Using Tix for Jackpots, Placepots, Quadpots & the Scoop 6, primarily focusing on Placepots

Geegeez readers should by now be aware of the online software called Tix, which Matt built in conjunction with the developer who built much of the coding for the original geegeez.co.uk racecards and form tools, writes Dave Renham. The Tix software is designed to be used for tote multi-race pool bets such as the Jackpot, Placepot, Quadpot and Scoop 6. It enables punters to produce more sophisticated and strategic permutations than the bog-standard perm approaches most punters use.

Tote Bets: A Quick Intro

Before discussing the software, it should be noted that the Tote take a percentage out of any final pool, the amount depending on the bet. Below is a table showing the percentage take-outs for the main pool bets:

 

Pool bet	Percentage taken out
Jackpot	29%
Placepot	27%
Quadpot	26%
Scoop 6	30%

As we can see they are all in the same ballpark. If we consider the Placepot, therefore, if 27% is taken out that leaves 73% of the original pool being shared between winners.

To help understand the maths, here is an example. For a final total of £100,000 bet into a particular Placepot pool where there was £200 remaining at the end of the six races, the dividend would be worked out thus:

£100,000 x 73% = £73,000

£73,000 divided by 200 = £365

£365 is the dividend is to a £1 stake.

The lure of Placepots and Jackpots is the chance of a big payout for relatively small outlays. Personally, I have never regularly played the Jackpot but play plenty of Placepots. I’ve been fortunate enough to have enjoyed some reasonable wins, and one very big win, but of course there have been many occasions when I have lost all of my stake. As far as this article is concerned, I am going to focus on using Tix for Placepots, because it is the most commonly played of the tote multi-race bets.

Playing Placepots the Traditional Way

Let's first look at how we could play these pool bets without the aid of Tix.

One line 'Hail Mary'

The first method is to simply pick one horse in each race. In a Placepot, there are six legs and so that would be six horses. In order to win a share of the Placepot all six must either win or place. This would be the case even if we pick six favourites. For those wanting to put the favourite in as the only selection in each of the six races, this is possible because there is a Placepot option to back the unnamed favourite.

Tthere are plenty of races where the market is quite tight at the top and we would be guessing which horse is sent off favourite, so for ‘favourite’ fans this is a useful option. However, the chance of all six favourites winning or placing is surprisingly rare. Indeed, looking at the 177 flat race meetings held in the UK in April and May of this year only 13 times did six favourites win or place in each of the first six races on the card.

However, that did not mean there would have been 13 theoretical winning Placepots for favourite only backers. This is because three of these 13 did not count due to a situation where a joint favourite won or placed, but the other joint favourite did not. When this happens there can only be one horse deemed to be favourite so the horse with the lowest racecard number becomes the favourite for pool bet purposes. Hence, if we had gone down the unnamed favourite Placepot route in April and May we would have had 177 Placepots bets of which 10 won.

The problem with all favourites placing is that the dividend tends to be very low when this happens, and that was the case with all ten dividends as the table below shows:

 

Date	Course	Dividend to £1 stake
7th April 2025	Kempton	£6.20
12th April 2025	Brighton	£12.40
12th April 2025	Thirsk	£8.00
1st May 2025	Redcar	£11.50
3rd May 2025	Goodwood	£9.90
5th May 2025	Windsor	£10.50
9th May 2025	Nottingham	£7.30
21st May 2025	Chepstow	£13.20
23rd May 2025	Goodwood	£5.90
26th May 2025	Windsor	£8.00

 

If we had placed let’s say a £2 bet on each of the 177 Placepots our outlay would have been £354. Our returns would have been £185.80 showing a LOSS of £168.20. Ouch!

Favourites obviously command the most amount of money wagered in Placepots which is why, when all six win or place, the dividends are so low. Interestingly, there were two meetings in April and May where no favourites placed in any of the six races – the dividends for these meetings were somewhat different.

 

Date	Course	Dividend to £1 stake
19th April 2025	Musselburgh	£1954.50
31st May 2025	Lingfield	£4022

 

The '2x2'

For seasoned Placepot players selecting a single horse in each race is not a credible strategy. In the period discussed we have seen that putting the favourite as the only selection in each race secured a winning Placepot less than 6% of the time, and delivered significant losses.

An alternative and more popular approach is to choose two horses in each race giving players more coverage. We call this a permutation, or perm. If we choose two horses per race rather than one, the number of bets or lines goes up drastically from one to 64 because we multiply the number of selections per race to get the total number of selections.

1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 while 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64

Take three horses per race and we are looking at 729 bets or lines.

Obviously, the chances of winning part of the pot increase but the more bets/lines we have the more we are staking, which will have an impact on any final returns.

