TAB TOTE betting on Saturday's Hollywoodbets Durban July over 2200m at Hollywoodbets Greyville opens today, Monday 30 June, and there are literally millions of reasons to get involved this year.
With the July being a World Pool race, all Win, Place, Exacta, Quinella, and Swinger bets on the main race will be commingled into the Hong Kong Jockey Club World Pool.
For those new to the game, this is what these different bet types entail:
Win: That's easy. Pick the one horse to win the race.
Place: Just as simple - Pick any horse that runs first, second, third, or fourth. While only the winning horse pays a Win-dividend, the winning horse, as well as the next three past the post, all pay a Place-dividend.
Exacta: Pick the first two horses across the line, in the correct order.
Quinella: Similar to the Exacta, the Quinella requires a bettor to pick the first two horses past the finishing post, regardless of the order in which they finish. As an example, if a bettor chooses horses 9 and 11 for their Quinella, then they will win regardless of whether the horses finish 9-11 or 11-9.
Swinger: For this bet, punters are required to select two horses to finish in the top three. Each race has three Swinger-dividends - for the horses that finish first and second, for the horses that finish first and third, and another dividend for the horses that finish second and third.
With these bets on the July commingled into the Hong Kong World Pool, bettors who get it right can expect much bigger than usual payouts due to the increased pool sizes.
The Exacta pool, for example, is expected to reach some R5-million, while the Swinger pool could well be in excess of R15-million.
As usual, the local TAB will also offer a Quartet bet, where bettors are required to select the first four horses past the finishing line.
This year, TAB will be boosting the Quartet pool on the July with a whopping R1-million, with the pool expected to reach R10-million.
The Pick 6 on July Day will also receive a R2-million TAB carryover injection, which should see the final pool in the region of R15-million.
For the Pick 6, bettors are required to select the winners of six consecutive races, which on July Day will be races four to nine.
The Hollywoodbets Durban July Computaform racecard - arguably the most comprehensive form guide in the world, is already available free of charge at https://tab.co.za.
The Computaform offers bettors detailed information about every single runner in every race on the day, including comprehensive statistics about every horse's career, as well as in-depth information about the horses' last ten runs.
The last few pages of the online Computaform contain the key to all the statistics, making it simple for even beginners in the game to find winners.