The idea behind full cover betting is simple, it is a package bet that covers all possible multiple bet options from a given number of selections, the most popular example being the Lucky 15.
Let’s take an example where we want to bet on 3 selections with Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal all to win on a premier league weekend. You could place a single treble accumulator bet but if one selection lets you down then you lose irrespective of the other results. You could in this instance decide to place two types of full cover bet.
One option available would be a Trixie, this offers a set of single line multiple bets rolled into one package, consisting of 4 separate bets on your three selections, 1 treble and 3 doubles. With a trixie you only need two selections to win and to get a return. A Patent is exactly the same as Trixie but includes all the additional single bets, 7 bets in total now but you only need one selection to win to get a return.
Full cover bets are package bets, this gives you more options to win but will obviously increase the number of individual lines you need to bet on. This bet type used to be the reserve of horse and greyhound racing but is now widely used on a range of sports, including football. In general if you can place a standard accumulator bet you should be able to place a full cover bet too.
Full Cover Betting Strategy
If you have a number of selections with high odds it can be a good idea to use full cover betting as this mitigates your risk if one or a few selections lose. A standard example would be placing a Lucky 15 bet on 4 separate winners at a horse meeting.
The Lucky 15, invented by Fred Done of Betfred, consists of 15 bets, 4 singles, 6 doubles, 4 trebles and one 4 fold accumulator. In this scenario if three of your horses come in and one loses you will be paid out on 7 of your bets, 3 singles, 3 doubles and a treble.
Rarely is it worth placing a full cover bet if all of your selections are low odds or odds on as the returns will be low relative to the stake. Please note although you will get a return if only one or two of your selections win in a full cover bet this does not mean the returns will cover the stake.
Think about how much you want to spend in advance, if you wanted to do a £1 four fold accumulator but instead placed a Lucky 15 with the same stake per line this would now cost you £15.
There are some good full cover betting promotions out there especially for Lucky 15s 31s and 63s. To see the best of these visit out lucky offers page.
Full Cover Bets Without Singles
This is a multiple bet that consist of all the possible multiple outcomes from your given selections, although single bets are not covered.
This is where all the weird and wonderful names come in.
| Bet Name | Bets | Singles | Doubles | Trebles | 4 folds | 5 folds | 6 folds | 7 folds | 8 folds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trixie | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Yankee | 11 | 0 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Super Yankee | 26 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Heinz | 57 | 0 | 15 | 20 | 15 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Super Heinz | 120 | 0 | 25 | 35 | 35 | 21 | 7 | 1 | 0 |
| Goliath | 247 | 0 | 28 | 56 | 70 | 56 | 28 | 8 | 1 |
Trixie
A bet consisting of three selections and 4 separate multiple bets.
What is a Trixie – This is 1 treble and 4 doubles. Here you will need at least two selections to win to get a return. As there are 4 bets this is 4 x the stake so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £4.
Yankee
Same principle as a Trixie but this bet consists of four selections and 11 separate multiple bets.
What is a Yankee – This is 1 four-fold accumulator, 4 trebles 6 doubles. Here again you will need at least two selections to win to get a return. As there are 11 bets this is 11 x the stake so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £11
Super Yankee or Canadian
Super Yankee, sometimes also referred to as a Canadian. This time you have 5 selections consisting of 26 separate bets.
What is a Canadian – One 1 five-fold bet, 5 four-folds, 10 trebles and 10 doubles. You will need at least two selections to win to get a return. As there are 26 bets this is 26 x the stake so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £26.
Heinz
A bet with 6 selections constituting 57 bets. This is named after the Heinz food company due to their “57 varieties”.
What is a Heinz – 1 six-fold, 6 five-folds, 15 four-folds, 20 trebles and 15 doubles. You will need at least two selections to win to get a return. As there are 57 bets this is 57 x the stake so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £57.
Super Heinz
A bet with 7 selections constituting 120 bets.
What is a Super Heinz – 1 seven-fold, 7 six-folds, 21 five-folds, 35 four-folds, 35 trebles and 25 doubles. You will need at least two selections to win to get a return. As there are 120 bets this is 120 x the stake so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £120.
Goliath
A bet with 8 selections constituting 247 bets.
What is a Goliath – 1 eight-fold, 8 seven-folds, 28 six-folds, 56 five-folds, 70 four-folds, 56 trebles and 28 doubles. You will need at least two selections to win to get a return. As there are 247 bets this is 247 x the stake so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £247.
