Betting permutations – The ins and outs

The bets have an interesting balance; the desire to win consistently and the desire to win big and these two options are not always easy to do together. The higher the odds, the lower the probability of success. However, there is one option you can use to keep the stakes small, the success rates high, and still retain the chance of a big win: permutations. Within betting, permutations generally mean the different variation that offers a solution to a problem. Let me give you an example that should hopefully make it a bit easier to understand.

Today in Epsom there is a three-horse race. The horses are called “A”, “B” and “C”. Obviously they will come home in first, second and third place and you will want to put a tricast in the race. This means that you are going to predict the first three horses in order. In how many different orders can the horses come?

Well, let’s see, they could end up in these orders:

ABC

BCA

CAB

CBA

bac

CBA

This means that there are 6 permutations of three three-horse finishing orders. So what difference does that make for us gamers?

Well, it’s fair to say that I’m a strong supporter of straight individual betting. The problem with this is that the returns are rarely spectacular. Of course, the best way to improve them is to make multiple bets in an accumulator, but the more results you link, the lower the chance of hitting. This is where the permutations come in: if we had bet on all the above options, we would have guaranteed to have the tricast for the race covering all possible solutions. Sounds great, huh? Well, it is and it isn’t. The fact that bookmakers allow you to place these permutations on yourself should be proof enough that they don’t see them as a risk. The main reason for this is that as multiple bets increase, the number of permutations also increases, making the cost of backing them higher than the potential reward. Let’s look at 3.15 today at Wolverhampton, there are 11 runners with odds ranging from 2-1 to 33-1. If we were to cover all possible combinations of three knights finishing in order, we would have to cover 990 different combinations. This would leave us in a rather precarious position. If we had bet €1 on each permutation it would cost us €990 and if the three favorites came out first, second and third we would receive €175.50. That’s a huge return on a £1 stake but pretty awful compared to a £990 outlay.

Of course, we could get lucky and the three furthest behind in the betting could come in and we’d get £9282 back, but it’s a difficult risk to take in and not one I’d strongly recommend, after all favorites are favorites for a reason. . For his reference, the actual tricast returned £760.50.

So how can permutations be useful in betting? How can they be adjusted to make a usable solution?

Well, the first thing you need to do is decide what you’re going to use the permutations for. Personally, I only use permutations of the order of arrival in Greyhounds: with only six runners, the final numbers are not too high.

The other permutations could be the results of a contest. Let’s say, for example, that you have 5 football matches and you are sure that the result will be a home win or a draw. You could cover all the possibilities to make sure you have a winning accumulator as long as there is no away game. win

If your bet was the following:

Tottenham draw or win

Dagenham draw or win

Liverpool draw or win

draw or win manchester united

Stoke draw or win

So there would be 32 possible different accumulators. This is easy to solve, just take the number of possibilities in each contest and multiply it by the number in the next contest and so on. In this case we are covering options, home win and tie, so it would be 2x2x2x2x2 giving us a total of 32. The rule of thumb is that you must have odds on each outcome higher than the number of variations. In this case, there are two options in each match, so the odds must be higher than even.

If you decided to do a three-horse combo race by choosing three horses in each race, there would be 27 different variations: 3 x 3 x 3.

each combination

You can of course cover all the different bets that make up within a selection. This means that if you choose 4 different events, you could cover the four solutions accumulator, the four different ways to get three correct out of four, the 6 possible ways to get 2 correct out of four, and the 4 possible simple ones out of four. . This exact bet is also generally known as a Lucky 15 and is a very common bet among horse racing bettors. Well, technically you could pick two horses from each race and then write down the lucky 15 to cover all the possibilities.

The most common format for winning permutations is still TOTE betting. The scoop 6 bet, for example, asks you to pick the winner of 6 specific races for a small fee. If we choose 2 horses in each race instead of 1, we would pay 64 times (2x2x2x2x2x2) that small fee. Some people will only have one pick in a couple of races they feel very confident in, allowing them to pick multiple fantasies in other races without raising the overall bet.

So what’s the last word? Pot permutations can be used to increase the amount of winnings, and more specifically the chances of winning, but they should be used sparingly as part of your arsenal and not on all bets. Experiment with them, try different things and try to find the right balance between covering all the possibilities and the cost of doing it. Always remember the golden rule that if you are going to include a selection, the odds offered must be greater than the number of selections you have in that event.