Three picks and four bets: three doubles plus a treble. That’s a Trixie, and the Trixie calculator above settles it for you, including each way.
Say you go 2/1, 5/2 and 3/1 with £2 a line, which is £8. All three win and you get back £157. Two win, say the 2/1 and the 3/1, and that one double pays £24. Only one wins? Nothing. A Trixie has no singles, so a lone winner on its own gets you nothing.
Reading the Trixie calculator
Type the odds the way the bookie shows them, so 5/2, 6/4 or a decimal. Set each pick to won, placed, lost or non-runner. Leave them all on won and you’ll see the best case.
The result panel splits the return into the win part and, if you’ve ticked each way, the place part. “Winning bets” tells you how many of the four lines actually paid.
Why people play it
A treble on its own needs all three. The Trixie is a treble with a safety net: get two out of three and one double still pays. At decent odds, a single double often covers the whole £8. In the example above it pays three times the stake.
What it won’t do is protect you from a bad day. If you want something back from a single winner, a Patent is the same three picks with the singles added in (7 bets).
The maths
Trixie return = stake × ((1 + a)(1 + b)(1 + c) − 1 − a − b − c)
With 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0: 4 × 4.5 × 5 = 90, minus 1, minus 10.5 = 78.5 per £1. At £2 a line, £157.
Each way doubles the bet to 8 lines. The place doubles use your place terms, so check the race before assuming it’s 1/5. A five to seven runner race only pays two places at 1/4.
Keep it to money you can spare. BeGambleAware.org is free and confidential if it stops being fun.