20.06.2023, Royal Ascot, Bradsell with Hollie Doyle up wins the King s Stand Stakes at Ascot racecourse, GB. Photo GALOPPFOTO/Racingfotos.com

A Comparison of Trifecta and Tricast Payouts in Horse Racing

In two back-to-back articles, I will examine the ‘battle’ between two exotic bets - the tricast and the trifecta, writes David Renham. These bets are incredibly difficult to win because you must correctly predict the first, second, and third horses home in a specific race. We all know that finding the winner can sometimes be a challenge, let alone the first three!

Introduction

Some punters are lured towards these bets because of the substantial potential gains if you are successful. For example, as I’m writing this piece, the Victoria Cup at Ascot has just finished, with the tricast paying £3,127.09 and the trifecta £7,636.50. I must admit I dabbled myself in this race on the trifecta and felt slightly hard done by as I had the first and second but not the third. To make it worse, the fourth and the fifth horses homes were part of my third-place combinations. I cannot complain, though, as my biggest ever winning bet came from a huge tricast payout, albeit 20 years ago.

As far as punters are concerned, the key difference between the two bets is how winnings are calculated. The tricast is a bookmaker bet, where the returns are computed and generated, giving the bookmaker a healthy margin, whereas the trifecta is a Tote pool bet. The Tote takes 25% of the trifecta pool in the UK and 30% in Ireland. Hence, as punters, you are up against it from the outset with a big overround in favour of both bookies and the Tote.

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So which bet is best? Well, for this piece, I will compare handicap races with 10 to 14 runners. The data will be taken from turf flat races in the UK and Ireland during the 2023 season. This amounts to just over 1000 races (1011, to be precise), so it's a decent enough sample. For the record, I have excluded any race where there was a dead heat in one of the first three positions as the payouts get split, and it gets a bit ‘messy’. There were only six such races. I have also excluded races where there was no trifecta payout. This happens occasionally when the pool size is small, and/or the first three to finish were unfancied/decent prices.

 

General comparisons

Average dividend

My first port of call is to examine the average payouts for both bets in these 1000+ races. Here are the splits:

 

 

Frequency of higher dividend

As we can see, the trifecta has a much higher average payout, equating to an edge of around 26%. Digging into the numbers a little more, when the trifecta outperformed the tricast, the payout averaged out at 59% bigger; when the tricast was higher, the payout averaged 52% bigger. Let me now compare race by race in terms of which came out on top with the bigger return/payout more often:

 

 

Average dividend: UK vs Ireland

Four out of every five races saw the trifecta produce a higher return than the tricast. Regarding the ‘same’ return, I included any scenario where the returns were the same when rounded to the nearest pound.

I mentioned earlier that Irish races see a 5% extra deduction in the pool, so one would expect the UK results to outperform the Irish ones as far as the trifecta is concerned. Let’s see how this plays out in real terms, firstly looking at average trifecta payouts:

 

 

UK payouts, on average, are £153 higher, which equates to just over 24%. This is a significant difference – perhaps bigger than you may have expected, given the 5% difference in pool reduction.

Dividend Distribution

It is time to look at the payouts for the tricast and trifecta in more detail. I want to start this part by splitting the number of payouts into ten equal groups from £1 to £1000. Hence, I have totalled up the number of times the tricast paid between £1 and £100, £101 and £200, £201 and 300, and so on. Likewise, I have done the same for the trifecta. Below is a line graph showing the comparison:

 

 

The graph shows that more tricasts than trifectas were paid out when the returns were smaller (£400 or less). The reverse has happened when the payouts have been bigger than £400. Of course, this is to be expected given the average figures we saw at the beginning.

On to looking at payouts of over £1000 up to £3500 – this time, they have been grouped in batches of £250:

 

 

Regarding the payouts between £1001 and £1500, the trifecta wins hands down. It becomes more even after that but overall, the trifecta edges it slightly.

Finally, let me compare the number of payouts when the dividend paid more than £3500 – this time, it will be a straight comparison in terms of the number of times it occurred for each:

 

 

As can be seen, most of the biggest payouts came from the trifecta. However, the two biggest payouts came from the tricast - £11662 and £16900 respectively.

