Item: Tote
Rating: 4.7
Author: Darren Lane

The Tote Review

Darren Lane
Last update: 11th June 2025

Rating: 4.7/5

The Tote is a great British horse racing institution. Now they have a fantastic casino product as well, and we’re delighted to be able to bring you an exclusive welcome offer for that.

About The Tote

The finer things in life allegedly get better with age, so they say. A vintage wine or whiskey perhaps, possibly a mature cheese or maybe George Clooney just catches your eye. Anyhow, you don’t get much more vintage in the gaming world than The Tote. It was established way back in 1928 making it nearly 100 years old and has evolved into one of the most respected casino betting sites in 2025. You can of course still place bets on The Tote pool, this in brief is pool betting with returns divided amongst the winners.

The Tote was set up by Winston Churchill as a government run “bookmaker”; its aim was to provide a safe controlled alternative to illegal off course bookmakers, ensuring profits were put back into horse racing. In 1972, The Tote opened their first betting shop on the High Street and at its peak there were 500+ outlets. In 2011 the government sold The Tote to Betfred who then in turn sold it to the UK Tote Group (a consortium of 150 investors) in 2019.

Although you won’t see The Tote on the High Street today it is still operational in the bricks and mortar sense at 58 of the 59 race courses in the UK. It has also had an online presence since 2002, and for some time operated as “Totesport”, offering Tote products alongside a conventional sportsbook. Freshly upgraded in 2020, alongside their classic Tote pool products, you will find everything a gaming provider can deliver all under one umbrella including a sportsbook, slot games, live casino and a virtual area. So let’s take a closer look at the modern day Tote offering.

The Tote is of a simple but modern design, bright red and white in colour with their distinctive logo at the top left. Their homepage is The Tote horse racing page and if you have never seen tote betting before it can be a little overwhelming. The Tote pool is a horse racing product so if you don’t want a flutter on the nags navigating away from this page is simple, with various categories running across the top or within the 3 white lines via your mobile device. All things account related are towards the right, with free bets or Tote credits under the present symbol.

Getting Started

The Tote has a great welcome offer for new customers when entering the code B10GET200 on registration. You will be rewarded with 200 free spins after making a deposit and wagering £10 on slot games. You will receive your free spins within 48 hours, 100 on Big Bass Splash and 100 on Bigger Bass Splash and they are all wager free turning to cash when you are done. This sign up offer is amazing value, which you can claim by tapping or clicking on the above link.

Signing up and registering is a quick, simple process which takes a few minutes at most. They will also send you an email as part of the sign up process asking you to verify your email address before you play. You will also receive a welcome text. There are options to set deposit limits and reality checks within the safer gambling tools in your account before you begin your player experience. Just be mindful that at the time of writing you can only deposit via a debit card. The Tote will try and verify your account when you sign up. However, you could be asked to verify your account by uploading the necessary documents within their verification area which is in your account section. Being required to provide ID and proof of address is completely normal with The Tote practising due diligence in line with the Gambling Commission.

Sports Betting at The Tote

Without stating the obvious there is a whole area dedicated to tote betting where you can find the full range of tote bets at your disposal. Betting on horse racing can only be placed on tote pool markets with returns fluctuating within the boxes provided for each horse. There are various bets you can place, these include the extremely popular Placepot, Quadpot and Scoop 6 on live racing on a Saturday. If you would like more information about these bets take a look at our Sports Betting Guide To Bet Types for a full explanation.

Under sports you will find a sportsbook that is more traditional, offering a vast number of sports markets on a good stable platform. Here you will find greyhound racing, football and tennis to name a few. There is also the ability to stream and bet on a variety of sports within a well stocked betting in-play area.

Some good features here include a very competitive specials area focusing on football; some of these markets are available via the banners running across the top of the page. Additionally, each top league football game has the bet builder function which is also quick linked for speed on featured big matches. Pre-made bet builders are also available as is a handy cash out facility which you can find within the betslip. Sports promotions here tend to be aimed at the tote side of their business but there are also bet and get promotions aimed at bet builders and free spins offered on casino when wagering on certain football games from time to time. (As an aside, if you enjoy football maybe you should check out our free to play Football Bingo Cards).

Slot Games at The Tote

Under the games category, you will find numerous slot games old and new. It is exceedingly user friendly with a layout that’s not over complicated, feeling orderly even though slot game tiles are different sizes. Towards the left on desktop or along the middle on a mobile device there are a handful of categories to choose from. Within the general games lobby area slots are separated into genres. In the most popular area games include Big Bass series games, Starburst and Sweet Bonanza 1000 and many others.

New games has its own section too, with Megaways titles, Pragmatic Play Drops and Win and Gold Blitz games all within their own dedicated sections. There is also a well stocked Irish classics category alongside a Rainbow Riches themed section. A good feature here is within each game tile there is a heart which you can highlight to add the game to your own favourites category if you wish, and a handy information link under the ”i” which gives you the RTP of the game, gametype and games provider, quite impressive.

This casino isn’t huge compared to some, and if you want to play Progressive Jackpot slot games you have most definitely come to the wrong place as there aren’t any. What it does have is a personal familiar feel to it in a relaxed atmosphere. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, there is a basic search function where you can search games by name only. With a casino of this size, that’s all you really need.

Other Games at The Tote

From the live casino tab there is a very good choice of live casino options mainly delivered by Evolution.

Categories include Roulette, Blackjack and Baccarat. Don’t be fooled by the small amount of games within each section as you can access Evolution’s full catalogue of live games by loading any game and entering Evolution’s lobby area from there. There are live Poker variants, Craps and Sic Bo also. There are also some video table games available under their own category. Studio game shows are well stocked too with Crazy Time, Marble Race and Race Track amongst others. If you enjoy bingo, Monopoly Big Baller and Mega Ball are accessible or if crash games are your thing, Stock Market or maybe Cash or Crash are well worth a look at. The layout of this area is again very good with the feeling there’s plenty of choices without being over swamped.

Last but by no means least, The Tote features a good robust virtual area under its own category. If you haven’t tried your hand at these games this would be a great place to have a go. Along with different genres of horse racing, motor sports, American football and tennis are available to wager on too. They even do bonuses on winning accumulator bets.

Other Things to Consider

With an outstanding welcome offer as mentioned before, (just don’t forget to enter the code when signing up), the Tote does have a handful of ongoing casino promotions. These include Reel Rewards earning free spins for your slot play, cash back offers when playing the game of the week and a daily prize wheel game called Treasure Hunt.

The Tote certainly does deliver on all user devices and is conveniently reachable via a mobile browser. So if you prefer playing on your mobile relaxing with your feet up in the garden you will have no problems here. We found that both user platforms pretty much mirrored each other with usability a strong factor especially when it comes to mobile use. There is an app available but this platform runs just fine without one.

The Tote has some great customer support options. Firstly you have the peace of mind that you’re dealing with a brand that has been operational for nearly 100 years. Their customer care team is available 24/7 by means of live chat. You can find the link at the bottom right within the chat bubble on desktop or under the 3 lines on mobile. Alternatively you can contact them via email, by means of a phone call or even by snail mail if you wish.

Final Thoughts

The Tote is a great addition to anyone’s arsenal of casino betting sites. Alongside a good sportsbook, it delivers a great alternative when having a flutter on horses, with different kinds of bets that are popular and easy to pick up if that interests you. With the addition of a relaxed style casino with some solid game selections, this could be your new go to gaming platform and is well worthy of consideration.

The Tote