Lucky 15 tips
Good Lucky 15 tips start with the cost: a Lucky 15 is 15 bets, so £1 a bet costs £15, and one winner can still bring back less than you paid. If you know what 1, 2, 3 or 4 winners bring back, you can pick your stake, your horses and your betting firm before you bet.
What are you actually buying?
Your stake is the money you put on each bet, and your slip is the betting slip that lists your horses. A bookmaker, or betting firm, is the company that takes your bet, such as William Hill, Betfred or Coral. The price of a horse is its odds. Odds are written as two numbers, such as 2/1 or 5/1: you win the first number for every amount of the second that you put on, so 2/1 wins £2 for each £1 and 5/1 wins £5 for each £1. A Lucky 15 takes 4 horses in 4 different races and builds 15 bets: 4 singles, 6 two-horse doubles, 4 trebles and a fourfold. A single covers one horse. A double links 2 horses and pays only when both win. A treble links 3, and the fourfold needs all 4. Each part has the same stake, so the full cost is always 15 times that stake.
| 10p a bet | 50p a bet | £1 a bet | £2 a bet | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Betting to win only | £1.50 | £7.50 | £15 | £30 |
Each way adds a bet on each horse to finish in the first few places, not only to win, so it doubles the cost: 50p each way costs £15, and £1 each way costs £30.
Betfred sets a minimum of 5p per bet, so the cheapest Lucky 15 there costs 75p. That 75p is simply the least you can spend, and like any Lucky 15, it can still lose.
A Yankee uses the same 4 horses but leaves out the 4 singles, so it is 11 bets, costing £11 at £1 stakes. The other £4 in a Lucky 15 pays for the singles, and those are the parts that can still pay when just 1 horse wins.
Returns at different odds
At 4/1 you win £4 for each £1 you put on, while evens means you win the same as your stake. The return is the whole amount paid back to you, stake included. Profit is that return after the slip cost is taken off.
Long odds, such as 10/1, mean a horse is less likely to win but pays more if it does. Short odds, such as evens, mean the opposite. The longer the odds, the fewer winners you need to get your money back. With all four horses at evens, it takes three winners. With all four at 5/1, two winners are enough. One winner on its own nearly always pays back less than the slip cost.
Most real slips mix short and long odds. Our Lucky 15 calculator works out any mix for you.
A £1 slip at each price, worked out
Here is what a £1 win Lucky 15 pays when all 4 horses have the same price. Every slip costs £15.
| Winners | Evens | 2/1 | 3/1 | 5/1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | £2 | £3 | £4 | £6 |
| 2 | £8 | £15 | £24 | £48 |
| 3 | £26 | £63 | £124 | £342 |
| 4 | £80 | £255 | £624 | £2,400 |
With every horse at evens, you need 3 of them to win before you are in front. At 5/1, 2 winners already pay more than the £15 stake.
Real slips often have mixed prices. Imagine backing 4 horses, one at 2/1, one at 3/1, one at 4/1 and one at 5/1, with only the 2/1 and 3/1 winning. The two singles pay £3.00 and £4.00, and the double pays £12.00, so £19.00 comes back, which is £4.00 more than you paid. Should all 4 win, that same slip pays £839.00.
William Hill also adds 10% if all 4 win; on the mixed-price slip above, that comes to £82.40 on top of the £839.00.
Bonuses for one winner
A boost is extra money a bookmaker adds on top of the normal payout. Some betting firms boost the return when just one of your four horses wins. William Hill doubles the odds on that winner, while Betfred trebles them. So you win twice as much on that horse at William Hill, and three times as much at Betfred.
Even with the bonus, one winner on its own usually pays back less than the £15 the slip cost. Only a winner at long odds gets you more than that back.
One winner with and without a bonus, worked out
Here is what a £1 Lucky 15 pays from one winner, with £15 staked.
| 2/1 winner | 4/1 winner | 6/1 winner | 10/1 winner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard payout | £3 | £5 | £7 | £11 |
| William Hill (double odds) | £5 | £9 | £13 | £21 |
| Betfred (treble odds) | £7 | £13 | £19 | £31 |
That means a 4/1 winner is settled at 8/1 by William Hill and at 12/1 by Betfred. Even with a boost, one winner at these prices returns less than your £15, unless it is a 10/1 winner at William Hill or a 6/1 or 10/1 winner at Betfred.