Variable perms

To try and reduce the number of perms, some Placepot players vary the number of horses chosen for each race. Hence, they may have a couple of races where they choose just one horse – a so called ‘banker’; perhaps they have three horses in two of the other races, and five in each of the final two races.

In this scenario the number of bets or lines would be calculated 1 x 1 x 3 x 3 x 5 x 5 which equals 225 bets. This idea covers 18 horses in total (the same as the three horses in every race perm) but cuts the number of bets/lines down considerably.

Thus, varying the number of horses chosen per race is the most sensible method discussed to date; but it is time to talk Tix and a more sophisticated approach to adjusting the Placepot perms.

Introducing Tix

The Tix software allows us to use what is known as the ‘ABCX’ approach. This approach essentially allows players to group horses by order of confidence / perceived chance. In terms of a Placepot the thinking would be along these sorts of lines (or at least this is the way I think!) -

 

A Horses – horses that I believe are genuine contenders to win or place; or horses that I perceive to be overpriced within the mid-range of prices such as a 10/1 shot that I think ought to be 5/1, or a 12/1 shot that is 6/1 on my reading of the race.

B Horses – the next best options that we can make a case for especially if one or more of the A contenders underperform.

C Horses – horses that are unlikely to win but have some chance of placing. An example may be a horse overpriced at 33/1 we perceive should half that price at least. Or a less fancied horse well drawn over a course and distance that has a strong bias.

X Horses – horses that are excluded from calculations as their win or place chance seems extremely unlikely or I feel they are significantly over-factored in the market.

 

For Placepots my preferred approach is to have more A’s than B’s and maybe one or two C’s. However, for bigger meetings such as Royal Ascot, I tend to load up on A’s and have more C’s than B’s. I am sure others will have alternative approaches that may well be better than mine. Hopefully the more I use the software the more I can finesse my methods.

In terms of the Tix software the A horses will occur in more bets/lines than the B’s that in turn occur in more bets/lines than the C’s. The table below shows all the possible combinations or perms for each individual Placepot ticket – I have colour coded them to help make it clearer. A rated selections are in red, B are in black and C are in green.

 

 

This way of combining the horses is far more efficient and a lot cheaper! The way Tix is designed is that we can have a maximum of 28 individual tickets and this only occurs if we pick at least one horse in each of A, B and C positions in every race - as per the image above.

Tix Selection Flexibility

Keeping to the ‘three horses in a race scenario’, here are total number of bets/lines based on the Tix options, assuming we keep to the same combination for all six races. It includes the two I have already shared:

 

Combos	All 3 on A	2 on A, 1 on B	2 on A, 1 on C	1A, 1B, 1C	1 on A,  2 on B	1 on A, 2 on C
Total Bets	729	496	256	28	73	13

 

The table shows the flexibility of the Tix software in terms of being able to offer various ‘number of bet’ scenarios, and remember, these example numbers are based on choosing the same A, B and/or C combination for all six races. Assuming we wanted to put three horses into each race we of course could choose a different three-way combination for each race such as:

 

Race no.	Column A (no. of selections)	Column B (no. of selections)	Column C (no. of selections)	Total no. of horses in race
1	2	1	0	3
2	1	1	1	3
3	1	2	0	3
4	3	0	0	3
5	1	0	2	3
6	2	0	1	3

 

This particular Tix construction of three horses per race would equate to 138 lines. It would take several pages to list all possible Tix bet constructions of three horses in each of the six races, so I’ll spare readers that! On the Tix site, our ticket with this type of perm/construction would potentially look something like this:

 

 

To be clear, the green column is for A picks, the yellow is for B picks, and C picks are in the right hand sandy coloured column. And these numbers in the specific columns would give us the following ten tickets:

 

 

As we can see, for this example there are ten specific groupings (tickets), and we would need at least one of those of ten groupings to have a win or placed horse in each of the six races to get a return. Of course, we may achieve a return that is less than our original stake, so six ‘win or placers’ on one of the tickets does not guarantee a profit.

If all eighteen horses manage to place then we probably would be dreaming but in that unlikely scenario these ten specific groupings/tickets would combine to have all 138 bets/lines as winning ones.

Tix Staking Flexibility

So, one of the brilliant parts about using Tix is this selection flexibility. A further feature in terms of flexibility is that we can adjust our stakes in terms of the four main groupings. This is the default position with the same stakes on each:

 

 

However, anyone who has seen Matt post his Tix selections on the site (like he did brilliantly at Royal Ascot 2025, I might say) will know he has a favoured strategy thus:

 

- All A's: 4x unit stake

- Five A's with one B pick: 3x unit stake

- Four A's with two B picks: 2x unit stake

- Five A's with one C pick: 1x unit stake

 

Using the ‘Matt Method’ we would simply tick the relevant boxes thus:

 

 

Using the example of my ten tickets shared above, this means ticket 1 (all A's) has a 4x amplification, tickets 2 to 4 (any 5 A's with 1 B) are 3x unit stake, tickets 5 to 7 (any 4 A's with 2 B's) are 2x normal stakes, and tickets 8 to 10 (any 5 A's with 1 C) are 1x stakes.

