Tag Archive for: Trifecta versus tricast

A Comparison of Trifecta and Tricast Payouts in Horse Racing: Part Two

/in /by

This is the second article in which I have compared two exotic bets - the tricast and the trifecta, writes Dave Renham. The trifecta was the better option in the first piece, which you can read here, considering all qualifying races. It paid out more than the tricast in roughly eight out of every ten races. In this follow up, I will share some more of my findings.

 

The data was taken from UK and Irish turf flat handicap races run in 2023, in which there were between 10 and 14 runners. As I mentioned last time, this amounts to just over 1000 races, and I have excluded any race where there was a dead heat in one of the first three positions as the payouts get split. I have also excluded races where there was no trifecta payout. This happens occasionally when the pool size is small, and the first three horses home were unfancied/decent prices.

The first piece examined general comparisons and then delved into individual course data. In this piece, I will revisit some course data and examine some Starting Price data.

 

Trifectas at Specific Racecourses

In the first article, I compared average course payouts for trifecta and tricast and how often the trifecta ‘beat’ the tricast in percentage terms. Here, I want to share some findings regarding how frequently one of the bets paid at least twice as much as the other.

Looking at all 1011 qualifying races, the trifecta paid at least double the tricast on 145 occasions, and the tricast paid at least double on only 20 occasions. Hence, 14.3% of all races saw a trifecta payout of at least double the tricast (2% of races for tricast at least double the trifecta). Below is an individual course breakdown showing the percentage of races where the trifecta paid at least twice the tricast dividend. They are listed with the biggest percentages at the top.

 

 

The top three are all Irish courses, which is interesting. The Curragh tops the list, with the trifecta being twice or bigger than the tricast in roughly three out of every ten races. For those who remember some stats from the first article, the Curragh had the highest percentage differential when comparing average payouts. Hence, seeing the course also tops this list is no real surprise.

Chester lies at the bottom of the table, and I wonder whether this is due to the well-known low draw bias, especially over shorter distances. I can imagine, for example, that horses drawn 1 and 2 would appear in punters’ trifecta bets more often than at most other courses. Therefore, with the trifecta bet being a pool bet, if either or both draws 1 or 2 finish in the first three, the returns will be lower because of the extra money placed on these draws. I cannot categorically prove this, but that is my theory.

While discussing draw bias, the draw can also affect the computer-generated calculation on tricast payouts when three horses drawn close together finish in the first three. I am unsure how the deduction is calculated, but a serious one can occur. Let me give you an example of such a situation. The 2022 Victoria Cup had the following result:

 

 

The first three finishers came from the three highest draws. Usually, with prices of 16/1, 22/1, and 25/1, I would estimate that the tricast would pay around £8700 to £9300. However, on this occasion, the tricast paid just £4377. This is a clear example of where a draw-biased race sees a much lower return.

I tried to find another big field handicap where the prices of the first three were the same, and there was no draw bias in play. The closest I could find was the result of the Ebor handicap at York in 2019.

 

 

Hence, the 1st and the 3rd prices were the same in both races, but the second was three points bigger at 25/1. The tricast, on this occasion, paid £9605. Given the slightly higher price for the second-placed runner, I would estimate the payout may be bigger by a few hundred quid. However, the York payout was over £5000 higher than the Ascot one, which helps demonstrate that draw bias tricasts can be severely compromised.

 

Impact of odds of horses in the first three

I would now like to share my findings related to the prices of the runners within the first three finishing spots. I will start by looking at the winner's price and see what effect that had on which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

As the first line of the table highlights, when the winner was a short price, 2/1 or less, the trifecta win percentage dropped somewhat. The first article noted that the trifecta outperforms the tricast just over 80% of the time but drops to just over 70% here. However, the reverse was true when an outsider took the first spot with winners priced between 20/1 and 28/1, with the trifecta prevailing 85.4% of the time, and winners priced 33/1+ seeing that figure rise to 89.5%.

These figures suggest that trifecta bettors overbet short-priced runners, at least when placing them in first position in their 1-2-3 bet. In contrast, bigger-priced horses are underplayed in terms of being placed in the first position of trifecta bets. Placing runners priced 2/1 or shorter in the first position of your trifecta bet will yield more winning bets, but one could argue that the better value lies with bigger-priced runners placed in that first spot.

Now I will try a similar idea, investigating what percentage of races saw the trifecta beat the tricast based this time on the prices of the second-placed horses. The graph below shows the percentage of the races where the trifecta came out on top:

 

 

The graph illustrates that, in general terms, the trifecta’s edge over the tricast drops as the price of the second-placed runner increases. The two have no perfect correlation, but the trend is clearly downward.

These figures suggest that putting shorter-priced runners in the second spot in the trifecta is a good idea. This time, bigger-priced runners (20/1 plus) finishing second are not so ‘trifecta friendly’.

