The Tote was established and owned by the UK Government until July 2011 when it was sold to Betfred for £265m.

It was sold to UK Tote Group - a consortium of over 150 individual investors involved in the sport as racehorse owners and breeders - in October 2019 for £115m.

A price quote for a horse on the Tote is the current dividend payout on the event of that outcome happening.

This will, obviously, have the lowest payout (since the pool will be shared with the largest number of winners) but the assumption is that if others have bet on it, it must have a good chance of winning.

The upside to this however goes back to what was said above; since the punter does not have to "waste" half their stake on the win part of the bet.

However bookmakers will normally allow you to place a 'Tote forecast' and will pay out whatever the Tote dividend payout was.

There are three types of Trifecta, the Single, Combination and Banker and they work the same way as Exacta bets, only with three horses instead of two.

A Quadpot is operated at every meeting in the UK and it takes place on the third to sixth races on the card.

The dividend is declared after the result of the last race is known and thus the betting pool divided by the remaining stakes which are left.

This bet is very popular as it has the potential to allow a gambler involvement in the whole of the race card.

If a selection is placed, then the bet continues, and the winnings are transferred as the stake on the second race.

If the gambler is lucky and managed to get through to the end, then the Tote will calculate the dividend for a £1 unit stake.

If a favourite is placed in every single race the Placepot payout is typically as low as it can get, and it could be anywhere from £3 to £15, although anything less than £6–£7 is quite unusual.

If favourites fail to finish in the places for half of the races then something around the £40–£200 could be anticipated, placepots of over £25,000 have been known but they are extremely uncommon.

Typically the payouts are very good for the Jackpot as it is very difficult to pick six winners in a row.

Similar to the Tote Jackpot, Tote Scoop6 is run on Saturdays and occasionally on other days such as Boxing Day, and has been branded this way for television audiences, generally Scoop6 races are shown on terrestrial television in the UK.

This is a single-race exotic bet available on all races of six or more runners at every meeting, every day, players have to pick two horses to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in any order.

Each bet offers three chances to win as follows: A different dividend is declared for each outcome.

Toteswinger is unique to the tote; there is no other equivalent fixed odds or SP bet.

This is an extremely popular bet in overseas racing markets, particularly South Africa where it accounts for 40% of pool turnover.