What is a Trixie Bet? The Trixie Bet Explained, Right Here!

Peter Addison

Sports betting writer

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A trixie bet is a type of combination and system wager with three selections from different events go together as three doubles and a treble on the same betslip. You need no longer wonder what is a trixie bet as we’ve just explained the basics to you. Here, we expand on it all and look at how the trixie bet applies to all forms of betting, what its advantages and disadvantages are, and how you can go about placing one at one of your favourite UK online bookmakers.

Our experts go into real depth about the trixie bet. What exactly is it, what are the necessary steps you need to go through to place one, and how you work out if placing a trixie bet is the best option.

The Trixie Bet Explained – What it is and How it Works

Despite the name, a trixie bet to recap consists of four bets. Most people seem to assume that a trixie bet is just another name for a treble, but that is not the case. The confusion stems from the fact that a trixie bet, like a treble, consists of three selections, but in fact it is four bets, whereas a treble is a single bet with a single stake.

When you place a trixie, you make three selections. However, with a trixie bet not only are you placing a treble, you are placing three doubles as well. As a trixie bet consists of four bets, your overall bet will be split four ways. Complicated? A bit but lets make it clearer by some examples:

Trixie Bet Example

Let’s say you want to place a £20 trixie bet on four races at Southwell. Your chosen selections are as follows:

Spanish Present (3/1) in the 17:50
Noahthirtytwored (15/8) in the 18:50
Night on the Town (4/1) in the 19:50

The bets in your £10 trixie bet would therefore be as follows:

£5 on the double – Spanish Present and Noahthirtytwored
£5 on the double – Spanish Present and Night on the Town
£5 on the double – Noahthirtytwored and Night on the Town
£5 on the treble – Spanish Present, Noahthirtytwored and Night on the Town

Obviously, if only two selections in your trixie bet win, then only one part of your bet will generate any returns. However, if all three selections win, then all four bets within your trixie will also be winners. Sadly, if only one or indeed none of your selections are the first past the post in your selected races, then your trixie bet will return absolutely nothing.

Hint: It is important to remember that a trixie bet does not include any singles. A bet with three selections that has three singles, three doubles and a treble is called a patent bet.

What is a trixie bet in horse racing?

As just mentioned, a trixie bet has three selections and consists of four bets – three doubles and one treble, Your overall stake is split four ways. A trixie bet does not contain any singles – that’s a patent bet. You can also place a trixie bet on greyhound racing.

What is a trixie bet in football?

Although primarily associated with horse racing and greyhounds, you can place this bet type on football matches too. You can combine any type of bet within your trixie bet, so you can combine a 1X2 bet, a draw no bet wager and a double chance bet. The same rules apply to football trixie bets as they do horse racing – the bet consists of one treble, four doubles and no singles.

What is a trixie bet each way?

In both horse racing and greyhounds you have the option of placing a trixie bet each way. Again, you will need to make your standard three selections, but your stake will be split in half before it is split into four, with half of your stake going on the ‘win’ part of your trixie bet each way wager, and the other half going on the ‘place’ part of your trixie bet each way wager. Remember an each way bet is two bets rolled into one – a win bet and a place bet. A place is a finish (usually – it depends on the number of runners and any special ‘extra places’ offer a site may have) in the top four in horse racing, and the top two in greyhound racing.

Peter Addison

Top Trixie Tip

Don't Get Too Trixie, My Precious!

As much as you may love placing trixies, never feel that you have to! Even the best trixie bet system will fall down if you rigidly stick to the ‘three doubles and a treble’ rule.

If you feel three singles, or a single treble, or a patent bet would be a betting option for you today, then go for it. In addition, if you think you’ve more potential winners today than Boris Johnson has COVID fines, consider mixing it up with a Yankee, Lucky 15 or Canadian.

For the win part of your trixie bet to provide any returns, at least two of your three selections must win. For the place part of your trixie bet to provide any returns, at least two of your three selections must place. Obviously if all three of your selections place but don’t win you will still get a decent return (probably enough to cover your overall stake). Naturally, you will want all four of your selections to be first past the post!

As ‘each way’ is only available on horse racing and greyhounds, you won’t be able to place a trixie each way bet on other sports such as football.

What is the Benefit of A Trixie Bet?

Knowing how to place a trixie will come in handy during bigger events like Royal Ascot and Cheltham that has a host of races to chose from. It will be especially beneficial when you have a lot of favorites with low odds that in themselves would not be very profitable, but with a trixie bet you can easily lump them together and thus make a bet with better margins.

How to Create a Trixie Bet – Step by Step Instructions for UK Punters

Here now is how to place a trixie bet. We are going to use the proposed trixie outlined about at Southwell, and at one of our favoured sports betting sites, Bet365.

First, you need to log into your sports betting account (or create one if you don’t already have one) and find the selections that you want to include within your trixie bet. In the image below, we’ve found selection number one, Spanish Present. We click on the odds to add Spanish Present to our betslip, but as we are adding further selections, we do not click the ‘place bet’ button.

