is billed as returning 70p in the pound. Yesterday’s punters got back 35p in the pound.
The jackpot is similarly billed. Yesterday’s punters got back nothing.
It seems to me that the only exotics that aren’t completely broken are the placepot and, to a lesser extent, the quadpot. This is because they actually pay what they say on the tin. The rest of the exotics on most days are just there to suck in the greenhorns to divvy up a rollover for someone else to chew on. Is it any wonder that the placepot turns over far more than it’s clip joint cousins (scoop6, jackpot, super7) despite the fact that place betting is generally considered the poor relation in this country?
I love the tote exotics but my current action is pretty much limited to the placepots and one trifecta race each week! I’m a trifectologist that finds himself out of work! I can work with heftyish deductions, but I can’t work with pools with 20,000 possible winning combos that can pay out no more than 300-1.
All this looking around for the hardest races and hardest cards for your exotics is surely self-defeating. You get extra business when there’s a big rollover, but this is surely dwarfed by what could be achieved by providing viable non-rollover pools on a daily basis (as the placepot’s success in comparison to the jackpot and super7 shows).
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