Jackpot and Quadpot explained: Tote pool bets on racing

How does the Tote Jackpot work?

The Jackpot asks for the winner of each of six races nominated by the Tote, at one meeting or across several. Tickets that find all six share the net pool.

The Tote runs one Jackpot pool a day and nominates its six legs, which can come from one meeting or several. You choose one or more horses in each leg exactly as in a Placepot, but only a winner keeps a line alive. A second place in any leg ends it.

Finding one winner is hard enough; finding six is a different order of difficulty. If each leg were a race where your pick had a one in three chance, all six would come up about once in 729 attempts. That arithmetic is why Jackpot pools can build for days and why the dividends, when they come, are large.

How do Jackpot rollovers and carry forwards work?

When no ticket finds all six winners, the pool is carried forward and added to the next Jackpot pool. Each rollover makes the following pool larger until a ticket succeeds.

Carry forwards are the feature that draws attention to the Jackpot. A pool that has rolled over several times tends to attract more stakes, and with more lines in play it becomes more likely that someone gets through. The dividend then depends both on the size of the pot and on how many tickets share it.

Under the Tote rules the unwon pool goes into the next Jackpot pool, and the deduction is only taken when the money is finally won. Check the published terms when a large rollover is advertised.

Which races does the Quadpot cover?

The Quadpot covers races three to six at a meeting, the last four legs of the Placepot. A placed horse is needed in each leg under the same place terms as the Placepot.

Place terms follow field size and race type: winner only with 2 to 4 runners, two places with 5 to 7, three with 8 or more and four in handicaps of 16 or more. Because there are only four legs, lines are cheaper and dividends usually smaller than the Placepot on the same card.

The Quadpot has its own pool, so its dividend is not simply a slice of the Placepot. On days when the first two races go to favourites and the later legs are competitive handicaps, the Quadpot can pay more than its size suggests.

How do you cost a Jackpot or Quadpot perm?

Multiply the selections in each leg, then multiply by the unit stake. Two picks in three Jackpot legs and one in the other three make 2 x 2 x 2 x 1 x 1 x 1, which is 8 lines.

The same arithmetic works for any pool bet. A Quadpot with two picks in every leg is 16 lines, and three picks in every leg is 81. A Jackpot with two in every leg is 64 lines, and three in every leg is 729. At £1 a line those figures become the outlay in pounds, so pricing the whole ticket before you place it matters.

Most regular players use a mix of single picks and wider coverage in the legs they rate hardest. Every extra horse in a leg multiplies the cost of the whole ticket, not just that leg.

What happens to a non-runner in the Jackpot or Quadpot?

A non-running selection is replaced by the starting price favourite of that race, taking the lowest racecard number when favourites are joint. The leg is then settled on the favourite's result.

In the Jackpot the favourite must win; in the Quadpot it must be placed. A void or abandoned leg that is not re-run is treated as successful for every selection, so the bet is settled on the remaining legs. These rules come from the Tote's published pool rules, which can be updated.

How rarely do six favourites win at one meeting?

Favourites win roughly one race in three, so six in a row at one meeting is uncommon. A card where every favourite wins would pay a small Jackpot dividend because many tickets would hold the same six horses.

The live chart on this page shows the favourite win rate over ten seasons of British and Irish racing. Multiply a one in three chance across six legs and the market alone finds all six winners well under once in a hundred cards, before allowing for the fact that some cards have far more competitive races than others.

The practical lesson is that the Jackpot rewards finding at least one winner the market did not expect, since that is what thins the field of winning tickets. A card where every favourite obliges produces a dividend shared by thousands of lines, while one 16/1 winner in a handicap can leave a handful of tickets to split the whole pool.

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