Full Cover Bets With Singles
Exactly the same principle as full cover betting but this time including the extra bets on single lines.
| Bet Name | Bets | Singles | Doubles | Trebles | 4 folds | 5 folds | 6 folds | 7 folds | 8 folds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patent | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lucky 15 | 15 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lucky 31 | 31 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lucky 63 | 63 | 6 | 15 | 20 | 15 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Super Heinz With Singles | 127 | 7 | 25 | 35 | 35 | 21 | 7 | 1 | 0 |
| Super Goliath | 255 | 8 | 28 | 56 | 70 | 56 | 28 | 8 | 1 |
Patent
Indentical to Trixie but with 3 extra single bets for the three selections, 7 bets in total.
What is a Patent – 1 treble, 3 doubles and 3 singles. You only need one selection to win to get a return. There are now 7 bets, so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £7.
Lucky 15
Four selections, same as Yankee with 4 extra single bets, 15 bets in total.
What is a Lucky 15 – 1 four-fold, 4 trebles, 6 doubles and 4 singles. You only need one selection to win to get a return. There are now 15 bets, so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £15.
Lucky 31
Five selections, the same as Super Yankee but with 5 extra single bets, 31 bets in total.
What is a Lucky 31 – 1 five-fold, 5 four-folds, 10 trebles, 10 doubles and 5 singles. You only need one selection to win to get a return. There are now 31 bets, so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £31.
Lucky 63
Used for 6 selections with the same multiple bets as Heinz but with 6 extra single bets, 63 bets in total.
What is a Lucky 63 – 1 six-fold, 6 five-folds, 15 four-folds, 20 trebles, 15 doubles and 6 singles. You only need one selection to win to get a return. There are now 63 bets, so if you bet £1/line the total bet will be £63.
Alphabet
This is also a bet with 6 selections but slightly more complicated and generally only used for horses and greyhounds.
What is an Alphabet – This bet consist of 2 patents (selections 1/2/3 make the first patent and 4/5/6 make the second), 1 yankee (formed of selections 2/3/4/5), and 1 six-fold accumulator (selections 1/2/3/4/5/6).
This is a total of 26 bets (7 from each patent, 11 from the yankee and 1 from the six-fold), at £1/line this bet would cost £26 and you need one selection to win to get a return.
Super Heinz With Singles
Many sites do not offer specific full cover bets with singles above 6 selections and those that do have different terms for them, here we are using a fairly common term.
What is a Super Heinz With Singles – it is effectively exactly the same as a Super Heinz but with the 7 singles also included to make 127 bets total. 1 seven-fold, 7 six-folds, 21 five-folds, 35 four-folds, 35 trebles, 25 doubles and 7 singles. A £1 bet per line would cost you £127
Super Goliath
Again no fixed terminology for this bet and not widely offered but you can do it with the bigger bookies. This covers eight selections.
What is a Super Goliath – it really is a monster and appropriately named given it is the same as a Goliath, 247 bets, but here we are also backing the 8 singles too. That makes 255 bets in total and would cost you £255 to back it a £1/line.
Permed Bets
In betting, ‘Perm’ stands for permutations, which is just another way of saying selections.
So a perm is a bet where your stake is split across a number of different selections, allowing you to win even if not all of your selections win.
Permed Trixie
This is a bet on 4+ selections that is effectively multiple trixie bets packages together to cover every possible combination of trixies that can be made with those picks.
With four selections a permed trixie would be 4 individual trixies covering every possible combination of three from those selections (ABC, ABD, ACD, BCD). Each trixie is 4 bets each and therefore the total wager is 16 individual bets. In some ways you could think of this as over-cover rather than just full cover, as each double will be covered twice.
Add in an extra selection and now you can have a permed trixie on five selections made up of 40 bets spread across ten possible trixies. Six selections would result in 80 bets with 20 trixies, etc.
Permed Patent
Permed Patents are more popular and more widely available compared to the permed trixie. Again these can be used with 4 or more picks and cover all possible patent scenarios.
The difference in this case is a permed patent will also include single bets. Therefore a permed patent with 4 selections will result in 28 bets. This will include 4 duplicated single bets along with two duplicates of each double.
Permed patents on five selections would be 10 individual patents making up 70 bets in total. A six selection permed patent would be 20 individual patents and no less than 140 unit bets. Of course it is possible to continue with 7+ selections, but in reality the number of bets starts to become ridiculous as does the duplication of singles and doubles overall, and frankly no bookies will offer it as standard (although you may be able to request it).
Permed Yankee
Here you are covering every possible combination of 5+ selections with multiple Yankee bets.
Obviously a standard Yankee has four selections already and so a permed Yankee can only be used with five selections or more. With 5 picks a permed Yankee would cover every possible combination of four selections possible. This would consist of five individual Yankees (ABDC, ABCE, ABDE, ACDE, BCDE) and 55 unit bets in total.
A permed Yankee with six selections would now require no less than 15 separate Yankees resulting in 165 unit bets in total. Again, as with the permed patent, in theory you can have permed yankees with 7+ picks but in practice the bet type is not offered due to complexity, duplication and the high number of bets needed.