Time to share this type of data for horses that finished third:

 

 

We see a similar pattern to the second-placed results. Shorter prices in the third spot considerably improve the chances of the trifecta payout exceeding the tricast one. In contrast, horses finishing third and priced 20/1 or bigger see the trifecta edging closer to parity with the tricast.

The ‘price’ findings across all three finishing positions suggest that trifecta bettors can improve their chances even further of getting the bigger payout between the two 1-2-3 bets by considering prices in conjunction with the finishing position. Therefore, one would surmise that trifecta bettors could potentially increase their returns as well if adopting such considerations.

Of course, instead of a single-position price analysis, we should look at combinations of prices for the first three finishing positions. I have started to do this, but even using the price brackets from earlier, there are far too many potential combinations to crunch and analyse. Also, many such combinations would have occurred very rarely over these 1011 races, and hence, those findings would not be statistically significant. Consequently, I have looked at a few more ‘general’ cases.

 

General Case Studies

Case 1 – The top three finishers are all priced 11/2 or shorter

This scenario occurred in 60 races, so it has a good sample size. Here are the percentage splits for which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

A resounding success for the trifecta was when all three runners were at or near the head of the market. Now, a look at the average payouts of the two bets when these prices occurred:

 

 

On average, the trifecta has paid £37 more than the tricast, which equates to a 50% edge. Therefore, when the prices of the runners in your proposed 1-2-3 bet are within these parameters, you should use the trifecta.

 

Case 2 – The top three finishers are all priced 17/2 or bigger

This time, the prices of all three finishers are much higher. Indeed, 97% of all horses priced 17/2 or bigger from these races were outside the top four of the betting. Hence, this is quite an unusual occurrence and as a result we have only 28 qualifying races. So, this is a smallish sample, but let’s see what the stats say, starting with the percentage splits for which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

We see quite a different picture compared with the 11/2 or shorter results. The tricast came out on top more, albeit the difference equated to just one race (14 ‘wins’ to 13).

Onto the average payouts now:

 

 

A second win for the tricast averaging £377 more, giving the tricast close to a 13% edge per bet (on average).

However, I must share some extra information as two tricast payouts in this subset were unusually high. The first, at Newbury, saw the tricast pay £11,662, and the second, at Windsor, paid £16,900. The trifecta payouts, in comparison, were much lower - £6373 at Newbury and £5547 at Windsor. Taking those payouts away, the remaining 26 races where the first three were all priced 17/2 or bigger provided the following average payouts:

 

 

We are back to the usual picture painted in these two articles, where the trifecta averaged more than the tricast.

Ultimately, my two takeaways from races where the first three home were all priced 17/2 or bigger are:

a) trifecta payouts fluctuate much more, and b) the bigger the tricast, the more chance the tricast has of returning more than the trifecta.

The draw seems luckier for trifecta bettors within these price parameters. I guess smaller pool sizes may play a part in this, but I have not investigated this yet, so I cannot say for certain.

 

Case 3 – Top three finishers priced between 5/1 to 10/1

Ideally, I wanted to use prices that I hadn’t used in the previous two ‘case’ examples, but if I had used ‘the missing’ price bracket of 6/1 to 8/1 for all the top three finishers, there would have only been four qualifying races. Hence, I have extended the price boundaries on each side to give us a more ‘middling’ group of prices compared to the first two. That gave us a decent sample of 62 races. Once again, I will start with the percentage splits for which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

This price spread amongst the first three horses has again favoured the trifecta. Now to the average payouts:

 

 

The trifecta has a significant edge here regarding average payouts, averaging £171 more per race than the tricast. This equates to 44%.

I have one additional stat that hopefully will be of interest. Focusing on this subset of results, 17 of them were run at Grade 1 courses (Ascot, Doncaster, Epsom, Goodwood, Newbury, Newmarket, Sandown, York), and the trifecta paid higher in 16 of the 17 (94%). At the same time, other races saw the same payouts (to the nearest £). I appreciate that this is a small sample but a worthwhile ‘share’.

**

 

Summary

Both articles contain quite a lot of data to digest but I hope they have helped those of you who dabble in these exotic bets to maximise your chances of getting better long-term returns than you may have previously.

Of course, not many of us will achieve long-term financial success from these bets. The edge the bookmakers or the Tote have to begin with puts punters at a significant disadvantage. However, these findingd should assist in taking a big chunk out of their advantage if nothing else.

From a personal perspective, when I have some time, I plan to dig further into combinations of prices for the first three finishers, as I feel I have only scratched the surface. I also plan to revisit the whole trifecta/tricast area from an article-writing perspective, as I would like to examine standalone National Hunt data and possibly all-weather data, too.

-DR



Try Tix for Better Tote Returns

A Comparison of Trifecta and Tricast Payouts in Horse Racing

/in /by

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.

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.

 

 

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



Try Tix for Better Tote Returns