A bet’s name tells you almost nothing about how it pays. What actually matters is the number printed underneath it: four bets, seven bets, or eleven bets, all built from the same handful of selections. Trixie, Yankee and Patent bets are three of the oldest multiple-bet formats in bookmaking, and this guide explains exactly what each one is made of, how the payout is calculated, and where the three differ in practice.
What Makes a Full-Cover Bet Different From a Straight Accumulator
A straight accumulator (or “acca”) ties your entire stake to every leg landing — if one selection loses, the whole bet is void. Our accumulator betting strategy guide covers how that single bet behaves leg by leg. A Trixie, Patent or Yankee instead takes the same group of selections and splits them into several smaller bets — doubles, trebles, and sometimes singles — so a near-miss can still return something instead of nothing.
Every worked example below uses decimal odds; if that format isn’t familiar, our breakdown of how betting odds work walks through the conversion first. Stakes are shown in generic “units” rather than a specific currency, since the mechanics are identical regardless of what one unit is worth.
1. The Trixie Bet: 3 Selections, 4 Bets
A Trixie takes three selections — call them A, B and C — and combines them into four bets: three doubles and one treble, as documented in Wikipedia’s glossary of UK bookmaker bets. There are no singles in a Trixie, which means at least two of your three selections need to win before you see any return.
- Double: A + B
- Double: A + C
- Double: B + C
- Treble: A + B + C
A 1-unit Trixie costs 4 units in total, since each of the four bets carries its own stake.
Worked example (hypothetical): Selection A at odds of 2.00, B at 3.00, and C at 1.80, 1 unit staked per line.
- Double A-B: 2.00 × 3.00 = 6.00
- Double A-C: 2.00 × 1.80 = 3.60
- Double B-C: 3.00 × 1.80 = 5.40
- Treble A-B-C: 2.00 × 3.00 × 1.80 = 10.80
If all three selections win, the total return is 25.80 units against a 4-unit stake — a profit of 21.80 units. If only A and B win and C loses, only the A-B double pays out: a return of 6.00 units against the 4-unit stake, for a profit of 2.00 units. If just one selection wins, the Trixie returns nothing at all, since no single bet exists in this format.
2. The Patent Bet: 3 Selections, 7 Bets
A Patent uses the same three selections as a Trixie but adds three singles on top, bringing the total to seven bets: three singles, three doubles, and one treble. Smarkets’ help centre describes this structure directly: a Patent pays out even if only one selection wins, because the singles are there to catch exactly that scenario.
- Single: A
- Single: B
- Single: C
- Double: A + B
- Double: A + C
- Double: B + C
- Treble: A + B + C
A 1-unit Patent costs 7 units — nearly double the outlay of a Trixie on the same three picks, in exchange for a safety net on a single winner.
Worked example (hypothetical): Same odds as above — A at 2.00, B at 3.00, C at 1.80, 1 unit per line, 7 units staked in total.
- If only A wins: the single A returns 2.00 units, everything else loses — a net loss of 5.00 units on a 7-unit stake.
- If A and B win, C loses: single A (2.00) + single B (3.00) + double A-B (6.00) = 11.00 units returned, a profit of 4.00 units.
- If all three win: every one of the seven bets pays — singles (2.00 + 3.00 + 1.80), doubles (6.00 + 3.60 + 5.40) and the treble (10.80) — for a total return of 32.60 units and a profit of 25.60 units.
3. The Yankee Bet: 4 Selections, 11 Bets
A Yankee moves up to four selections — A, B, C and D — and turns them into eleven bets: six doubles, four trebles, and one fourfold accumulator. Like the Trixie, there are no singles, so a minimum of two selections need to win for any return.
- 6 doubles: A-B, A-C, A-D, B-C, B-D, C-D
- 4 trebles: A-B-C, A-B-D, A-C-D, B-C-D
- 1 fourfold: A-B-C-D
A 1-unit Yankee costs 11 units. The structural logic is the same as a Trixie — doubles and trebles only, no singles — simply scaled up to a fourth selection.
Worked example (hypothetical): A at 2.00, B at 2.50, C at 3.00, D at 1.50, 1 unit per line.
- Doubles: A-B 5.00, A-C 6.00, A-D 3.00, B-C 7.50, B-D 3.75, C-D 4.50
- Trebles: A-B-C 15.00, A-B-D 7.50, A-C-D 9.00, B-C-D 11.25
- Fourfold: A-B-C-D 22.50
If all four selections win, every bet pays and the total return is 95.00 units against an 11-unit stake — a profit of 84.00 units. If A, B and C win but D loses, only the bets built entirely from winners pay: the three doubles among them (18.50 units) plus the A-B-C treble (15.00 units), for a 33.50-unit return and a 22.50-unit profit.
Trixie, Yankee and Patent Bets Explained at a Glance
| Bet | Selections | Total bets | Breakdown | Singles? | Min. winners for a return | Stake (relative to unit) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trixie | 3 | 4 | 3 doubles + 1 treble | No | 2 | 4× |
| Patent | 3 | 7 | 3 singles + 3 doubles + 1 treble | Yes | 1 | 7× |
| Yankee | 4 | 11 | 6 doubles + 4 trebles + 1 fourfold | No | 2 | 11× |
Which Cover Bet Fits Your Selections?
The choice usually comes down to how many selections you have and how much insurance you’re willing to pay for. With three selections and reasonable confidence in at least two of them, a Trixie keeps the stake lower while still covering every double. If you’d rather not go home empty-handed on a single winner, the Patent adds that protection — at nearly double the outlay for the same three picks. Move up to four selections and the Yankee is the natural format, spreading risk across six doubles, four trebles and a fourfold without needing every single leg to land.
A related variant worth knowing by name: adding four singles to a Yankee produces what’s commonly called a Lucky 15 — effectively a Yankee with the same single-winner safety net that a Patent adds to a Trixie. It isn’t covered in depth here, but recognising the naming pattern helps when a betslip offers it as an option.
Common Mistakes When Placing a Trixie, Yankee or Patent
- Underestimating the total stake. A 1-unit Patent isn’t a 1-unit bet — it’s seven separate bets, so the stake multiplies accordingly before you confirm it.
- Expecting accumulator-style all-or-nothing logic. Cover bets are built precisely so that a partial result still pays on the surviving combinations — check the breakdown, not just the final total.
- Overlooking void or non-runner rules. When a selection is withdrawn, bets involving it are typically recalculated rather than simply voided outright, which changes the final return in ways worth checking before relying on the numbers above as a guarantee.
- Assuming singles exist where they don’t. A Trixie and a Yankee have no singles at all — a lone winner among the selections returns nothing in either format, unlike a Patent or a Lucky 15.
Once the combinations are laid out explicitly, the difference between these three bet types stops being about unfamiliar names and becomes a straightforward trade-off: more bets and a higher stake in exchange for a lower minimum number of winners needed to see a return.
George Mahulet has covered African sports betting and iGaming markets for over six years, focusing on how licensing, mobile money integration, and bonus terms actually play out for bettors in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa. Before joining Best10Betting, he worked as a data analyst for a Lagos-based fintech tracking mobile payment adoption — experience that shapes his focus on the payment and licensing details other betting content tends to skip. He verifies every bookmaker’s regulatory status directly against the relevant national gaming board before publishing a review, and updates existing reviews whenever bonus terms or licensing status change rather than leaving them static after launch.
