Tote Pledge to Give Pool Competitive Edge

Date: 16 July 2003

Tote Chairman Peter Jones today pledged to reduce deductions in the Tote’s Win and Place pools in order to give Tote punters the competitive edge over their SP cousins.

Speaking at the Tote’s Annual General Meeting at the Savoy in London, Peter Jones re-affirmed his belief that the organisation’s biggest opportunity lay in the expansion of pool betting.

“Whether we like it or not, Britain is dominated by a fixed odds culture,” Jones said. “Notwithstanding the efforts we are making to build our fixed odds business, there is no doubt that our biggest opportunity lies with pool betting.”

“As I foreshadowed in my Chairman’s statement last year, we are now in a position to change Tote deductions in our Win and Place pools. Our other six pools now beat their fixed odds competitors by handsome margins but Win and Place have lagged behind.”

“From this autumn that will no longer be the case as we plan to reduce deductions in Win and Place pools to a level that will make them competitive with SP on the majority of occasions.”

“What I can say with confidence is that following the changes the Tote will beat the SP on average on every broad comparator and that by this move Tote Win and Place customers will be better off by more than £3 million a year.”

The Chairman’s speech followed the good news announced by the Tote’s Chief Operating Officer, Tom Phillips and Chief Executive, John Heaton that Tote turnover for the year 2001/02 was a record £643million, an increase of 26% on the previous year. Racecourse Division turnover was at an all time high at fractionally below £100 million, and both Tote Bookmakers and Tote Credit also set new records at £317 million and £147 million respectively. Net profit was more than double the previous year at £6.3 million and contribution to racing was up from £9.6 million to £11.2 million.