For the first time, Longines Irish Champion Stakes day at Leopardstown next Saturday will be a World Pool event.

Through collaboration between the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Tote, Horse Racing Ireland, and Racecourse Media Group, racing fans from around the world will have the opportunity to bet into a single pool, ensuring larger and deeper pools with differentiated pricing.

Created and hosted by the Hong Kong Jockey Club since 2018, over 20 leading racing nations, including Ireland, the UK, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, South Africa, and the US have been part of World Pool to date.

Tote Ireland entered into a strategic alliance with the UK Tote Group in 2020. One of the benefits of this alliance, along with developing joint product and value improvements for tote.ie and tote.co.uk, is the delivery of the first World Pool for Irish racing.

Alongside the vast liquidity created by World Pool, the Tote provides Irish customers betting on tote.ie with extra value. This includes Tote Guarantee which ensures the Win price always matches or exceeds the Industry Starting Price (SP), while Tote+ (Tote Plus) gives all customers a 10% dividend enhancement on every winning bet.

In total, over €372 million has been bet into World Pool on 15 British race days in 2021.

Brian Kavanagh, chief executive of Horse Racing Ireland, which owns Tote Ireland, said: “We are delighted that the Hong Kong Jockey Club have made Irish Champion Stakes day at Leopardstown a World Pool event for the first time.

"This is both great news for Irish Tote bettors and for Leopardstown, underlining the benefits of Tote operators around the world coming together to provide bigger pools and better value. We look forward to continuing work with the Hong Kong Jockey Club and all involved in World Pool as it continues to grow and develop.”

Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, chief executive officer of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, said: “I am pleased to see Ireland become the fourth racing jurisdiction to participate in World Pool following the UK, Dubai and South Africa.

"The World Pool provides customers from around the globe the opportunity to tap into the global pool with unmatched liquidity and is a significant source of additional income for our content partners during these challenging times.

"During the past summer of World Pool meetings, Goodwood and York festivals were simulcast for the first time. The next focus of attention will be the Irish Champion Stakes day which is the first time an Irish race will be included in World Pool."

Derby day at Epsom this year saw pool betting grow from €1.9 million to over €30.3 million. Derby winner dayar paid 20.24 on Tote+ compared to an SP of 16/1.

At Royal Ascot the Tote+ win price beat the industry SP on 21 occasions and matched it on 14 occasions across the 35 races. There were similar dividends at Goodwood and at York,

At Goodwood six of the 22 races in the World Pool finished with “overbroke” final dividends betting to less than 100%, compared to an average overround of 15% with the bookmakers.

At York's Ebor meeting there were 3 “overbroke” markets betting to less than 100%. The biggest World Pool market of the week was on the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes with €4.6 million in the pool. The winner Winter Power paid out at 14.46 on Tote+ compared to an SP of 9/1.