Patent, Heinz, Canadian and Goliath Bets: Full Cover Bets Explained

A full cover bet takes a handful of selections and places every possible multiple between them as a separate bet: all the doubles, all the trebles and so on up to one accumulator (acca) on everything. Some versions add the singles. The names (Trixie, Patent, Yankee, Canadian, Heinz, Goliath) sound random, but they follow one rule, and once you know it you can work out the bets and the total stake for any of them.

Below are the bet counts with and without singles, what each-way does to the stake, worked examples with a loser and a non-runner, and why the margin grows with the size of the bet. To settle a specific slip, the Lucky 15 calculator handles three to eight selections, from a Trixie or Patent up to a Goliath, win only or each-way, with each selection set to won, placed, lost or void.

Full cover bets at a glance

The stake you type is the stake per bet (per line), so the cost is the number of bets times that stake. Here is every common full cover bet with the cost at £1 per line:

• Trixie: 3 selections, 4 bets (3 doubles, 1 treble). £4 win only, £8 each-way.
• Patent: 3 selections, 7 bets (3 singles, 3 doubles, 1 treble). £7, or £14 each-way.
• Yankee: 4 selections, 11 bets (6 doubles, 4 trebles, 1 fourfold). £11, or £22 each-way.
• Lucky 15: 4 selections, 15 bets (the Yankee plus 4 singles). £15, or £30 each-way.
• Canadian or Super Yankee: 5 selections, 26 bets (10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 fourfolds, 1 fivefold). £26, or £52 each-way.
• Lucky 31: 5 selections, 31 bets (the Canadian plus 5 singles). £31, or £62 each-way.
• Heinz: 6 selections, 57 bets (15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 fourfolds, 6 fivefolds, 1 sixfold). £57, or £114 each-way.
• Lucky 63: 6 selections, 63 bets (the Heinz plus 6 singles). £63, or £126 each-way.
• Super Heinz: 7 selections, 120 bets (doubles up to the sevenfold). £120, or £240 each-way.
• Goliath: 8 selections, 247 bets (doubles up to the eightfold). £247, or £494 each-way.

The Trixie, Yankee, Canadian, Heinz, Super Heinz and Goliath are doubles and upwards only. The Patent, Lucky 15, Lucky 31 and Lucky 63 add the singles. Seven or eight selections with singles (127 and 255 bets) have no widely used name.

How the number of bets is worked out

Every line is a combination: a group of selections where order does not matter. The number of ways to pick k selections from n is C(n, k) = n! ÷ (k! × (n − k)!). For five selections, the doubles are C(5, 2) = 10, the trebles C(5, 3) = 10, the fourfolds C(5, 4) = 5 and the fivefold C(5, 5) = 1. Add them up and you get the 26 bets of a Canadian.

The shortcut: each selection is either in a line or not, so n selections give 2^n groups. Remove the empty group for the total with singles, 2^n − 1. Remove the n singles too for doubles and up, 2^n − n − 1. For six selections that is 64 − 1 = 63 (a Lucky 63) or 64 − 6 − 1 = 57 (a Heinz). For eight it is 256 − 8 − 1 = 247, the Goliath.

The selections must be in separate events, since each line is settled as its own accumulator.

Each-way doubles the bets and the stake

Tick each-way and every line becomes two: one bet on the win and one on the place, both at the same stake. A £1 each-way Patent is 14 bets for £14, and a £1 each-way Goliath is 494 bets for £494. Place lines use the place odds, often 1/4 or 1/5 of the win price depending on the bookmaker and the race, and a winner also counts as placed. The each-way bets guide explains place terms in detail.

Example: a £1 each-way Patent at 1/4 odds: A at 2/1 wins, B at 5/2 finishes second, C at 4/1 loses. On the win side only single A pays, £3. On the place side A pays at 1/2 (1.50), B at 5/8 (1.625), and the AB double at 1.50 × 1.625 = £2.4375, so the place lines return £5.5625 in all. The bet returns £8.56 for £14 staked.

Trixie and Patent bets: three selections

A Trixie is the four multiples on three selections: three doubles and a treble. It needs at least two winners to return anything. A Patent bet is the Trixie plus the three singles, seven bets in all, so a single winner gets something back. At £1 per line it costs £7.

With one winner, only that single pays. It covers the whole £7 only if it wins at 6/1 (7.00) or longer; at exactly 6/1 you get your money back and no more.

Worked example: a £1 Patent with one loser

Three horses at 2/1, 5/2 and 4/1. In decimal odds those are 3.00, 3.50 and 5.00 (add one to the fraction). If you need help with the conversions, see how betting odds work.

If all three win, the Patent returns:

• Singles: £3.00 + £3.50 + £5.00 = £11.50.
• Doubles: 3.00 × 3.50 = £10.50, 3.00 × 5.00 = £15.00, 3.50 × 5.00 = £17.50, so £43.00.
• Treble: 3.00 × 3.50 × 5.00 = £52.50.

That is £107 back for £7, a profit of £100.

Now say the 4/1 horse loses. Every line containing it returns nothing, which removes one single, two doubles and the treble. What is left is the 2/1 and 5/2 singles (£6.50) and their double (£10.50), so the return is £17 and the profit £10. A £1 Trixie on the same results would return only the £10.50 double for a £4 stake.

