By Malcolm Boyle
The Tote Scoop6 is far better value than the National Lottery, it's for serious punters who want a chance of winning a huge return on a tiny stake. The Tote Scoop6 is like the National Lottery for the more discerning. It offers potentially huge dividends for a very modest investment.
The differences are equally obvious - the National Lottery is strictly for mug punters only. Unfortunately for Lottery owners Camelot, they seem to be in short supply in this country now, as the public has turned up its nose at the Lotto.
By contrast, 100,000 players every week are investing in the Tote Scoop6, in the belief that they are in control of their destiny regarding the wager. To an extent, they are correct, and they certainly have far more control than is the case in the National Lottery.
Odds of more than 14 million to one govern the Lotto, whereas Tote Scoop6 punters can reduce their odds dramatically, by making their own decisions regarding the horses that they nominate to carry their cash.
Sorry to labour the point, but the Lottery is an example of everything that is wrong in today's society - a quick fix, characterless contest. It's almost distasteful to compare the moronic pursuit of the plastic balls to the Sport of Kings. When investing in the Tote Scoop6, punters know that months of endeavour have helped to produce each of the six races that make up the Tote Scoop card each week.
Just viewing a jockey, weighing less than 8st, trying to control half a ton of thoroughbred should be enough to convince you of the Scoop6's supremacy. After all, your cash is surely far better spent supporting an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people, than on the corporate, tacky Lottery.
Anyone with even a fleeting interest in the sport will tell you how they were affected by the loss of Persian Punch in April, and how racing can produce extreme emotions, both good and bad for different reasons. I haven't seen a weekly or monthly magazine for 'Lotto' supporters, or television programmes that attempt to educate punters about which balls might come out in any particular sequence!
Scoop6 Tactics
The Tote Scoop6, then, is for the more skilful client. They can select short-priced favourites, or opt for more speculative runners, if they're trying to win the swag for themselves, not wishing to share the dividend with anybody else.
Informed clients can insure against losing, if for example they have selected the first four winners, by laying horses on the internet.
The Tote placepot part of the wager also offers investors the chance to win plenty of cash without actually selecting a winner at all!
The potential rewards of Tote Scoop6 are considerable. First of all, the Place Fund is a useful consolation if you don't land the big win, but all your selections are placed. The average dividend pays £572, which is similar to the average placepot return. Of course the dividend can vary dramatically, but as most of the races feature competitive TV racing with good size fields, there is always the potential for a four-figure return.
As recently as Lincoln Handicap day back in March last year, the Place Fund returned a dividend of £6,336, on the back of some good competitive racing from Doncaster and Newbury. The other benefit of the Place consolation is that it can prolong your enjoyment of the TV racing if your win selections have gone down.
Should you win the Win Fund by picking all six winners, you'll be looking at an average payment to date of around £93,000. Again, the dividend will vary depending upon the size of the rollover pool and the number of winners. However, it's worth pointing out that the Win Fund return for Tote Scoop6 regularly beats the equivalent SP accumulator bet. What's more, if you're a single winner there's the chance of an absolutely monstrous win.
Ron Nicholson is the best example of this in recent times. Ron landed a huge win of £878,939 for a £4 bet in April last year. That beats most bookmakers' traditional limits on payouts.
On top of the Win Fund, there's always the chance of the Bonus the following week. The Bonus is difficult to win, so rollovers build up fast. The average Bonus return to date stands at just under £200,000, with the record payout being £853,245, landed by a syndicate at Newmarket in August 2003 - not a bad return on top of the Win and Place winnings the previous week!
85% of Scoop6 investments come via individual players, with syndicates making up the rest of the pool. Syndicates are available to anyone who wishes to team up with family, friends or work colleagues, who can pool their resources and enter permutations that give such clients a more realistic chance of scooping the pool.
Many heads are better than one
One tactic employed by syndicates is to select two runners in what appear to be the four hardest races to judge, and bank on just one horse in the other two events. The total stake for such a wager would be £32, via a 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 1 x 1 entry, which equals sixteen bets (at £2 per line).
Dropping back to basics, just ask yourself what is the realistic price of selecting the first ball that drops out of the 'Lotto' machine. The answer of course is 48/1, whilst (before form is analysed) the price of any horse to win a ten-runner event (as an example) is 9/1.
Cynics would suggest that 'Lotto' players have six chances (via the number of selections), which reduce those 48/1 odds. The realist in me suggests however, that the further you get into the 'competition', the harder it is to win.
After the fifth ball is known, for example, the realistic odds for a chosen number to emerge are 43/1. Compare that to the sixth and final leg of the Placepot, and you will quickly determine that the further you go in the Tote Scoop6, the easier it is to ensure that you do not lose on your original stake. That's a scenario that is impossible to organise within the lottery format.
Lottery players could argue that the 'bonus ball' enters the equation after the sixth ball is drawn, but Tote Scoop6 investors would react by suggesting that the 'place fund' is still running for them, if their first five selections had been successful.
Finally, I should endorse the cynic's view that good causes have seen only a small percentage of the National Lottery money, which was promised all those years ago, unlike the fat cats, who have been lapping up the cream for the last ten years.
By contrast, all the profits that emerge from the Tote Scoop6 go back into the horse racing industry, and I refer you back to the earlier paragraphs of this article if you wish to know why that can only be a good thing.
In short, brainless balls are for losers - hail the Tote Scoop6!