Of course, this stake amplification on certain tickets will increase the overall outlay but we're pressing up our strongest opinions whilst mixing in some 'big dividend' prospects.

In this specific example based on an original 1p per bet/line, and having no increase in stakes (so betting all lines with the same stake of 1p), it would cost £1.38.

Using the 4-3-2-1 Matt method would increase stakes to £3.00. The reasoning behind Matt’s staking plan is logical. The A horses are more likely to win or place than the Bs, who in turn should outperform the Cs. Hence the all-A column should have the highest stake, the 5A 1B column should come next and so on.

This staking method is one option, possibly the best one; obviously there are plenty of others that could be used. Also, at this point, it should be noted there is another way to adjust our stakes. We can adjust individual tickets by clicking on the ‘stake’ box at the bottom of each ticket and changing the default stake.

 

 

For those readers who have yet to use Tix, how to use the software is specific to each individual. Some I’m sure will not adjust stakes, some will. Some will load up with A’s, some may spread their horses more evenly. However, it is important to appreciate that each race meeting is different, and we are likely to play a Placepot at Carlisle with very few runners on the card differently to one at Royal Ascot where field sizes are much bigger and very competitive.

Wider Coverage

Thinking of the bigger meetings like Royal Ascot with their huge and competitive fields, it is likely that there will be an increase in the number of horses that will be used in our placepots. Earlier I looked at an imaginary three horses per race scenario sharing how placing them in different columns affected the total number of lines. Now let's look at the same idea using four horses per race (24 horses in total). Again, I have assumed that we have split the horses into the same columns for each race. Obviously placing four horses in the exact same columns for each of the six races is something that in practice we would almost definitely not do, but my reasoning is two-fold. Firstly, it is easy for me to calculate and share the total number of bets for each grouping. And secondly it gives us a decent understanding of the ‘number of total bets’ differences we can get using this flexible software:

 

Combos	All 4 on A	3 on A, 1 on B	3 on A, 1 on C	2 on A, 2 on B	2 on A,  2 on C
Total Bets	4096	3402	2187	1408	448
Combos	2 on A, 1 on B, 1 on C	1 on A,  3 on B	1 on A, 2 on B, 1 on C	1 on A, 1 on B, 2 on C	1 on A, 3 on C
Total Bets	688	154	79	34	19

 

We can see that if selecting all 24 horses in the A column (four in each race) the number of bets/lines is a massive 4096. However, when we spread them more evenly but keep mostly A’s, such as a 2A, 1B and 1C scenario for each race, this cuts the bets/lines down to 688.

As I mentioned earlier for ease of calculations, I have assumed that each race has the same A, B, C combo or grouping. But, of course, Tix players will play each race according to its make-up. Considerations will be affected by the number of runners, the individual strengths of the runners, the relative prices of those runners, etc. For example, a three-runner race with a 1/12 favourite could see us choose that favourite on A as a stand-alone banker. A three-runner race where all three horses are priced between 13/8 and 2/1 may mean we choose all three in the A column. Only one of them will count in a final Placepot dividend while the other two will be losers and all lines involving those two will ‘die’.

Example Tix Play: Royal Ascot

I now want to share my Tuesday Placepot at Royal Ascot this year and how I played it using Tix. In terms of staking, I didn’t use Matt’s 4-3-2-1 method, I simply kept to the same 1p stakes per ticket.

Leg 1 - Queen Anne Stakes:

This was the race I previewed for Geegeez on the Tuesday and happily my two selections came first and second. The winner, Docklands, returned 14/1 (backed in from 25/1) so that was a good start to the week on an individual punting front. The runner up Rosallion was favourite and pre-race I was tempted to leave him as the stand-alone ‘A’ selection in my Placepot; but the race did have a very competitive look about it. So I played safe taking five selections across two columns. I also split Rosallion and Docklands up putting Docklands on C – silly me as that turned out.

Leg 1 selections

A – numbers 4 and 10

C  - numbers 3, 5 and 6

Horses that won/placed: one A, and one C

 

Leg 2 - Coventry Stakes:

These 2yo races with loads of runners and little form are the ones I fear most in Placepots with only three places available (and so it proved here). I went big trying to cover as many bases as possible with four A’s and four C’s:

A – numbers 1, 2, 13 and 20

C  - numbers 8, 9, 11 and 17

Horses that won/placed: one C

This was frustrating from the point of view that two of my A selections finished fourth and fifth. On the flip side, I was still in the pot with one of my C’s placing, and two of the placers were 66/1 and 80/1 meaning very few tickets had those runners on them.

