Free tool
Round Robin Calculator
Three selections, ten bets — including the six up-and-down pairs that make this bet awkward to work out by hand. Enter your odds and results and see exactly where the returns come from.
Ten bets, and six of them are unusual
A Round Robin is three selections in ten bets: three doubles, one treble, and three up-and-down pairs. The first four are an ordinary Trixie. The last six are what make this bet different, and what most calculators get vague about.
An up-and-down pair is two single stakes about bets on the same two selections. Take horses A and B. The first bet stakes your unit on A; if A wins, one unit of the returns is automatically staked on B. The second bet does the same thing in reverse, starting with B. Three pairs of selections, two bets each, gives you six. Add the Trixie’s four and you have ten, so a £1 Round Robin costs £10.
Why the up-and-down part matters
Those six bets are the reason a Round Robin pays out when a Trixie would not. With a Trixie, two winners out of three still needs the right two — and one winner returns nothing at all. The up-and-down pairs mean a single winner produces a return, because the first leg of each pair is effectively a single on that selection with the stake carried forward.
The trade-off is cost. Ten bets against a Trixie’s four means you are staking two and a half times as much to cover the same three selections.
Worked example
Three selections at decimal odds of 2.50, 3.00 and 4.00, £1 per bet, so £10 staked.
- All three win: £91.50 back — £81.50 profit.
- Two win (the 2.50 and the 3.00): £20 back, a £10 profit. The same two winners on a £4 Trixie would return £7.50.
- One wins (the 2.50): £3 back. You lose £7, but a Trixie would have returned nothing at all.
That middle line is the case for the bet, and the bottom line is the case against it. You pay 150% more than a Trixie for cover that only pays properly when at least two selections win.
Non-runners and each way
Mark a selection void and it settles at odds of 1.00. In an up-and-down pair that means the stake simply carries forward to the second leg, which is exactly how a bookmaker treats it. Switch on each way and all ten bets double, giving twenty in total at twice the cost.
Round Robins spread the bookmaker’s margin across ten bets rather than reducing it. Wider cover is not better value. 18+ only. Please gamble responsibly.
Cover without the cost
A Round Robin buys cover by placing more bets. Matched betting gets it by laying the same selection on an exchange, so the outcome is locked whichever way the race goes.
