There was a bumper jackpot rollover on Sunday 17th March, St Patrick’s Day. Having not been won when guaranteed to £50,000 on Gold Cup day at Cheltenham, the pool swelled to more than £140,000 on Saturday at Uttoxeter for their Midlands Grand National card. Big priced winners of the feature race as well as the handicap that followed it meant the pool rolled again, to a rather more mundane sextet of races at Chepstow.
Indeed, between the six Chepstow jackpot races there were only 34 runners. Predictably, the pool grew – to about three times the seed money at start of play, and specifically to £443,080.38 net.
With so few runners it was a case of by how many tickets, rather than if, the pool would be won. Here’s how I played what looked like it could be a market-driven card…
The first thing to say is that, even with a huge rollover like this, the option to pass can be a good one. I gave that some serious consideration given the shape of the markets, but decided it was just about playable if I framed my bets appropriately. For me that meant a three-pronged attack:
- First, a ‘caveman’ ticket following the top of the market
- Second, a ‘top of the market’ plus mid-market ABC perm
- Third, a wide sweep across ABC
Those tickets were staked disproportionately, with 10p minimum lines and judicious use of unnamed favourite on the ‘caveman’ slip; smaller stakes on the mid-range ticket; and minimum stakes on the wide sweep. If the results came up chalky (i.e. favourites winning), I’d have double lines in various places to at least own a bigger slice of what might be a very thin pie.
My tickets looked like this:
The bottom row on the images above was the ‘caveman’ (single perm, all on ‘A’) ticket and, as you can see, I used F(avourite) in legs 2, 3, and 4 along with racecard numbers. That came to 672 lines at 10p = £67.20.
My total outlay, which was larger than normal because I knew I’d almost certainly be getting at least a portion of my stakes back, came to £444.
There were a small number of horses I wanted to field against and, luckily for me, they were beaten; though Spring Gale’s excellent effort to finish a close second in the opener would have made the afternoon quite uncomfortable if he’d won!
But he didn’t. The favourite won, and the favourite also won leg 2, and leg 3. Though it was already looking like a very small dividend I had the consolation of knowing I had stakes accruing as result of nominating both the racecard number of the winner and unnamed favourite.
Leg 4 made things a little more interesting, though actually Regal Renaissance was the worst result for me. He had the second most units on him but was not favourite. A winning favourite would have doubled my interest on the caveman ticket to 80p with many of the other tickets running on as well; alternatively, the second horse home, Endless Escape, was a 7/1 shot with fewer tickets and he was on all of my tickets (as I’d taken the whole field in this race).
In leg 5, I’d also taken all three runners and, when the second favourite fell and brought down the outsider, it was a bad outcome. More than 42% went through to leg 6, which was almost 3000 tickets still live.
Although the sixth leg was only a five-runner race, it was essentially “pick ’em” between four of the quintet. Happily, the worst result finished second with the winner, King Of Brazil, shouldering 19% of remaining tickets. That equated to 546.37 units sharing £443,080.38 for a net dividend to a £1 stake of £810.90.
The starting price accumulator paid £349.51, a measly 43% of the jackpot payout.
For Tix players it got better: winning tickets return a 5% bonus, essentially giving a £1 jackpot dividend of £851.44, an extra £40.54.
Put another way, Tix players received very nearly two-and-a-half times the SP accumulator payout. Nice!
On my own tickets, I ended up with a profit of £185.94 on stakes of £444, an ROI of about 42%.
Considering the easy nature of the six races, and the ‘top of the market’ outcomes for most of them, I was pretty happy to come out in front; and also quite happy with how I’d played it. There is always a place for a ‘caveman’ ticket alongside more creative ABC play, and the use of unnamed favourite can bump things up nicely when the jolly inevitably rolls past the jamstick in front.
Feel free to ask any questions, or make observations / share your own experiences, in the comments below.
Matt
p.s. here are my tickets in the spreadsheet format in case it’s easier to read:
Comments
22 responses to “Jackpot Plays: 17th March 2024”
Well done Matt, good to see your approach. I did use TIX to do a small perm. £10.60. Had all the winners but did not get a match. Will definitely use TIX in future.
Hi Paul, unlucky there, and yes that ‘snaking around the winning ticket’ is something that can – and does – happen. But placing tickets optimally like this is way better in the long run. Just very frustrating on the day!
Matt
I’m gradually getting into understanding the joys, simplicity and profitable fun of Tix. My partner has been diagnosed with Altzheimer’s so Tix will help me greatly because I don’t get much “me time” but do need the interest in horse racing to inject some joy into the day. With your helpful “talk throughs” I have downloaded Tix and linked it successfully to my Tote account (I know this because I’ve lost a bit of money!!). Your experience on Sunday is admired as I had neither time nor courage to rush in without fully understanding what I was doing. Tix, as I see it, enables us to concentrate on the selection strategy (A, B or C…that is quite critical !) for the entry while it will ensure a balanced set of bets across the board. It would be good to know your plans going forward to provide your company with an added profit stream; will we pay a subscription or will Tix take a commission from winning bets…and if so, how?
