It’s been a while since horse racing betting sites did anything to innovate successfully. The new Tote Fantasy game has emerged from the crowd as a real change to how you can be involved with a day's racing for a small stake but a full day's interest across the race cards.

Already the home of the Tote Placepot, the Tote Jackpot and the Scoop 6 betting with the Tote on UK and Irish racing has often been overlooked by casual racing punters as something to do at the course on a visit to the races or an extra bet at the weekends to supplement their usual wagering.

However, the last 12 months has seen the Tote up their game to attract players back into pool betting as an off-course medium. With online gambling on horse racing as popular as ever, live streaming, a revamped website and real money guarantees into the most popular pool bets have seen the Tote rise again in terms of popularity.

Tote Fantasy leans heavily on the fantasy football style game model that so many millions across the UK and Ireland enjoy every week across the Premier League. It also resembles the Daily Fantasy action US players will know and love from the NFL and NBA where knowledge is power and skill is applied to earn points from the performances of selected players.

How Does Tote Fantasy Work?

Daily tournaments can be entered on the Tote.co.uk website – new customers to the Tote will be able to take advantage of the welcome offer of course but to play it costs £7 or just under €8 in Ireland.

You are given the chance to pick seven horses, one in each race of seven races available, and you must stay within a set budget of 10,000 guineas. Each horse has a value, set by the Tote Fantasy team, and as you can imagine a short-priced favourite will cost a lot more than a big-priced outsider. 

This is where the skill element comes in. Will you spend lots of your budget on one banker-style selection and then go cheaper with less fancied horses in other races? Will you go against the market and have budget left over by doing so? It’s a conundrum that adds real fun to the game and similar to Fantasy Premier League, you can’t have Erling Haaland, Harry Kane, Mo Salah and Kevin De Bruyne in the team and expect to have a first-class defence with the budget still intact!

With the recent addition of private leagues, you can play against your friends and colleagues separately whilst still being part of the overall prize pools. Again, another clever lean to Fantasy Football and similar games.

What Happens If My Selection Loses?

This is where Fantasy is different and far less instant than a placepot or a Tote jackpot bet. You can have a horse come stone last and still be in with a chance of winning overall. 

A loser in a Jackpot bet or Scoop 6 ends your interest in winning overall, but in Fantasy, each horse scores points regardless of each other. So it is entirely possible that just a couple of winners played correctly can still earn a pay out if you simply do better than the other players in the game.

Building your Tote Fantasy Stable can be done quickly or poured over for hours studying the form. A game is run each day and provides a seven-race interest for a small-stake outlay.

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Pick Your Boosts for Tote Fantasy

Much like normal fantasy games, there are ways to enhance your points scoring by using two boosts available for each game.

Stable Star – Choosing one horse from your selections as the Stable Star means they will score double points should they be successful.

Stewards Enquiry – Choosing a horse from your selections and applying a Stewards Enquiry boost allows that horse to have its finishing position boosted by one place. So a second-placed horse would be promoted to a winner!

These need to be used carefully. Just like you would captain a player in fantasy football, this decision could be crucial to the final outcome.

Scoring details are all in the Tote Fantasy section on the Tote website and the game is growing in popularity since its launch. With the Cheltenham Festival on the horizon, it is another way to enjoy the day's racing and not give up hope after your first horse has run disappointingly!

What Can You Win On Tote Fantasy?

The top 25% of players make a profit from the fund of all player entries, so the more that play, the bigger the prize pool to be shared. The overall winner  takes the jackpot!

Be sure to try it this week at the Cheltenham Festival. Alongside the Placepot, which is guaranteed each day at a cool £1m starting pool, the Tote Jackpot and the daily Scoop 6 for the Festival, the Tote really has upped its game for horse racing punters.