Trixie Bet

By
• Learn The Lines
• May 17th, 2022

A trixie bet is a multi wagering type, whereby there are three selections or picks within your trixie bet, but you place four bets in total. Born from horse racing, trixie bets are now popular across all sports and can be a handy option for bettors. Read on to learn more about trixie bets, how they work, examples of trixies within real life sports and why you might consider placing a trixie bet. 

What is a trixie bet? 

A trixie bet as mentioned above is a form of combination multi bet whereby you place a total of four bets across three picks. These bets are as follows: 3x doubles and 1x treble (or parlay). 

Effectively this means that if only 2 of the three picks win, you will be paid out as a double winner (2-pick parlay winner). If all three of your picks win you will be paid out on all four bets as you would have won three doubles and the complete treble / 3-pick parlay. If only one team wins, or all picks lose, your trixie bet will settle as a loser.

How to place a trixie bet

Placing a trixie bet in itself is easy but it can often be a challenge to locate the option of placing one. Here we explain the process of making a trixie bet. 

First of all you need to go onto your nominated sportsbook. You then click onto the sports section of your chosen sport you wish to place a trixie bet on, of course this can be done across multiple sports but for example sakes lets just say we want to place a trixie on three teams in the NBA. 

We have gone onto the basketball section on Bet365 and have made my picks. We wish to place a moneyline trixie bet on Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards and Denver Nuggets each to win their respective games. 

We simply select the moneyline option on each of the three teams from the list of games, just as if we were going to place a parlay bet.

We now have three teams sitting in our betslip, which should be somewhere on your screen. 

My Bet365 bet slip now has my three picks in there ready to place a bet. In this instance to place a trixie bet, I click onto ‘show more parlay options’ under 3 Team Parlay. 

We now have the option to place a trixie bet. As already explained, a parlay bet consists of 4x bets (3x two pick parlays and 1x three pick parlay). So with me placing a stake of $2.50, I am essentially placing 4x bets of $2.50 so in total I am risking $10. 

Here we can see the breakdown of my trixie bet and the combination odds. It’s important to weigh up whether a trixie bet is the best option as often on short priced favorites if only 2 win, you could end up returning less than you staked. 

Using the above example we can see that only all three teams winning would confirm us a profit, because you win all bet combos (3x two-pick parlays and 1x three-pick parlay) which totals $22.13.

However let’s say that we want to place a trixie bet on three bigger priced teams in the NFL. 

Here we can see our trixie bet on the New Orlean Saints, Houston Texans and LA Chargers will return us profit from every 2-pick parlay combination. We know that if any two of our three teams win, we stand to make a profit from our $10 stake. If all three teams win, we stand to return a much larger sum of money.

Trixie Bet Pros & Cons

Pros:

A safety net if you have have a feeling three teams might win but fearful one could let you down – Parlay bets are hard to win as you only receive a payout if all teams win, but with a trixie bet you know that if one team lets you down you will still be returned some form of a payout.

An attractive option for those that wish to include underdogs within a multi – Underdogs are underdogs for a reason and the sportsbook traders would have assessed the relative strengths and weaknesses of each team and come to the conclusion that one team is (on form or current strength of roster) stronger than the other. With that in mind it is extremely difficult to win straight up parlay bets that include underdogs. However you might be more tempted to include the odd underdog pick within a multi if you have the safety net of a trixie, knowing that if the underdog lets you down you may still see a return on the other two teams winning.

If you pick three teams playing over different days – Sports league rounds are often played over a few different days, so it’s not uncommon for people to include three teams that are not all playing on the same day in their multi bet. Let’s say you have one team playing on Friday and the other two teams are playing on Saturday. It would be hugely frustrating if you placed a straight up 3-pick parlay and your first leg (game), loses on the Friday to kill your parlay bet before the two teams on Saturday have played. However, by opting for a trixie bet in this scenario, you know that whatever happens in the Friday game, your trixie bet will still be active for the two Saturday games. 

Cons

Trixie bets are not always the best option if you want to include three short priced favorites – As already touched upon above in our earlier Trixie Bet NBA example, sometimes with favorite picks it might be a better option just to place a straight up 3-pick parlay. As a lot of the time you will only make profit on your trixie bet stake if all three teams win and wouldn’t make profit if only two were to win. However on the other hand some people may be happy to take a small loss on their initial stake and still at least have a small return on their stake than of course potentially losing it 100% of their stake by placing a three-pick parlay.

You have to place 4x bets  – Although the safety net of trixie bets are a very attractive proposition for bettors, they are ultimately a fairly expensive wager type, whereby you are placing a total of 4 bets. So a $1 trixie bet would actually be $4, a $5 trixie bet would actually total $20, a $10 trixie bet would total $40 etc. So you have to be willing to lay out more on a trixie bet than a straight up parlay which can make it costly. 

If you’re feeling confident on your three teams a straight up parlay would win you a lot more – Let’s say you’re feeling particularly confident on your three picks, they’re all fairly short priced and are against inferior opponents, you’re willing to wager a total of $10. You know that if you place a trixie bet you would have to divide that up into 4 bets ($2.50 per line). If all teams were to win, sure you’d win a healthy amount with your trixie bet but if you were to place that $10 you staked on just a straight up parlay you would win a lot more. So you need to weigh up whether you want to go for the full returns or be happy to accept a lower return through a trixie bet but of course have that insurance, knowing that if one team lets you down, you will still be returned an amount.