SA tote bets: Win, Place, Place Accumulator, Jackpot and Pick 6 pools

The one formula behind every tote pool

South African tote betting works on a single principle, and the operator's rules say it plainly. Deductions "as stipulated by the relevant provincial or national legislation" come off every gross pool before any dividend is calculated. What remains is the net pool, and the dividend is the net pool divided by the number of units on the winning outcome. You can read the current wording in the TAB tote rules, which are approved by the provincial licensing authorities.

Three things follow from this:

• The dividend is not known until the pool closes. The tote never offers you a price. It tells you what other punters have bet.
• Dividends are quoted per R1 unit and include your stake. The TAB fact sheet confirms that "all bets R1 unit" apply in South African pools.
• The deduction rate is set by law, not by the rule book. The rules do not print a percentage, and it can differ by province and change over time. Check with the operator or the provincial board if you need the figure.

The minimum bet is a separate matter from the unit. According to the TAB fact sheet, the minimum is R6 at a TAB outlet and R1 online, and a minimum each-way bet at a TAB is R3 win plus R3 place.

Single-race pools: Win, Place, Exacta, Swinger, Trifecta, Quartet

How many places pay in a Place pool depends on the field. The fact sheet sets it out: fewer than 6 runners means no place betting; 6 to 7 runners pays first and second; 8 to 15 runners pays the first three; 16 or more pays the first four.

Trifecta and Quartet tickets come in single, box, floating-banker and multiple entries. A box covers every order of your chosen horses, so a 3-horse Trifecta box is 6 combinations (3 × 2 × 1) and costs R6 at R1 a unit. A 4-horse Quartet box is 24 combinations (4 × 3 × 2 × 1), or R24.

Multi-leg pools: Place Accumulator, Jackpot and Pick 6

The big South African pools ask you to get a run of races right. Each one has its own pool, and the scratching rules are what catch newcomers.

• Place Accumulator (PA). You need a horse placed first, second or third in every leg. The rules fix the number of placed horses at three "regardless of the number of carded horses/runners", so a 7-horse field still pays three places in the PA, even though the ordinary Place pool would pay only two.
• Jackpot. In the rules this is the Pick 4 (Jackpot): pick the winner of each leg named on the race card.
• Pick 6. Pick the winner of all six legs. The operator may set aside a percentage of the net pool as a consolation dividend for tickets with any five winners, as stated on the official race card. On South African Pick 6 pools, the fact sheet notes the first-timer rule: if a horse that has never raced wins, the first horse home among those that have raced before also counts as a winner.

Scratchings. In all three pools, a scratched horse on your ticket is replaced by the tote favourite in that leg, and there is no refund for scratched horses. The tote favourite is the horse carrying the most win units. If you put a single on a horse that is then scratched, your ticket now rides on the favourite.

Fractional betting: buying part of a perm

A perm on a multi-leg pool multiplies quickly. The rules let you buy a fraction of the full cost on the Jackpot, Pick 6, Place Accumulator, Trifecta and Quartet, among others. The fact sheet lists the same pools. The system takes what you paid as a percentage of the full R1-unit cost, applies that percentage to each unit, and pays you the same percentage of any dividend. The Western Cape board's totalisator rules set out the steps: the cost per bet is rounded down to the nearest cent and the total cost rounded up to the nearest 10c.

Worked example: a Pick 6 perm in rand

Say you choose 2 horses in leg 1, 3 in leg 2, 1 in leg 3, 2 in leg 4, 4 in leg 5 and 1 in leg 6.

1. Combinations: 2 × 3 × 1 × 2 × 4 × 1 = 48.
2. Full cost at R1 a unit: 48 × R1 = R48.
3. You pay R24 instead. That is R24 ÷ R48 = 50%, so each combination carries R0.50.
4. Suppose all six of your legs win and the declared dividend is R10,000 per R1 unit. Your 50% ticket returns 0.5 × R10,000 = R5,000.

The R10,000 dividend is invented for the example. Real Pick 6 dividends depend entirely on the size of the pool and how many tickets share it.

A Win and Place pool, step by step

In this made-up race, the net Win pool (after the legislated deductions) is R80,000, and R10,000 in units is on the winner. The Win dividend is R80,000 ÷ 10,000 = R8.00 per R1, so a R10 ticket returns R80, including your stake.

The net Place pool in the same 10-runner race is R30,000. With 8 to 15 runners, three horses place, so the pool is cut into three portions of R10,000:

Each placed horse gets an equal slice of the pool no matter where it finished. That is why a long shot running third can pay more for a place than the winner does.

Carry-overs: what happens when nobody wins

When no ticket wins a pool, the net pool is not returned. Under the current TAB rules it is carried forward and added to a later pool chosen by the operator's management, within 12 months of the original pool. For the Pick 6, the rules describe a carry-over stockpile that can be added to a selected pool regardless of the meeting it came from. A carried-over pool is why one Saturday's Pick 6 can be far bigger than the stakes bet on that card alone. It is also why there are no refunds on a pool that has been carried forward.

Refunds on multi-leg pools are narrow: only when the meeting is cancelled or abandoned, or if only one race of the sequence was completed. If a single leg is abandoned, every selection in that leg counts as a winner.

Tote pools are one of two ways to bet a South African race. For the other, and when each tends to pay more, see fixed odds vs tote. Before you open an account anywhere, check the operator's provincial licence. Big carry-overs bring out big perms, so set a limit first. The responsible gambling page covers the tools, and the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation's toll-free line is 0800 006 008, open 24/7. Betting is for over-18s only.