At this juncture, the trifecta looks the better value overall, and by some margin. However, there is plenty more digging to do and research to share.

 

Field size impact on dividend

What difference has the number of runners made to the payouts? Let me compare the average payouts for both tricast and trifecta for each field size:

 

 

Both graphs are generally on an upward trajectory as you would expect. Comparing the two, the trifecta edge over the tricast strengthens as the field size increases. In races of 12 to 14 runners, the trifecta has had an edge over the tricast of 25%+. This edge remains significant in 10 and 11-runner races but drops to around 14%.

 

Course Comparison

For the last part of this first article, I will look at how the tricast and trifecta played out in different courses. I have included courses with 15 or more qualifying races in 2023 as that gives us a decent enough sample size. First, let me compare course by course,  which of the two bets came out on top more often ['Draw %' means the percentage of races where the tricast and trifecta paid the same, to the nearest pound]. Courses in red are Irish, and four courses had enough races to qualify – I have listed the courses in alphabetical order:

 

 

Of the 30 courses, 20 saw the trifecta producing the bigger payouts over 80% of the time. The top five 'trifecta performing courses’ in terms of this metric were Ayr (90.6%), Brighton (89.5%), Leicester (88.5%), Catterick (87.9%), and York (87.9%). Hence, more than nine races saw the trifecta beat the tricast at Ayr in every ten.

There were four courses where the percentage was below 70%, namely Leopardstown (69.6%), Beverley (65.8%), Ripon (65.0%), and Musselburgh (61.5%). So quite a difference between the highest, Ayr, and the lowest, Musselburgh. At this point in my research, I cannot easily find a reason for such a variance between the two; perhaps I’ll find out with more digging. The table shows the consistency of trifecta success over tricast.

The second set of course data to share are the average payouts for each. I have included a column showing the percentage difference between the averages. 28 of the 30 courses saw a higher average payout for the trifecta. The two where the tricast ‘won’ have been highlighted in bold.

 



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The Curragh has seen the most significant differential between the two – an 82% edge for the trifecta. I thought it would be interesting to share all the results from the Curragh, including the difference between the monetary and percentage payouts. The races highlighted in red are the ones where the trifecta paid more:

 

 

This is enlightening as it does highlight the occasional randomness of the trifecta. For example, the 3:20 on 13th August saw an unusually small trifecta payout; in contrast, the payout at 4:05 on 7th October saw the reverse, with a much bigger payout than one would expect, especially given the prices of 18/1, 11/2, and 4/1. Based on my research, I estimate that this type of price configuration would pay around £550-£650.

Let me now discuss Newbury and Windsor – the two courses where the tricast ‘prevailed’. I mentioned earlier that the most significant payouts over these 1011 races were tricasts - £11662 and £16900. As you probably can guess, one of these payouts came from Newbury and the other from Windsor.

There is quite a difference between some courses in terms of the averages. This will be influenced by the market position/prices of the first three homes. To give an illustration of this, I will compare Salisbury and Ascot in terms of the average price of the horses that finished in the first three:

 

 

The prices of the first three horses will strongly influence tricast/trifecta payouts, but having some actual numbers to back it up is good. It should be noted that there is more to it than just the average prices of the first three – the market rank of the horses can be significant, too; and, in the second piece, I will delve into that in some detail.

Summary

As far as the trifecta is concerned, the size of the pool is likely to play a role. Also, the 'make-up' of the punters who have put money into the pool probably influences things. What I mean by that is, ‘What proportion of the money placed in specific trifecta bets comes from savvy/regular trifecta punters compared with those that essentially are just trying their luck?’ I am guessing that at some big meetings, especially World Pool days, you will probably get a considerable proportion of racegoers who are not regular bettors compared to bog-standard meetings. Hence, some of these will probably have a dabble on the odd trifecta due to that lure of a big win for a small outlay. This is my hypothesis, and although it is impossible to pin down actual numbers/percentages of money placed by types of racegoers, I am wondering whether further research for article two may at least offer some clues.

Anyway, it is time for me to crunch more tricast/trifecta numbers. Until the follow-up...

- DR

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