We do the same with our other two selections until all three are on our bet slip, then we expand the ‘multiple bet options’ and scroll down until we find the trixie bet-option, as shown below:

To place our trixie all we need to do now is set our stake, which we have set to £5. As that’s our stake per bet, the overall stake is £20 as there are four bets in a trixie, as indicated. We click ‘Place Bet’ to finalise our bet selection.

You’ll see the ‘E/W’ check box which we can click to make our bet an each way trixie. This will double the number of bets to eight, and our overall bet to £40. If we wanted to keep our overall bet stake to £20, we’d have to halve our individual bet stake to £2.50.

Pros and Cons of a Trixie Bet: Is It Right for You?

So now that you know what a trixie is in betting, is it right for you? Let’s take a brief, summary-style look at the main advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

More returns if all your selections win
Smaller stake than a patent bet
Definitely more returns than three singles or a treble

Disadvantages:

You are relying on three selections if you want to win big
Contains no singles
Two selections have to win in order to return anything

Calculating Your Winnings

Calculating your winnings from a trixie bet is not difficult at all. It’s simply a case of multiplying the combined odds and then multiplying your stake. We suggest using decimals odds as it is far easier than using fractional odds for calculating, and if you use American odds … well, we’re not quite sure what’s wrong with you!

Remember, if you struggle with calculating your winnings from all manner of bets, you can use our handy range of bet calculators.

Crunching the Trixie Numbers – Win Trixie

For this we are going to use our sample bet above.

Doubles

Spanish Present (4.00) x Noahthirtytwored (2.88) = 11.52 x £5 = £57.60
Spanish Present (4.00) x Night on the Town (5.00) = 20.00 x £5 = £100
Noahthirytwored (2.88) x Night on the Town (5.00) = 14.40 x £5 = £72

Treble

Spanish Present (4.00) x Noahthirtytwored (2.88) x Night on the Town (5.00) = 57.60 x £5 = £288

Therefore three winners would have returned (£57.50 + £100 + £72 + £288) = £517.60. You can work out your winnings if only two came in, depending on which two horses won. If only one horse won, then you have zero returns.

Crunching the Trixie Numbers – Each Way Trixie

You can calculate each way winnings from the numbers above. For the win part of our trixie bet, all stakes were halved so we simply halve all the numbers above. For three winners then, our winnings from the win part of the bet would have been £258.88.

As for the place part, we just divide all the number above by eight, as our stake was halved and odds for a place are usually a quarter of the odds for a win. For three winners (who also, of course, place) that would be £64.70. Our total winnings would therefore be £323.58.

For each way bets you cannot mix wins and places. For example, if Spanish Present had won in our example above, and Night on the Town finished third then the win half of our each way trixie would return nothing.

Trixie Bet vs. Other Multiple Bets – Which One to Choose

Let’s now take a look at the main alternatives to a trixie bet

Three singles

Instead of backing three selections in a trixie, you could always back three singles instead. This does have two benefits in that your overall stake will be down by three quarters, and you will return winnings if just one of your selections win. The downside is that your returns will be much less. In our ongoing example, the returns from three winning singles (£15 stake) would be £59.40, compared to £517.60 from the trixie.

Treble

If you are confident that all three selections will win, then you could put on a straight treble. Using our Southwell example, a straight £20 treble would have returned £1,132, as opposed to the trixie’s £517.60. The major downside of the treble though is of course, that all three selections have to win in order for the treble to win. With a trixie you get a return if just two of your selections win.

Patent

As we have already explained, a patent bet is a trixie with three singles added. A patent gives you more chance of a return, but at a cost of higher stakes . If we added three £5 singles to our sample bet, our stake would be £35, but our winnings for be increased to £577.

If we’d kept our overall stake at £20 for a patent, our overall winnings for three winners would have been down to £328.89. With a patent you are increasing your chances of some return, but decreasing your chances or high returns.

Advanced Trixie Betting Strategies: Tips for Placing a Trixie

We’ve talked about large returns so far, and our example certainly gave us a large return. But that was only because the odds for our selection were relatively loose. We do not recommend having three selections with loose odds for a trixie; the chances of it returning any of your stake are slim. Instead, we recommend mixing up an odds-on selection, a selection about Evens and a selection with less tight odds. That way you will get a decent return if all three selections come in, but at least some return if two come in.

If you’ve perused today’s racecard and have honed your choices down to four, don’t think you have to place a trixie by omitting one selection. Instead, consider placing a Yankee or a Lucky 15 (four selections with 15 bets), or an acca alongside your trixie. You could also place four trixies, omitting one selection each time. It will always pay you to be flexible with your betting.

Top UK Online Bookmakers that offer Trixie Bets

In truth, all UK online bookmakers that we recommend offer trixie bets, you can pick the bookie that suites your personal preferences best. We suggest you check which one has the best setup of payment options and bonuses, but also markets in your area of interest to start with.

Wrapping Up

If you came to this page to learn what is a trixie bet, we hope we have helped. Now you’ve had it explained, you should understand what is a trixie horse bet, what is a trixie bet each way, and how does a trixie bet work. We’ve shown you how to place a trixie bet with a calculator, and how you can integrate a trixie bet system into your overall betting strategy.

If you’ve never placed a trixie bet before, then perhaps today is the day to start! Just select one of our favourite only bookmakers, and get (trixie) betting!