The William Hill bonus has rules, and missing any of them means the boost is lost. To qualify, you need one horse in each race, an equal stake on every part, and all four of them running. Ante post prices, which are early prices taken before the final list of runners is fixed, do not count.
If all four horses win, William Hill also adds a bonus on top of your winnings. Betting in a Coral shop? Ask first what it pays for 1 winner, as the rate can differ from shop to shop.
Should you go each way?
Going each way adds a second bet on each horse, backing it to come home in the first few places, which doubles what you stake. At £1 each way, the slip turns into 30 separate bets, so you pay £30 in all. A horse places when it finishes in one of the paying places, such as second or third, without winning. The place half of your bet pays when that happens. The place side pays a fraction of the win odds, and the fraction depends on the size and type of race. So a horse that places pays far less than a winner would.
| Races with 5 to 7 runners | Races with 8 or more runners | Handicap with 12 to 15 runners | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fraction of the odds | 1/4 | 1/5 | 1/4 |
| Places that pay | 1st and 2nd | 1st, 2nd and 3rd | 1st, 2nd and 3rd |
This table uses Tattersalls place terms, where runners are the horses that start a race and a handicap is a race where better horses carry extra weight to even things up. The Tattersalls Committee writes the standard rules British bookmakers use to pay out bets. If a handicap has 8 to 11 runners, it pays 1/5 of the odds for 3 places. Each horse keeps the terms for its own race.
Each way gives more ways to get money back, but it also doubles what you spend. A winner and a placed horse can still bring back much less than the £30 a £1 each way slip costs. You'll find more slips worked through on our each way page.
Each way on the same four horses, worked out
On the same four horses, a £1 each way Lucky 15 costs £30, and with places paid at a quarter of the odds you get £8.88 back if the 2/1 horse wins, the 3/1 horse places without winning and the other two lose. If all 4 win, it pays £905.03. With one 4/1 winner at William Hill, the boost applies just to the win part, so you get £11.00 of your £30 back.
Rule 4, dead heats and horses that don't run
Rule 4 is a deduction from winnings when a horse is withdrawn from a race at the last minute. With one horse gone, the others had a better chance than their odds said, so the bookmaker takes a little back from the winners. It is worked out in pence for each pound won. The cut can be small or large, and it applies to every bet on your slip that includes that horse. Our Rule 4 page has more examples.
A dead heat is when 2 or more horses finish exactly together. When 2 horses dead heat, you get about half of what a clear win would pay. Our dead heat page covers more cases.
If one horse doesn't run, you still pay £15 for the slip. You get back the £1 on that horse's own single, and the bets that joined it with other horses carry on with the horses that did run. Our one winner page lists what 1, 2 or all winners pay.
Rule 4, dead heat and non-runner examples, worked out
Take a 25p cut on a £1 winner priced at 4/1: the winnings fall from £4.00 to £3.00, so that single pays £4.00 rather than £5.00. The cut also runs into every double and treble containing that horse. On the slip with 2/1 and 3/1 winners, a 25p Rule 4 on that 3/1 winner cuts what comes back from £19.00 to £16.00.
When 2 horses dead heat, you get about half of what a clear win would pay, so a £1 single on a 4/1 horse gives back £2.50 instead of £5.00. On that same slip, a dead heat in the 3/1 horse brings the return down to £11.00.
Its single returns the £1, and every bet containing it is settled on the remaining horses, which turns a fourfold into a treble. If the 2/1, 3/1 and 4/1 horses win and the fourth is a non-runner, you get £239.00 back.
Staying in control of your betting
A Lucky 15 can lose everything you put on, so only stake money you can afford to lose. If it ever stops feeling manageable, you can talk to someone at GamCare's National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133. The call is free and private.