The Global Tote live at Topbetta for Albion Park meeting

TOPBETTA is the first bookmaker to offer The Global Tote, a wholesale rival to traditional tote products.

The Global Tote is a subsidiary company of Topbetta Holdings and it aims to knock down some of the obstacles in front of racing bodies looking to expand their products internationally.

The “wholesale tote” has no restrictions on size of events and entrants, meaning it has the potential to create mammoth pools on global sports and racing events.

The product, for which Ladbrokes has signed on but is yet to integrate, was officially launched by Topbetta on Thursday for the Warrnambool Cup meeting.

For greyhound fans the first meeting being covered by The Global Tote is Thursday night at Albion Park.

Punters who wager at approved betting partners of The Global Tote will be wagering into the same pool, no matter where they are based.

This means if Ladbrokes integrates the product into its international platform, Australians and punters from the many other countries in which Ladbrokes operates will be betting into the same pool.

Is The Global Tote all that it is cracked up to be?

While we have only a small sample to base our judgments on so far, there have been some positive signs from The Global Tote.

One of the major pluses is they are not rounding down tote prices to the nearest 10 cents.

While most completed races at Warrnambool mirrored the TAB odds, there were a few races where the payout was greater from The Global Tote.

On the second race at Warrnambool, the winner Hecta paid $5.93 as opposed to the Victorian tote dividend of $5.50.

Here is our full comparison from Warrnambool:

As you can see The Global Tote has come out significantly ahead over the course of the Warrnambool meeting, living up to its promise of giving more back to the punters.

If you had have placed $100 on each winner at Warrnambool on both The Global Tote and the Victorian TAB, you would have come out with $5974 from Topbetta and $5130 from the TAB.

This means over one race meeting The Global Tote has payed out $844 more, or a 16 per cent improvement on TAB Victoria.

What does The Global Tote do to wagering in Australia?

In short it creates competition and anything to challenge the monopoly Tabcorp and Tatts have on parimutuel betting in Australia is a good thing.

It is getting harder for punters to find an advantage in the gambling landscape but if The Global Tote sticks true to its word and gives more back to punters it could force Tabcorp and Tatts to do the same thing.

With Ladbrokes yet to unveil its plans for The Global Tote it remains to be seen if the relatively small customer base at Topbetta will be enough to create a major difference in pools the TABs currently have.

One thing is for sure, if Topbetta and other companies that integrate The Global Tote gain enough market share, it will be good for bettors.