Often used by experienced bettors, full cover betting is an advanced category of betting where users can use essentially a package of bet which contains multiple betting lines. These types of bets are usually undertaken in order to increase the chance of a payout and mitigate risks.
Despite being in vogue at most UK bookmakers, full cover betting is still not understood by most, especially new bettors. It is worth noting that a full cover bet is essentially a betting strategy. If you have heard terms such as Trixie, Yankee, Heinz etc. and have ever thought “what’s a Trixie?” this article is for you. In this piece we shall try to explain what full cover bets are, how they work, how many types of such bets are there and their pros and cons.
A full cover bet is simply a combination of multiple bets which may include parlays, doubles, trebles, singles and even four-fold bets and higher. When a bettor is gearing up to bet on a treble, for example, they need at least 3 results to go in their favor before expecting a payout. And such is the story with regular parlay betting. But if they were to choose a full cover bet, then the payout is not dependent on all the results going in the bettor’s favour. In fact, a user can get paid even if one or more of their bets end up losing out of the whole package.
Types of Full Cover Bets
Following are some full cover bets that do not include single betting lines:
Trixie
Yankee
Canadian
Heinz
Super Heinz
Goliath
Following are some full cover bets with single bets included:
Patent
Lucky 15
Lucky 31
Lucky 63
The final 3 full cover bets are called lucky because most UK bookmakers allow bonuses for winnings falling under these bets. Double odds for at least one winner within one of these full cover bets are one of the very common bonuses offered in the UK.
Full Cover Bet with an example:
For the purposes of this example, let’s use the Trixie bet system.
Number of selections to cover: 3 (A, B and C)
How many bets in a Trixie: 4
Alternate: Treble, covering all 3 bets
In this example, compare the performance of Treble and a Trixie. The treble covers all three selections but even if one of your selections between A, B and C loses, you lose the entire stake. On the other hand, in a Trixie you cover the following 4 bets:
1 double considering A and B
1 double considering B and C
1 double considering A and C
1 treble considering A, B and C
Since the Trixie contains 4 bets, if you place a Trixie of 1 GBP, your final stake would 4 GBP which includes 1 GBP for each betting line contained within. Let’s consider that each of these bets are having odds of 3/1. This simply means that if you are to win one of these bets, your payout would be 4 GBP including your stake.
When you roll out a double, the odds are multiplied, hence in case of both A and B winning, you get 16 GBP instead of 8 GBP. The same goes for other double combinations. If A, B and C all end up winners, you win the treble which means the odds are again multiplied resulting in a payout of 64 GBP. But as you hit all of the doubles at the same time, your total payout becomes 64 GBP from the treble plus 48 GBP from the doubles equaling 112 GBP. This is the beauty of the full cover as by putting in just 4 GBP you can get paid 18 times higher.
Another advantage, in this case, would be that if both A and B end up winning, you get a payout of 16 GBP which covers your stake and enough to roll out another bet. Had you gone for 3 singles, the payout would be 8 GBP. If you had gone for the treble your payout would be zero as all three need to come up as winners for you to get anything from a treble.
Patent:
A patent is a Trixie bet that considers the single bets as well. Hence for a Patent, there would be a total of 7 bets as follows:
1 double considering A and B
1 double considering B and C
1 double considering A and C
1 treble considering A, B and C
Single considering A
Single considering B
Single Considering C
In order to place 1 GBP patent, your total stake would become 7 GBP, 1 for each betting line. Now let’s transpose one of the above scenarios onto Patent. If both A and B win, each having odds of 3/1 as before, 2 of your single bets win paying you 4 GBP each, one double wins paying you 16 GBP. Your total payout is 24 GBP and net profit becomes 17 GBP. If you had gone for a Trixie, your total payout would have been 16 GBP and net profit would have been 12. So that is a 5 GBP extra profit right there.
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.
Super Heinz bets explained
A Super Heinz bet is a special type of bet used in horse racing that consists of seven selections and 120 bets in total. A bet of this size is calculated by multiplying your stake by 120, for example, a £1 Super Heinz bet would cost you £120 in total.
The Super Heinz bet includes:
1 x seven-fold accumulator
7 x six-fold accumulators
21 x five-fold accumulators
35 x four-fold accumulators
35 trebles
21 doubles
The Super Heinz might look complicated with so many bets involved, but you only need two of the seven selections to be successful in order to win money.
One important detail to note is that the odds of each selection will have a huge impact on your overall returns.
For example, if all selections are around 4/1 then you will need at least four winning selections to break even.
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.
FAQ
Is full coverage bet applicable for sports other than racing?
Yes, full coverage bet can be applied to any sports where one may want to combine three or more selections within one bet. Full coverage bet started specifically for horse racing and there are still some such as Alphabet that are geared towards racing only.
Can full coverage bets provide large winnings?
Theoretically yes. If all or most of your selections within a full coverage bet come up as winners, you can win much more than you would with direct bets. But going by average or worst case scenarios, full coverage bets are mostly used to mitigate risks.
How to calculate full coverage bet payouts?
The larger the bet, the more difficult it is to calculate the payout exactly since there are many stakes and odds at play. But you can use services such as Trixie bet calculator online where you can enter the stake, odds and other details to identify your payouts based on certain outcomes.
What is a trixie bet?
Trixie bets are very popular among horse racing gamblers.
Trixie bets are four bets on three selections in several events.(3 singles and 1 treble) To win your bet you must be successful on two or three selections.
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