The World Pool - betting editor Keith Melrose looks at the evidence from Royal Ascot and considers how to make it pay

Robbie Wilders' first bet on the World Pool provided an enriching lesson. He had picked out Triple Time in the Queen Anne and, in the spirit of learning by doing, backed him on the Tote. Despite pulling hard and almost circumnavigating the field, Triple Time came in. The win dividend was £35.05, beating his starting price of 33-1.

"To be honest," said Wilders when I went to congratulate him, "I was expecting a little bit more than that about a 33-1 shot on the Tote."

Me too. Received wisdom has it that outsiders pay a lot better on the Tote compared with traditional odds. But after a few seconds realisation dawned, and it was suddenly clear that the World Pool is a game with different rules. 

'Ah, Rob. It'll be because of Neil Callan.'

The World Pool has been operating in its current form since 2019. It is driven by the Hong Kong Jockey Club and commingles dozens of local pools, of which the British Tote is one.

This format opens a new frontier of betting on racing. We know what happens when you change sportsbook odds for pool betting. Hence Robbie's and my anticipation of monster dividends on an outsider. We also know what happens when you remove bookmakers and try the exchange model.

The World Pool also pitches punter against punter more directly than traditional odds. The crucial difference is making the players global rather than national. Its opportunity rests in bargaining with one's local knowledge, and knowing the likely tastes of the tourists.

If you bet on the Tote during a World Pool meeting, you are almost always betting into the World Pool (there are some exceptions, like the Placepot). That means that more than 90 per cent of the money in the pool has come from abroad. 

Ever more fixtures in Britain and Ireland are coming under the World Pool banner. There will be 18 in 2023, with the next at Ascot on Saturday. After four years, we have enough data to draw some firm conclusions about how to utilise the World Pool and how punters can use this platform to find value. This piece will focus on this year's Royal Ascot, which broadly reinforced previous lessons learned from the World Pool.

The prices are competitive, whatever your platform 

The first thing to note is the marketing claims made around World Pool by the Tote have substance. Of the 35 winners at Royal Ascot, 24 paid better on the Tote. And remember, even though this is the World Pool the Tote's guarantee to match SP still applies. So on those 11 occasions when the Tote win dividend did not beat SP, winners were paid at the SP anyway.

Besides the SP guarantee, there is another major offer from the Tote to factor in. Tote+ provides a ten per cent bonus on win dividends for bets placed through the Tote's site or app, although I have omitted it from this analysis unless otherwise stated. 

If you are in a position to use Tote+, you should certainly consider it. The takeout in World Pool win pools is 17.5 per cent, so with Tote+ the overrounds tend to hover above the 5 per cent mark. 

This was reflected in the Ascot numbers. Tote+ win dividends even edged out the Betfair SP, to which commission needs to be factored in, over the week by a score of 18-17. The average was in Betfair's favour, for reasons to be discussed. So if you bet win singles near the off and do not have a discount on your Betfair commission, Tote+ is your best bet in most cases.

Pay attention to the names

As a guide, when it comes to World Pool you should think about how the average Hong Kong punter, who supply a massive portion of the liquidity, would behave. They tend to go for names they know. This is particularly strong with jockeys, like Ryan Moore and Frankie Dettori, but also others familiar to Hong Kong players. Think Silvestre De Sousa and, yes, Neil Callan, who spent almost a decade there.

I went through all 35 winners at Ascot, armed with what Tote experts had told me before the meeting. I marked each winner depending on whether they were attached to any of these 'global' names. The average overpay (Tote win dividend relative to SP) was 6.23 per cent for 'global' winners, but 13.02 per cent for those without a big name attached.

Desert Hero with the King and Queen after the King George V StakesCredit: Edward Whitaker

You also see the inverse of this phenomenon. One of the top-paying winners on the World Pool relative to their SP was Desert Hero, owned by the King. Other countries are a bit warier about royals, and also about second strings. The top-paying winner all week was Age Of Kings, the Aidan O'Brien second-string winner of the Jersey Stakes. His win dividend on the World Pool (£34.70) was 50 per cent higher than his 22-1 SP.

Look beyond the win pool

Stronger pool-betting cultures in other countries mean that they are more attracted to exotics. In the World Pool, almost half of all stakes are placed into the pool for what we would call the Exacta (the World Pool version, the Quinella, is a reversed Exacta with a single stake) and the Swinger. 

This contributes to a valuable piece of advice that I received before Royal Ascot and tested on results afterwards. Even when the high-rollers correct a price in the win pool, the error tends to persist in the exotics.

The best example here is Copper Horse winner Vauban. His prohibitive starting price of evens was almost matched on the win pools (£2.30). Yet for all he had second favourite and Dettori's mount Absurde in second, the Exacta paid £15.20 compared with the £6.11 forecast. 

Aside from races won by outsiders, this was easily the best Exacta return of the week relative to the forecast. It is only a minor stretch to say this happened because the smart money spent its resources correcting the win pool.

Play the places

All World Pool bets follow the Hong Kong Jockey Club's place terms. You get two places if there are four to six runners. Three places are offered on fields between seven and 20. And all races (not just handicaps) with 21 runners or more pay four places. These apply to the declared field size, rather than the number of runners.

The applications here are intuitive. Consider World Pool as a place option when there are four declared, seven declared or in big-field non-handicaps. World Pool does not try to compete with the extra places offered by bookies in big handicaps, so bear that in mind. 

Be careful with outsiders

Royal Ascot 2023 is already being remembered for its shocks. Some of the real monster-priced winners show that the rule about the Tote being best on outsiders extends only so far.

If you backed Witch Hunter (50-1), Khaadem (80-1) or Valiant Force (150-1) on the Tote you were saved by the SP guarantee. Unsurprisingly, the Betfair SP on these horses was astronomical and these ricks pushed the average Betfair SP of winners above the equivalent return on Tote+.

This is possibly related to a lack of knowledge among foreign bettors. A less informed audience will likely spread their bets around more, so when a real shock pops up more people will be celebrating than you might assume.

Meanwhile, six of the seven biggest overpays on the week came on horses who returned double-figure odds at SP. This is the sort of behaviour you would expect to see.

Lot's in a name: Jimi Hendrix lands a knockout blow beating Sonny Liston in the Royal Hunt CupCredit: Edward Whitaker

There was one notable exception, which provides another lesson from our dive into the World Pool. In terms of the win dividend on winner Jimi Hendrix and the Exacta return on him to beat Sonny Liston, the Royal Hunt Cup was the worst race of the week to have a winner on the World Pool. But why? The result did not fit any of the patterns laid out above. 

One of the likelier answers is that the names of the horses involved had an effect. Recognition of Moore and Dettori is one thing. Even Dettori would admit that Hendrix and Liston would be several strata higher.

When picking by name can make a significant difference to a horse's price at a major Flat fixture, it goes without saying that clued-up punters can ill afford to ignore the source. It could be time to ask yourself, as Robbie Wilders did, what the odd well-chosen bet on the World Pool could do for you.

Subsequent to the publication of this article, the Tote announced the Tote+ dividend enhancement will not be applied to Hong Kong or World Pool pools, starting with the World Pool card on King George day at Ascot on Saturday, while from Monday, the Exacta, Trifecta and Swinger will not receive any Tote+ enhancement.

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