Totesport

There are two different aspects of the tote: Totesport; which offers a complete betting service on a wide variety of sports markets available in any of 500+ betting shops, a telephone service and internet betting site.

Totepool; a pool betting service for UK horse racing, found at all 60 British racecourses and now available through the totesport website.

Totesport is the fourth biggest bookmaker in the UK with a long history and unique position in Britain’s betting industry.

BACKGROUND

The tote was founded following an Act of Parliament in 1928 and it provided on-course pool betting with the aim sharing profits to help improve the sport and breeding of racehorses.

On 2 July 1929, Newmarket and Carlisle became the first major race meetings to provide tote pool betting as an alternative to SP betting and the traditional on-course bookmaker.

Following the legalisation of betting shops in 1961 tote opened two shops to handle tote pool transactions. In 1972 tote were given permission to accept bets on all sports enabling it to compete with the mainstream off-course bookmakers, so tote began to expand and currently operates a retail division of over 500 betting shops nationwide.

In 1992 Tote Direct was launched with Coral and accepted bets from high street betting shops directly into on-course betting pools, the system has been adopted by most major bookmaking companies with terminals in over 4500 shops.

Tote launched their internet betting site in 2002, known as totebetXpress – the name was changed to totesport in 2005 when the totesport Casino was launched.

OFFERS AND PROMOTIONS

Totesport offers a welcome bonus to new customers which changes in value from time to time and will promote at least one current special offer.

At the time of writing, totesport is welcoming new customers with £10 FREE BET which will be credited to the customer’s account once the first bet has been placed.

For the duration of the 2010/11 football season, totesport is running a special offer known as Injury Time Insurance where Correct Score and Last Goal Scorer bets will be honoured if they winning at 90 minutes but become losing bets due to a goal or goals scored injury time.

Totesport also has a daily offer to enhance the odds of featured horses or football accumulators, this means it is always worthwhile to check the totesport website for the latest offer.

Best Odds Guarantee is available on selected races and totesport advertise the best Odds Guarantee races on the website’s home page.

Totesport promotes totepool betting with a weekly offer focussing on one of the pools usually adding a bonus to winning returns.

BETTING OPPORTUNITIES

Totesport offers a range of betting opportunities for 15 sports with special novelty markets including TV Shows and Politics.

There are more comprehensive selections of betting markets available elsewhere, but totesport is continuing to add to new betting opportunities to the website and has all the most popular markets covered.

Totesport offer in-play betting on all UK terrestrial and satellite sports broadcasts and many events broadcast by Setanta. In addition to the Sportsbook and totepool, totesport also offers Casino, Bingo and Games.

DESIGN AND LAYOUT

The totesport website has its own distinctive style with a few neat features to enhance the customer’s. The bet slip can be expanded and collapsed as the customer browses the totesport site and provides access for registration and to the customer account from the bet slip.

Totesport’s radio widget appears whenever you are browsing sports where commentaries are available. As expected, access to registration and log in at totesport is clear and simple and the homepage prominently displays the upcoming horse race.

Totesport has decided to highlight less betting opportunities on the home page than can be seen on rival website home pages, but the use of larger images and allowing more space to the featured events, they are easy to identify and access to them feels more immediate.

The totesport home page greets the visitor with fairly large promotional banners in the main body of the page, but because of the layout, they don’t interfere with the experience.

NAVIGATION

Navigating around the totesport website, you are struck by the customer friendly layout which makes identifying betting markets, selections and betting odds very easy.

Access to the various areas the totesport site is accomplished in the expected way, by use of tabs at the top of the page and the navigation sidebar on the left.

The least requested sports are hidden by totesport and can be found by expanding the menu which is clearly indicated. Beneath this, totesport provided an information side bar with links to promotions, totepool information, text betting and media services.

The totesport registration form is quick and simple to complete and totesport customer care contact details are at hand at the registration stage should you require assistance. Totesport accept Maestro, Mastercard, Visa, Laser and Moneybookers as payment and deposit methods, not the most exhaustive, but will meet the needs of the vast majority on online gamblers.

MOBILE BETTING

Totesport does not provide a facility for mobile betting other than the ability to accept Text Bets from mobile phones which experienced gamblers will find very easy to use once they have provided totesport with details of the phone that will be used.

LIVE STREAMS

This is another area where totesport fall behind many of its rivals, there is no facility to watch live horse racing or sport at the moment.

As previously mentioned, audio commentary is available on totesport radio, which provides commentary on horse racing, greyhound racing and football.

FORM AND STATS

Totesport provides a vast amount of horse racing information available which is powered by the Racing Post and offers access to form, trends, tips, trainer and jockey information.

With this feature, totesport provide just about everything the horse racing enthusiast needs to make a betting decision. Totesport also provides comprehensive football statistics, with tables, fixtures and more from football competitions around the world.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Totesport offer 24 hour customer support with contact available via freephone or email.

There is also a good FAQ section that will provide many answers about the totesport website and the management of your totesport account.

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