Full Cover Betting Uncovered

Trixie bet explained

A Trixie bet is a popular type of bet used in horse racing betting punters that involves a total of four bets on three selections.

What is a Trixie bet?

With a Trixie bet, you get one treble bet which requires all three selections to win, and you also get three double bets where only two winning selections are required.

To place a Trixie bet, you will need to place a one-unit stake for each of these four bets, so a £1 Trixie bet would cost you £4 in total.

The beauty of the Trixie bet is that you only need two of your three selections to be successful in order to win money.

Recommendation when doing a Trixie bet

Our recommendation is that you pick three favourites at around 2/1 odds or lower to give yourself a good chance of getting a return on your bet.

If you are looking at horses with slightly bigger odds then take a look into the Trixie Each-Way bet, this will double the cost of your total bet but your selections only need to finish in the top places specified in the race details (usually top three, four or five positions).

What are the Down Sides of  Trixie?

In order to understand the downside of a full cover bet such as Trixie, let’s look at the flip side and assume you were not so lucky. In the example shared above, we have considered 2 or 3 of your selections coming up as winners. But taking Trixie as an example, let’s assume only A comes up as a winner. In that case, all your bets lose since you do not qualify for any of the doubles and a treble is out of the question. But in case of Patent where you include the single bets as well, if only A were to win, you get a 4 GBP payout. But your total stake was 7 GBP thanks to 7 lines of betting. Hence you actually lose 3 GBP. But had you bet only on a single bet of A, you would be having a 3 GBP profit instead.

The primary function of full cover bets is to mitigate risks and guaranteeing at least some payout. For the larger cover bets, it is possible to get a payout with only 2 or 3 selections winning and the payout just edging out the stake involved. Considering average case scenarios, mostly your selections with coverage bets would yield low amounts of payout as your stake becomes higher and the risk is spread over a large number of bets.

Other common full cover bets

• Yankee: This bet contains 4 selections and 11 bets in total including 6 doubles, 4 trebles and 1 four-fold. Since there are no single bets, once again you need at least 2 selections to win to get a payout. Stake is 11 times (1 X 11 betting lines).
• Canadian: Same principle as above but over 5 selections. This results into 26 bets including 10 double bets, 10 treble bets, 5 four-folds and 1 five-fold bets. Stake is of course 26 times.
• Heinz: This full cover bet includes 6 selections resulting in 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 four-folds, 6 five-folds and 1 six-fold bet. As there are a total of 57 bets to be covered, the stake is 57 times. Minimum 2 selections are required for a payout.
• Super Heinz: A 7 selection cover bet which includes total 120 bets including 25 doubles, 35 trebles, 35 four-folds, 21 five-folds, 7 six-folds and 1 seven-fold bet. Stake is 120 times.
• Goliath: As the name suggests, the Goliath is the largest full cover bet allowed which contains 8 selection and a whopping 247 bets. These include 1 eight-fold, 28 doubles, 56 trebles, 70 four-folds, 56 five-folds, 28 six-folds, 8 seven-folds bet. Stake is 247 times of course. Goliath, Super Heinz and Heinz are usually pretty rare due to their complexity. A lot of the times bets like Goliath are placed for fun instead of genuine betting purposes.

Following are the Full Cover Bets that Contain Singles:

• Patent: Same as Trixie but contains 3 single bets as well. One selection win can generate a payout. Total 7 bets mean stake is 7 times.
• Lucky 15: Same as Yankee with 4 selections but contains 4 single bets on top. Total stake is 15 times and requires only one selection to win for payout.
• Lucky 31: This is the same as Canadian but contains all of the 5 single bets as well. Results in total 31 bets, a stake which is 31 times and pays out if any of the selections win.
• Lucky 63: Same as Heinz with the 6 single bets added on. Any single selection win can result in a payout. The required stake is 63 times.

As mentioned earlier, these bets are called lucky because bookmakers often provide bonuses on one or more selections winning under these bets.

• Alphabet: An Alphabet is a special kind of full cover bet that is mostly used for horse racing and/or betting on greyhound races. An Alphabet has 6 selections but contains 2 Patent. First Patent contains selections 1, 2 and 3 and all of their 7 associated bets. Second Patent contains selections 4, 5 and 6 and all of their 7 bets. The cover also has a Yankee consisting of selections 2, 3, 4 and 5 and a six-fold accumulator containing all of the selections. An Alphabet has 26 bets in total and the stake is appropriately 26 times.

Why Large Full Cover Bets are Not Always Appropriate?

One of the obvious reasons to potentially avoid full cover bets is the increase in stake amount. For most parts, low to mid-range players do not indulge in very high volume or high limit betting. With a limited amount to wager as a stake, either a player has to divide that amount into many small parts for a full cover or shell out a large amount of money (247 GBP for Goliath for example).

Due to the division of stake into very small amounts, often the payout is not that exciting even after a successful full cover bet heist. On the other hand, with a large stake, any bad luck where most or all of the selections fail to win leads to a large hit to the bankroll. Hence full cover bets should be considered mostly as a tool to be deployed only under specific circumstances.

If you see a handful of selections and are quite sure about the outcomes, then full cover bet can be used as a means to increase the payout. Most experienced bettors prefer Trixie or at the most Yankee as their preferred full cover bet. Application of Heinz, Super Heinz and Goliath are next to none.