Yankee, Canadian and the Lucky 31

A Yankee covers four selections with 11 multiples, and a Lucky 15 adds four singles. Both are covered line by line in our Lucky 15 guide, so this section concentrates on five selections.

A Canadian bet, also sold as a Super Yankee, is 26 bets on five selections: ten doubles, ten trebles, five fourfolds and one fivefold. Add the five singles and it becomes a Lucky 31. A £1 Canadian costs £26 and a £1 Lucky 31 £31, before each-way.

Worked example: a Canadian with a non-runner

A £1 Canadian (£26) on five horses: A at 3/1 (4.00), B at 5/2 (3.50), C at 2/1 (3.00), D at 7/2 (4.50) and E at 6/1 (7.00). A, B and C win, D loses and E is a non-runner.

A non-runner is treated as void and stays in its lines at odds of 1.00, so a double containing E pays like a single on the other horse. D lost, so the 15 lines that include D return nothing. The 11 lines left are:

• Without E: AB £14, AC £12, BC £10.50 and the treble ABC £42, so £78.50.
• With E at 1.00: AE £4, BE £3.50, CE £3, ABE £14, ACE £12, BCE £10.50 and ABCE £42, so £89.

The Canadian returns £167.50 for £26, a profit of £141.50. Had E run and lost, only the first group would pay and the return would be £78.50. A void leg keeps alive every line it sits in, which a loser does not.

If a well-fancied horse is withdrawn late, the bookmaker may apply a Rule 4 deduction to the other winners, which would cut these figures, and non-runner rules can differ between bookmakers. The horse racing betting guide explains Rule 4.

Consolation and bonus offers on Lucky bets

Many bookmakers add extras to the Lucky 15, Lucky 31 and Lucky 63, because those bets include singles. Typical offers are boosted odds on a single winner when the other selections all lose, or a percentage bonus on the return when every selection wins. These are promotions, not part of the bet type, so the size of the boost, which bets qualify and whether each-way counts vary by bookmaker. Work out the bet without the bonus first and treat any extra as just that.

Heinz, Super Heinz and Goliath bets

A Heinz bet is 57 bets on six selections, every combination from the 15 doubles to the sixfold. The name comes from the 57 varieties slogan of the food company. A Super Heinz adds a seventh selection for 120 bets, and a Goliath bet uses eight selections for 247 bets. None of them includes singles, so all three need at least two winners to return anything, and in practice they need several.

Worked example: a Heinz in decimal odds

Take a £1 Heinz (£57) on six football (soccer) results, each priced at 2.00, which is evens or +100 in American odds. Only the lines made up entirely of winners pay, and each line pays 2.00 to the power of its size.

• Two winners: one double, £4.
• Three winners: three doubles at £4 and one treble at £8, £20.
• Four winners: six doubles, four trebles and a fourfold at £16, £72.
• Five winners: £232.
• Six winners: £716.

So at evens a Heinz loses money with three winners out of six and needs four to show a profit of £15.

How many winners a Goliath needs

The Goliath works the same way on a larger scale. With eight horses at 3/1 (4.00) and £1 per line, the stake is £247. Two winners return £16, three return £112 and four return £608. Five winners return £3,104. On an ordinary day, with two or three winners at average prices, it returns well under the stake.

Watch the cost too: a 10p Goliath is £24.70, and 10p each-way is £49.40.

Why the margin compounds in full cover bets

Every price includes the bookmaker's margin. Suppose each selection returns 90p per £1 on average once that margin is taken out. A single keeps that 90p. A double pays the margin twice, so it keeps 0.90 × 0.90 = 81p, a treble about 73p, a fourfold about 66p, a sixfold about 53p and an eightfold about 43p. The parlay and acca guide walks through the same effect for a straight accumulator.

A full cover bet is a bundle of these multiples, weighted towards the middle sizes. Averaged across all the lines, a Patent keeps about 84p per £1 staked, a Trixie about 79p, a Canadian about 74p, a Heinz about 71p and a Goliath about 65p. Adding singles nudges the average back up a little.

If you consistently find prices better than the true chance, the same multiplication works for you, but very few bettors manage that across six or eight selections.

Full cover bets or singles

Full cover bets make sense when you have several selections you rate at decent prices, usually 2/1 or longer, and want a large return if most land without staking everything on one accumulator. Horse racing suits them because each-way cover keeps placed horses in the bet. In the US the same idea is sold as a round robin, where you choose the parlay sizes yourself, and the round robin calculator works it out in those terms.

They make less sense with short prices. At odds-on or around evens, the doubles and trebles are too small to carry dozens of stakes, as the Heinz example shows. And if you simply like five horses and have no reason to combine them, five singles at the same total cost carry far less margin. A £26 Canadian could just as easily be five singles at £5.20 each.

Size the total outlay, not the line stake, against your normal staking plan. The bankroll management guide covers how to set a unit size.

Before you place a full cover bet

A quick routine before you confirm the slip:

• Multiply the line stake by the number of bets, and double it if the bet is each-way.
• Work out what one, two and three winners would return, not just the all-winners figure.
• Check the place terms for each event if you are betting each-way, since they can differ across your selections.
• Read your bookmaker's rules on non-runners, Rule 4 and any Lucky bonus.
• Keep every selection in a separate event.

Betting laws differ between countries, so check what applies where you live and use a licensed bookmaker. Dozens of small stakes can make the outlay feel smaller than it is; if betting stops being fun, the responsible gambling page lists where to get help.