Trixie Bet

5 min. read

This popular combo bet takes barely any time at all to understand. At most, it requires just a few minutes to read the following guide.

What Is A Trixie Bet?

Before we get into it, and explain what a Trixie bet is, and why it appeals to so many bettors, it is helpful going forward to know the difference between an accumulator and a ‘cover’ bet.

Both multi-layered bets, an accumulator typically leaves the bettor with no margin for error. Should one of the multiple selections lose it automatically renders the rest of the bet redundant.

This isn’t always the case but mostly it is.

Whereas a cover bet affords some leeway, it containing multiple legs that are essentially independent of one another. That means that if one leg doesn’t land, but others do, there is still a pay-out.

A Trixie bet is a cover bet and furthermore it is one of the most popular of its kind around.

Comprising of three selections that are combined into four bets – usually made up of three doubles and one treble - it is loved by the betting community due to the margin of error it provides.

A minimum of two selections must land for the bet to be successful. Should all three come in then a bumper profit awaits.

To expound on this let’s offer up a fictional example of a Trixie bet, using football as the context.

Let’s say you are of the firm belief that Aston Villa will beat Brighton in the Premier League on a forthcoming Saturday and that Newcastle will get the better of Fulham.

Additionally, you are confident that Sunderland will beat Watford in the Championship.

The three doubles that derive from such selections therefore are –

Villa and Newcastle to win
Villa and Sunderland to win
Newcastle and Sunderland to win

There is also a treble to account for, in this instance Villa, Newcastle and Sunderland all to win.

As you can see, the doubles consist of all possible double combinations of the three selections winning, while the treble backs all of your selections to win.

A £1 Trixie costs £4 (to cover all four bets). A £1 each-way Trixie costs £8.

A Win Trixie

As a general rule of thumb, if you are making selections at prices of 2/1 or less, a ‘win only’ Trixie is the best bet for you.

However, if you have chosen your selections at slightly bigger prices, it is worth considering an ‘each-way’ Trixie as this can still prove profitable even when all selections do not win.

Let’s first take a look at an imagined bet comprising of three horses, priced at 6/4, 11/8 and 4/6 respectively.

All being short-priced to win their races it is logical to make the bet win-only.

The £1 win-only Trixie costs £4 in this case.

If all three horses win, a healthy payout of £33.57 awaits from that £4 stake, giving a profit of £29.54.

The good thing about a Trixie however is that a profit can still be earned even if everything doesn’t go according to plan!

In this instance, if only the first two horses are winners, the £1 Trixie bet would still return £7.19, offering up a profit of £3.19 on the initial outlay.

The Each-Way Trixie

Let’s now choose an example of an each-way Trixie on some slightly longer priced horses.

So in this instance, our £1 each-way Trixie will cost a total of £8. As the each-way terms show (1/4 odds on places 1,2,3) we only need two of three horses to finish in the first three in order to get a return on this bet.

If all three horses win, the £8 Trixie bet nets £208.41, which is a nice profit of over two hundred pounds.

With this being an each-way bet, if all three horses are placed but fail to win, you would still more than double your initial investment, earning a return of £19.66.

So we see that a Trixie bet can be very useful for ensuring that even when not all your selections are winners, you still come out with an overall profit.

How To Calculate Trixie Returns

To the uninitiated, working out the margins of profit in relation to your total stake can be a complicated business. This is true of most multi-layered bets.

Thankfully 888 provides an extremely handy Trixie bet calculator onsite.

Easy to use and mobile friendly, it displays the total stake of all bets involved, and the combined odds that users can receive if individual or all legs of the bet come in.

Trixie Betting In Other Sports

The relatively straightforward nature of Trixie bets aligns with several other sports, not least the trio of great US pursuits, baseball, basketball and American football, but by some considerable distance the most popular two are horse racing and football.

Both have already been covered, with examples given, but let’s dig a little deeper because it transpires that Trixie bets are most commonly used in soccer when it comes to the First Goal Scorer markets.

Why? It’s hard to say but given the sheer welter of footballing options available on every matchday – including of course the vast and varied live betting markets – it certainly intrigues.

So let’s allow ourselves another fictional example, this time supposing that Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo, Liverpool’s Luis Diaz and Kylian Mbappe in La Liga are all fancied to notch first in their respective fixtures that weekend.

Their odds are 29/10, 41/10 and 27/10.

Using the onsite calculator, and keeping to a £1 Trixie, we find that £128.17 is paid out if all three manage the feat.

If only Mbeumo and Dias get the first goals, the Trixie still pays a handsome £19.89, securing a profit of £15.89 on the initial investment.

To recap, the Trixie is a straightforward multiple bet that allows you to combine three selections to either win or be placed. Using it can help get money back from a bet even when it has not been an overall success!