Advice

Multiple Bets WILL Break Your Bank!

Photo of Race Advisor Race AdvisorNovember 9, 2013
6 335 2 minutes read

The bookies want us to do multiple bets


In fact they‘ll do almost anything to make them more attractive than they may already appear.

You know the feeling when you’ve picked out three winners in a row and you think “if only I’d done them in a treble.” Fair enough, but I thought I’d write about how they work, why the bookie loves them and why we shouldn’t be doing them.

One of the most popular bets is the Lucky 15 and is usually advertised in all shops up and down the country.

And, there’s a good reason why bookies advertise them and offer concessions on them. They’re almost impossible to win!

Okay, I’m going to breakdown the bet and look at how it’s structured in order to show you why.

The Lucky 15 comprises of four selections bet with:

  • 6 doubles
  • 4 trebles
  • 4 singles
  • 1 four-fold accumulator

We have 15 units spread across 4 selections. It would look something like this for selections A, B, C and D:

Doubles

AB
AC
AD
BC
BC
CD

Trebles

ABC
ABD
ACD
BCD

Singles

A
B
C
D

Four-Fold Accumulator

ABCD

Let’s suppose the first selection, A, loses. That means that bets:

AB, AC, AD, ABC, ABD, ACD, A and ABCD have all lost.

You’ve straight away lost 8 of your bets!

You now have 3 doubles, 1 treble and 3 singles left.

Let’s say the next selection, B, loses.  We’re now down to a measly 3 bets and you’ve now lost 12 units already!

Unless you’re lucky enough to get the next two winners at decent odds then you’re going to be making a loss.

They are an attractive bet for those that want to bet small and win big, but they will eventually ruin your bank and should be avoided at all costs!

Okay, so we’ve covered the Lucky 15, but what about all the other multiple bets out there?

Well
 they’re all the same and should be avoided.

Don’t get me wrong, I do sometimes do the odd one. At Christmas I buy the family a Lucky 15 for the racing on Boxing Day. It’s a bit of fun and it secures my viewing of the races for the afternoon!!

But, as a serious betting prospect, they should be left well alone.

Before I finish I want to have a look at another angle.

You place a treble for £10 (this is your usual stake size) and the first horse now wins at 4/1. That’s £50 going onto the next selection.

The question you should be asking yourself is


Would you bet as big as ÂŁ50 on this horse?

Because effectively that’s what you’re doing.

Your next selection lands the spoils at 3/1 and you now have ÂŁ200 going onto the next horse.

Would you seriously bet that much on the next horse?

Okay, you see my point. If the third horse wins then you’ve paid for your Christmas. But it’s very difficult to hit the treble, and you’ll experience a lot of negativity in your betting as most often one horse will let you down.

With the above example, if you’d just put that bet on the first you’d be £40 in profit. £10 on the next one and now you’re £70 in profit. Not life changing I know, but should the last one lose at least you’ll walk away with a profit!

Next time you’ve got a couple of horses you fancy then think about backing them as singles. In the long run you’ll be better off. If you want to win big for small stakes then your better playing the lottery!

Photo of Race Advisor Race AdvisorNovember 9, 2013
6 335 2 minutes read
Photo of Race Advisor

Race Advisor

The Race Advisor is one of the leading blogs on betting in the UK. Our goal is to help you generate more profit from your betting than you’re currently doing. With thousands of blog posts and some of the leading horse racing analysis software out there, if you’ve got a question about betting then we’re here to make sure you get the right answer.

6 Comments

  1. I agree with these comments but the bet the bookies do not advertise is The Round Robin. I am a small bettor for fun but sometimes find this worth while as often one win will give a profit. Interested in you opinion of this.

  2. I agree for fun round robins have been profitable so too have 3x horse patents. The last one I did was for ÂŁ14.00 an each way patent net profit ÂŁ700.00 while on a bus in Poland so it was a lucky day and great fun so they are good but as Michael said, not a daily bet. Best of Luck every one no bets for me to day. Too busy looking for a place to live.

  3. I agree with the premise of the article, except for “If you want to win big for small stakes then your better playing the lottery!”
    I’m not familiar with the lottery in UK, but here in the US your chances of winning are approximately 1-156,000,000. I’m confident the chances of winning a tiered multi-race bet in horse racing are significantly better.

  4. Thanks for the comments guys. This article was written by a guest writer for RA not myself. What I’ll do is look to write a strategy based about finding selections for a Round Robin to small stakes 🙂

  5. You are so right about multiple bets.I think they are for mug punters.All my bets are now win singles and every winner counts.I used to do 7 runners in two groups:one of 4 runners and one of 3 runners,perming each group “any 2 doubles” to give 9 doubles.I lost count of the number of times I had a good priced winner in each group and got a nil return!

  6. I agree with what you are saying about multiples. I only ever bet singles to win now. But what I find confusing is that you talk about ‘serious betting prospects’ but then go on to talk about ÂŁ10 as a normal stake. Surely that is a long way from a serious bet designed to produce a worthwhile long term return. I bet to ÂŁ100 level stakes. That gives me a worthwhile return, but I’d need to be doing 2 or 3 times that amount to make a living from it. And then I’d just get my accounts closed (I’ve had some closed or seriously restricted anyway). The point is that ÂŁ10 is surely a fun bet, not a serious bet.

Back to top button
Close