One lucky punter made a dream start to the 2025 Cheltenham Festival by winning a whopping £55,253.50 off a £5 stake on day one.

The 11,050-1 mega bet was on the Tote's famous placepot, which sees racing fans try to predict six horses that will earn a place in their respective races.

After taking his winning slip to an on-course Tote kiosk at the end of the day, the punter, called Tom, was forced to wait a while for his money.

That is because after the slip was scanned, the bookie's till flagged an issue by showing the message: 'Insufficient funds to pay out. Please contact your manager.' 

A photo of the till's message was later shared by Tote Racing's X (formerly Twitter) account alongside an image of the betting slip and the caption: 'We’ve been cleaned out at @CheltenhamRaces'.

Only one of this punter's selections actually finished first as Jango Baie won the Arkle Chase for Nico de Boinville and Nicky Henderson.

But the other selections all came in the top three apart from Hot Fuss, who still earned a place by finishing fourth in the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle as there were 22 runners.

A total of £826,757.28 was bet into the Placepot on day one, with just 74.82 units sharing the dividend.

Many punters' betting slips were ruined in the second race after Arkle hot favourite Majborough could only finish third in a field of five, thus missing out on a place.

That shock result left just 12% of tickets live going into the third leg of six.