Having played just A’s and C’s I was now needing at least one A horse to win or place in the final four races.

 

Leg 3 - King Charles III Stakes:

This was another horrible race with 23 runners and only three places up for grabs. My only strong opinion on the race was that American Affair was overpriced and I was happy for that to be one of my A’s. I went four A’s and two C’s. American Affair won.

A – numbers 1, 7, 14 and 16

C  - numbers 3 and 12

Horses that won/placed: two A’s

 

Leg 4 - St James's Palace Stakes:

Although there were only two places available in this seven-runner race, there were four rags and an odds-on fav in Field Of Gold. I had him and Henri Matisse as my A’s. No need for any ‘C’ cover.

A – numbers 1, 3

Horses that won/placed: two A’s

 

Leg 5 - Ascot Stakes:

There were two at a price I liked here in Nurburgring and Ascending. I decided to split them with Nurburgring on A and Ascending on C. I put one of the well fancied Mullins pair on A and what I hoped was another live outsider on C.

A – numbers 13 and 20

C  - numbers 3 and 9

Horses that won/placed: one A, and one C

Ascending beat Nurburgring for a £665 exacta (and no I didn’t have it!). At least I had one A selection that counted so was still in the Placepot game with one to play.

 

Leg 6 - Wolferton Stakes:

With no eventual non-runners this 16-runner Listed race had only three horses to count in the Placepot. Before the race I was very keen on Sons And Lovers thinking this must finish in the frame. I decided two have two A’s and one C.

A – numbers 9 and 14

C  - number 15

Horses that won/placed: one A

Sons And Lovers faded into fifth annoyingly, but fortunately my other A got the job done.

Here's how these selections would have looked in the Tix columns.

 

Leg	Column A	Column B	Column C
1	4, 10		3, 5, 6
2	1, 2, 13, 20		8, 9, 11, 17
3	1, 7, 14, 16		3, 12
4	1, 3
5	13, 20		3, 9
6	9, 14		15

 

 

The numbers in bold are the horses that won or placed, but two of them ended up being redundant (number 5 in leg 1 and number 9 in leg 5). The rest, in red, counted on one of the '5 on A, 1 on C' lines and, because I had two win/placed horses in two of the races, I ended up with four winning lines (1 x 1 x 2 x 2 x 1 x 1).

The Placepot to a £1 stake paid £2767.40 meaning each of my four 1p lines netted £27.67, so the overall return on that winning ticket was £110.68 (£27.67 x 4 winning lines). Taking my stake into account and the 5% bonus the Tote pays on winning Tix tickets (yet another reason for using Tix!), I ended up with a profit on the bet of just over £102.

What if?

One two-word phrase we are all too familiar with is ‘what if?’ - so, just for fun, I am going to play that game now. What if I had put six of my original selections in different columns? More specifically, what if my three ‘placers’ on C had been put on A instead; and three of my ‘losers’ from A had been put on C instead?

To achieve this scenario, I could have swapped horses 4 and 5 over in race one, horses 1 and 9 in race two, and horses 20 and 3 in race five. If I had instead done that, I would have had two places in legs 1, 3, 4 and 5, and one place each in legs 2 and 6. That would have given me 16 winning lines quadrupling the return to over £400. Considering all my selections were in A and C this scenario could have happened. Likewise, if a few of my winning A’s ended up as C's I would have won diddly!

Sticking with the ‘what if?’ line, what if my original ticket had been staked differently using Matt’s 4,3,2,1 method? Well, due to only having one successful 5A 1C combo the same payout of £110.68 would have occurred on that ticket (same 1p stake), but the cost of the overall bet would have increased by £7.68 meaning my overall profit would be slightly down at just over £94. (I appreciate that an extra £7.68 stake would have impacted the real-life pot, but it is such a small amount if I had played the bet this way instead my profit would have been virtually the same, give or take a penny or two).

I also looked at what would have happened if I had put all my C selections as B’s instead, sticking to my original 1p per line staking. This would have added an extra £20 or so to the overall stake but I would have had 12 winning lines so my return would have been around the £300 mark (allowing again for any marginal change in the actual Placepot payout due to the extra £20 of staked funds).

Summary

In this article I feel I have only scratched the surface when it comes to the potential and scope of the Tix software. In the first half of the article, I gave a general overview of how Tix works coupled with the flexibility it has in terms of limiting/varying the number of lines using certain configurations. In the second half I have delved into one of my recent Placepot plays looking at what happened, and what could have happened if I had made some slight alterations via Tix to the make-up of my Placepot.

Before writing this, I was a regular user of Tix. Having spent time researching and writing about it, my appreciation and confidence in Tix has improved even more. I am expecting Tix to help me profit further when tackling Placepots in the future. I might even be tempted into a few Jackpots too...

- DR