4 bets · 3 selections
Trixie bet calculator: three doubles and a treble, settled properly
A Trixie is three selections combined into four bets: three doubles and one treble. Like the Yankee it contains no singles, so two of your three selections need to win before anything is returned.
How a Trixie is made up
A Trixie covers three doubles and one treble across three selections. That comes to 4 separate bets, so a £1 Trixie costs £4.00 rather than £1 — and £8.00 if you place it each way.
| Line type | Number of bets | Share of the bet |
|---|---|---|
| doubles | 3 | 75.0% |
| treble | 1 | 25.0% |
| Total | 4 | 100% |
A worked Trixie example
Take three selections at 6/4, 5/2 and 3/1, staked at £2.00 a line with every selection winning. The figures below come from the same calculation the tool above runs.
- Unit stake
- £2.00
- Total stake
- £8.00
- Returns
- £135.50
- Profit
- +£127.50
| Selection | Fractional | Decimal |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3/2 | 2.50 |
| 2 | 5/2 | 3.50 |
| 3 | 3/1 | 4.00 |
When a Trixie is the right bet
The Trixie is the smallest of the full-cover multiples and a sensible starting point if you are moving beyond singles and accumulators. Four units of stake buys you every combination of three selections other than the singles, which means you no longer need all three to land in order to see a return.
Compared with a straight treble, the Trixie costs four times as much but converts far more often. A treble pays only when all three win. A Trixie pays on two winners as well, through whichever double they form. Whether that is worth four units rather than one comes down to how confident you are in the weakest of your three legs.
Its close relative is the Patent, which adds the three singles for three more units. The Patent will return something from a single winner, the Trixie will not. If your three selections are short enough that one winner is close to certain, the Patent is usually the better structure. If you are dealing with prices where two winners is the realistic good outcome, the Trixie concentrates your stake where it counts.
A void leg leaves a Trixie in an unusually clean state. With one selection withdrawn and settled at 1.00, the treble becomes a double and two of the three doubles become singles on the remaining runners, so the bet reduces to something close to a Patent on the other two.
Because it is the smallest full cover bet, the Trixie is also the easiest one to check by hand, which makes it a good place to build intuition about how multiples behave. Work through the four lines once with real prices and the logic of every larger bet on this site becomes obvious: a Yankee is the same idea with one more selection, a Heinz with three more, and a Goliath is nothing but the same combinatorics carried to eight.
What it does well
- Cheapest full-cover multiple at four units
- Pays on two winners, unlike a straight treble
- Simple to follow when a leg is withdrawn
What it costs you
- One winner returns nothing
- No bookmaker bonus, unlike the Patent
- Four times the cost of the equivalent treble
Trixie questions
How many bets are in a Trixie?
Four: three doubles and one treble. A £2 Trixie costs £8 in total, since the unit stake applies to each of the four bets.
How many winners do you need for a Trixie?
Two. With two winners one of the three doubles lands. With one winner nothing settles, because every line in a Trixie combines at least two selections.
What is the difference between a Trixie and a Patent?
A Patent is the same three selections with the three singles added, making seven bets rather than four. The Patent returns money from a single winner and usually carries bookmaker bonuses; the Trixie does neither but costs less.
Is a Trixie better than a treble?
It is more forgiving but four times the price. A treble needs all three selections; a Trixie pays on two. Compare both at your actual odds — with short prices the treble often gives better value for the money staked.
Can a Trixie be placed each way?
Yes, which doubles it to eight bets. The place half settles at the fraction the race is paying, so a £2 each way Trixie costs £16.