Best Pool Betting Sites in the UK 2024

Peter Addison

Peter Addison

Sports betting writer

Peter joined the BettingSites.co.uk team in 2023, having previously worked for many high-profile gambling-related sites such as RightCasino, JustSlots, WhichBingo and Gambling.com. An experienced head when it comes to all aspects of iGaming, Peter is a fanatic fan of sport, including football and US sports such as baseball and American football. He is also a multi-published fiction writer, although sadly, not a wealthy one.

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We independently review betting sites. Sign-ups through our links may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you, this never influences our listings’ order.

There’s an alternative to fixed odds bookies out there, and it’s called pool betting! This page tells you all the essentials about this form of wagering like where it’s available and the bet types you can place. Learn all about betting pools in the UK today.

Top Pool Betting Sites in the UK

These are the best betting sites offering pools where you can wager right now. Many of them double up as fixed odds bookmakers but that doesn’t mean this type of gambling is neglected. Fat from it. We’ve got a fantastic four pool betting sites for you today:

1. QuinnBet – Football & horse racing pools together
2. Tote – Innovators of betting pools on the horses
3. The Pools – Play the football pools online now
4. Betfred – Totepool betting service on their site

Reviews of the Best Pool Betting Sites

Now is the perfect time to take a good look at our sports pool betting options in more detailed. We asked our experts review those top sites offering it to UK punters right now. Let’s take a look at what they found:

1. QuinnBet – Football & Horse Racing Pools Together

A distinct edge that QuinnBet holds over its competition is it offers online pool betting on both football and horse racing. With other major rivals, it’s a case of one or the other. From Match Predictor pools where you must pick 5, 6 or 7 things to happen in a game to traditional football pools and ones for Both Teams to Score and Correct Score, there’s plenty going on.

With the horse racing pools at QuinnBet, it would’ve been nice to see more than just Place 6 options. There’s no standard win and place markets if you want to bet on individual outcomes. The FreePlay tokens available are a lovely touch, though, and you can team up with other players by joining syndicates, which cover more bases and spread any wealth from winnings.

2. Tote – Innovators of Betting Pools on the Horses

As true pioneers of pool betting in the UK, the Tote has been around in one form or another for almost 100 years now. Starting off with, and best known for, betting on horse racing , they’ve added pools on football matches to what they offer in more recent times. These include Asian handicap betting pools, Both Teams to Score, Correct Score and Match Predictors, alongside traditional pool options.

Besides the same FreePlay token opportunities and chances to join Syndicates you’ll find with QuinnBet, Tote pool betting has some great promotions. Their Stayers Club rewards loyal punters who place at least pool bets each week. The Tote betting also guarantees to match (or sometimes better) SP odds for their Win pool on British horse racing.

There are also up to 10% bigger dividends through Tote+ on this sport. That means even more winnings with any successful bets. They innovated and created all kinds of wagers we know and love today like the Tote Placepot and Scoop6. It’s just a shame the boosted returned dividends only apply to horse racing and not football.

3. The Pools – Play the Football Pools Online Now

Hit the Pool Games tab on the main menu of The Pools and it puts a range of different options for football at your fingertips. There are betting pools for all budgets with some available to play for as little as 20p. As well as what they call Classic Pools that covers the traditional coupon, they offer Goal Rush, Lucky Clover and Premier variants. For mega pools jackpots, you also have access to Colossus Pools through The Pools.

With a complete results service supporting these various options, you never miss out on knowing if you’ve had a win on football pool betting. If there’s one downside to The Pools, then it’s football-centric nature. The ironic thing is that you can bet on horses through their sportsbook platform but not in actual pools.

4. Betfred – Totepool Betting Service on Their Site

A legacy of their long-time partnership with the Tote means Betfred still have the Totepool betting service as part of their sportsbook. This is one of the most established horse racing betting sites in the UK today and it provides some classic pools on the sport of king. We’re talking about the iconic Placepot wager, plus the Quadpot, Scoop6 and Jackpot here.

Betfred also allows you to place basic Win and Place wagers as part of the Tote and World Pool betting. Exactas and Trifectas are among your options here too. While this is a decent range of horse racing options, the service doesn’t extend to football. There’s a handy Totepool explained section, which helps newbies get to grips with this type of betting though.

How we Rank Bookmakers with Pool Betting

Whilst conducting the above reviews, we also asked our experts to also consider what they look for at the bookies and betting sites that offer pools for wagering. Here are there top five criteria that helped them sort the wheat from the chaff for you:

What is Pool Betting?

Pool or pari-mutuel betting as it is better known worldwide was invented in the Victorian era by Joseph Oller, the Catalan cabaret impresario of Moulin Rouge fame. A mechanised way of calculating this system, called a totalisator or tote boards, was developed in subsequent decades. Its first recorded use in a sporting context came at Ellerslie Racecourse in Auckland, New Zealand during 1913.

Tote boards were in widespread use worldwide before The Great Depression. In the UK, the launch of the Tote, a state controlled betting pool for horse racing, in 1928 is a notable starting point for it in this country. Football pools from now defunct department store Littlewoods predate these from 1923. Now that you understand the history behind this, it’s time to have pool betting explained to you. This concept differs dramatically from a fixed odds wager.

There’s no bookmaker you’re betting against here but other participating punters. Nor are there any quoted odds or prices in advance of the result. The popularity of a horse or football outcome determines the size of a payout. If lots of people pick the same winning result in the pool, then what you get back on the wager – called returned dividends – will be smaller than others.

Football Pool Betting

With the football pools actually predating its horse racing counterpart in the UK, 2023 marks a century since these were introduced. Doing these online today is more sophisticated than marking boxes with a pen on paper pools coupons. We’ll have more on the different types of football pools available today below. None of the other football betting sites out there in the UK is so closely linked with these wagers as The Pools today.

Horse Racing Pool Betting

Just as closely associated with betting pools is the sport of kings. That long history between the Tote and horse racing ensures they still have a significant presence today. Every official result to races in the UK and Ireland tells you what the winner paid on the Tote alongside its Starting Price. The same goes for placed horses with its returned dividend for making the frame.

Types of Sports Pool Betting Markets

Since its introduction in 1920s across the UK’s two biggest sports for gambling, special types of bets relating to pools have been developed. These aren’t betting markets as such like you get with fixed odds bookmakers but different wagers in separate pools. Let’s take a look at each sport in turn:

Football Pools You Can Play In

Horse Racing Pool Bets

Pros & Cons of Fixed Odds vs. Pool Betting Online

Just to help you understand betting pools fully, we thought it’d be cool to highlight the pros and cons of it vis-à-vis regular fixed odds markets. Here are the upsides and drawbacks of it:

The Last Word

Now that you’ve seen what the best pool betting sites are, the pros and cons of wagering like this rather than fixed odds and what you can gamble on, it’s time to get right on it. Betting pools are a fun way to liven up your interest in football or horse racing. Just make sure you gamble responsibly on our recommended provider:

FAQs

Peter Addison

Sports betting writer

Peter Addison

Sports betting writer

Peter joined the BettingSites.co.uk team in 2023, having previously worked for many high-profile gambling-related sites such as RightCasino, JustSlots, WhichBingo and Gambling.com. An experienced head when it comes to all aspects of iGaming, Peter is a fanatic fan of sport, including football and US sports such as baseball and American football. He is also a multi-published fiction writer, although sadly, not a wealthy one.

All posts by Peter Addison