Permed Lucky 15
Not very commonly offered, but certainly possible. A permed Lucky 15 is pretty much the same as a permed Yankee except now you are also including singles as well as all the doubles and trebles. The reason this bet is not very popular however is due to the increased duplication of single bets on top of the existing bet duplicates.
With five selections a permed Lucky 15 would be four individual Lucky 15’s, of 15 bets each, giving a total number of bets of 60. This would include 5 duplicate singles, 3 duplicates of every double and 2 duplicates of every treble. This only gets worse as you add in more selections and for this reason the bet is rarely used or offered.
Permed Super Yankee & Lucky 31
Both of these are extremely rare and can only be used with 6+ selections. You will need to generally ask for these bet if you want to place them.
Same principle as before but in this case using a super Yankee or lucky 31 to cover every possible combination. With six picks this would be six separate packages (ABCDE, ABCDF, ABCEF, ABDEF, BCDEF) making a total of 156 bets for a Super Yankee and 186 bets with a combination of Lucky 31’s.
Taking Lucky 31 as an example would result in 6 replicated singes, 4 replicates of each double, 3 replicated of each treble and one replicate of each four-fold. That is a lot of duplicated bets, making this type of wager very efficient.
How To Place a Lucky 15 & Other Full Cover Bets
For most reputable bookmakers, and for all of our recommended bookies on this site, the majority of full cover bets are available directly on the betslip.
In the screenshot example below you can see the various multiple bet options available with four football selections. The slip will usually tell you the potential returns from a given unit stake.
Remember the unit stake is multiplied by the number of bets, in the case of a Lucky 15 a £1 unit stake will be £15 total.
Of course if the bet type is not offered you could always build it yourself. Full cover bets are simply labels for pre-packaged multiple combinations. If you want to place a patent for example but the facility isn’t offered then you could place seven individual bets to make it up yourself,
To make your own patent with three selections A, B and C, you would need to place three separate single bets on each, a double on AB and BC and a treble on all three. Of course this can become frustrating, even impractical, if you want to place say a Lucky 63 manually on 6 selections, which is why it helps to find the right bookies to place these bet types.
If you do want to build a manual bet you also don’t need to cover every possibility. You could for example with four selections just cover every possible treble along with a 4-fold, that would be five bets total rather than 11 bets with a yankee (also covering doubles) or 15 bets with a lucky 15 (covering singles too).
A good tool that can help you build bets or decide between different packages is the BetVictor Bet Calculator. This lets you work out what each individual element of a bet will return and also allows you to see the effect of factors such as rule 4, void runners and dead heats on bets.
It is worth mentioning that all full-cover bets can be placed each-way if each-way markets are available on your bet selections. Of course if bet each way you will double the number of bets, an each-way Lucky 15 is in effect two lucky 15 bets and therefore 30 bets total. £1 unit stake will cost £30 total.
If you are looking for a recommendation for where to place bets like this then you really cannot beat the inventor of the Lucky 15, Betfred. For horse racing especially they have the absolute best choice and range and also have genuinely value bonus and extra winnings promotions that make placing these wagers with them more valuable than with others.
Common Lucky 15 and Full Cover Bet Terms
There may well be other terms to be aware of, but these are the most common:
- Void Bets and Non-runners – These are treated the same as with any multiple, if a selection(s) is made void the all the possible bets within the full cover bet that need that selection will be made void. The remaining bets will continue to ride. With a lucky 15 if one selection is void then 8 bets will be refunded and 7 will continue to ride. It is still worth checking this with your bookie to be sure.
- Dead Heats – Each individual single and multiple bet within a full cover bet is treated separately when it come to a payout. Therefore if there is a dead-heat it will apply to all the bets that include that selection only. If there is a dead heat then the stake is divided by the number of runners, and if an each-way bet the number of places.
- Rule 4 – If any selection in your full cover bet is subject to rule 4 then the stake will be reduced applicably in all bets that include that selection.
- Related Contingencies – If you try to place a full cover bet and you are not allowed to or the number of selections are reduced it could be because one or more of your picks are related. You cannot combine scenarios that could potentially impact each other into a multiple bet. For more see our dedicated page on related bets.
- Free Bets and Bonuses – Beware that many bonuses are restricted and you may not be able to use them or roll them over using full cover bets. For sign up offers especially it is worth checking, even qualifying bets to get the promotion are generally not counted if placed this way. Free bets an obviously not be used on full cover lines as they cannot be split up into multiple stakes.
- Best Odds and Offers – Full cover bets are packages meaning you get the same odds whether you use the pre-defined package or place all the individually bets yourself. Beware however some bookies restrict the use of best odds guarantees and other offers, such as acca insurance, if placing these bets.