Hi Richard,
Thanks for your comment and I’m very sorry to read about your partner’s diagnosis.
Good question regarding Tix revenue stream, and it’s something I need to add to the ‘About’ page. Essentially, tote compensate us for our work via the pool ‘takeout’. Tix use is free, and actually Tix is the only place where players can get 5% bonus on their winnings; so not only is it free but it is also better value than going directly to the tote (or another bookie) site. And, finally, I personally believe the interface is a lot easier to use than other sites, including tote’s (but then I would say that!)
All best,
Matt
Hi Matt I have played tote jackpot and placepots sometimes and like the options to reduce one time stake perm size bets. Great you won and wonder if tix also allows for other tote bets and would be as effective e.g., scoop6 tricasts etc
Hi Scott
Yes, you can use Tix for all multi-race bets except Irish jackpot currently.
So that’s Scoop6, Placepot7, Quadpot, Jackpot and Placepot.
We are looking at ways to develop similar features for single-race bets like exacta and especially trifecta.
Watch this space!
Matt
Hi Matt,
Tix has sparked an interest in the pool bets. Thanks for all the guidance. Any plans to roll it out to allow use in standard accumulators?
Hi Nick
Thanks, glad it’s sparked an interest.
Unfortunately, the mechanics of accumulator bets are a bit too challenging – and also, candidly, I don’t really like working with traditional bookies.
Best,
Matt
Well done Matt. I’ve been using Tix since I learnt about it (about 4 weeks ago) and I’ve only had one day when I’ve not won the Placepot. Admittedly, it’s been small potatoes, but I’ve very rarely played the Placepot before. I’ve showed the App to just about every racing fan I meet, even strangers sat next to me at Cheltenham last week, who were struggling with a manual “caveman” format on-course. My “schoolboy” error is that I add too many “B” and “C” entries – I need to be more ruthless to cut the costs down.
Hi Ian,
That’s great to hear you’re enjoying Tix.
And I totally hear you about over-committing on B and C: the fear of ‘not having’ the placepot has to be balanced against the long-term bottom line.
That said, there’s a fair argument for casting the net wide, having a lot of fun/generally going deep or all the way, and getting lucky with a big dividend from time to time.
Different strokes for different folks and all that.
Thanks for your comment.
Matt
Hi Matt staying In South Africa is their something similar to tixs that you can help me with. Thanks Richard Mcevoy.
Hi Richard,
One day we’d love to enable multi-race play for SA pools, and we may not be too many years away from that.
Matt
If you are looking for people to join in your Scoop6 plays, I would like to join in for a small share which I now do with two other groups.
If cost of said share is reasonable
please advise.
thanks
Hi Paul
I’ve no plans to run syndicates, unless/until that functionality is made available on tote’s site (and, therefore, allowing us to plug into it).
Agree Scoop6 is expensive to play outside of a syndicate.
Matt
Hi Matt
Thanks for introducing Tix to your website.
It certainly makes placing Placepots a lot easier.
I had success to small stakes at Cheltenham. I managed a return on 3 of the 4 days. Prior to Cheltenham I also had success. I have been playing when I shouldn’t as returns have been low. All in the learning experience.
Doubling up on the Favourite when selected works well.
With category ‘C’. Is it not better to back individually. Rather than add extra lines.
Hi Peter, well done with your Cheltenham picks – you did better than me!
Good question regarding C’s. I think, for everyday meetings and the placepot, yes it can be better to stick with A/B; but if you’re playing bigger field action with bigger pots (Saturday’s upcoming Lincoln meeting for example), then C has its place. Also, C is necessary on jackpots in my view, too. But the idea of backing longer priced horses on Betfair to cover stakes, rather than including in your Tix perm, is sound – especially later in the sequence (when closer to a return, and when the size of that return is better understood).
Doubling on the favourite is something all smart players should be doing at certain points in their play.
Matt
Matt, it’s a brilliant tool. I had a nice little £100.00 placepot win at Cheltenham for tiny stakes. 👍👍👍🐴
Great work, Dave, love to hear that!
Matt
I like tix although I haven’t been totally successful. The Jackpot on Sunday eluded me by missing the winner in race 4 – I did have the other 6!!
But will carry on in a selective way.
It’s a long game, Jim: definitely can be feast and famine. Bankroll goes a lot further with optimised staking though 👍👍
Hi Matt
I used TIX to land the placepot on GC Day which worked great. Lots of selections across ABC and a decent ROI of 200 in/500 back which keep my 10 man syndicate warm on the way home.
However when I played the Chepstow Jackpot on Sunday with a similar ABC approach something went wrong as I had all winners in my perm but didn’t collect a penny. Still trying to work out why so appreciate your help.
I had 21 tickets but I think it was my C selection winner in Leg 4 where something went amiss. How can I work out what went wrong and how could Inhave prevented it if I had all the winning horses in the perm?
Hi Barry
Well done with your Gold Cup day placepot. On the Sunday tickets, you’ll find them by using the date picker on the ‘BETS’ tab.
You can then see what you placed. As a reminder, if you use a ‘C’ selection you need 5 A’s to go with it (i.e. B’s are no good if a C pick wins)
Matt