Patent Bet Calculator
Work out the returns on a Patent — seven bets across three selections: three singles, three doubles and a treble. Enter your unit stake and odds, mark each selection as won or lost, and see exactly what the bet pays.
A Patent is 7 bets, so your total outlay is 7 × unit stake.
Your Results
A lost selection knocks out its single, both of its doubles and the treble; the remaining bets settle as normal.
How a Patent Is Calculated
A Patent covers three selections with seven separate bets: three singles, three doubles and one treble. Because every combination is covered, a single winner still returns something — the main reason bettors choose a Patent over a Trixie, which drops the singles.
Here is a £1 Patent (£7.00 total outlay) on selections at decimal odds of 2.00, 3.00 and 4.00, with all three winning:
| Bet | Calculation | Returns |
|---|---|---|
| Single: Selection 1 | £1 × 2.00 | £2.00 |
| Single: Selection 2 | £1 × 3.00 | £3.00 |
| Single: Selection 3 | £1 × 4.00 | £4.00 |
| Double: Selections 1 + 2 | £1 × 2.00 × 3.00 | £6.00 |
| Double: Selections 1 + 3 | £1 × 2.00 × 4.00 | £8.00 |
| Double: Selections 2 + 3 | £1 × 3.00 × 4.00 | £12.00 |
| Treble: All three | £1 × 2.00 × 3.00 × 4.00 | £24.00 |
Total return: £59.00 from £7.00 staked — a profit of £52.00. If only the 4.00 selection had won, the bet would return £4.00 for a £3.00 loss; two winners at 2.00 and 4.00 would return £14.00 (two singles plus one double) for a £7.00 profit.
The odds you accept matter as much as picking winners. Before placing a Patent, it is worth checking how much edge the bookmaker has priced into each market with our Bookmaker Margin Calculator.
When the Singles Earn Their Keep
A Patent is a Trixie with the three singles added: seven lines instead of four, so 75% more outlay on exactly the same three selections. The useful question is not which bet wins more often — the Patent pays whenever the Trixie pays, and sometimes when it does not — but whether the singles are worth what they cost.
The price a Patent needs to get its money back
With all three selections at the same decimal price, a Patent returns its seven-unit outlay once the price clears the figure below. The whole column comes from one rule: a full-cover bet that includes the singles breaks even at 2^(n/k) − 1, where n is the number of selections and k the number of winners. The working, and the same table for every other bet in the family, is in our comparison of full-cover bets.
| Winners | Break-even price | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 of 3 | 7.00 (6/1) | A lone winner pays for the bet only at a real price. |
| 2 of 3 | 1.83 (about 5/6) | Two odds-on winners are already enough. |
| 3 of 3 | Any price | Three winners profit however short they are. |
Pound for pound against a Trixie
The fair comparison is equal money at risk, not equal unit stake. Below, £28.00 goes into each bet — £7.00 a line across the Trixie's four lines, £4.00 a line across the Patent's seven — with every selection at 3.00 (2/1), win-only, no consolation and no all-win bonus.
| Winners | Trixie profit | Patent profit |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | −£28.00 | −£28.00 |
| 1 | −£28.00 | −£16.00 |
| 2 | +£35.00 | +£32.00 |
| 3 | +£350.00 | +£224.00 |
Only the two-winner row changes hands with the price. Setting the two returns equal puts the crossover at 2.67 (5/3, between 13/8 and 7/4): below it the Patent is ahead even with two winners, above it the Trixie. The one-winner row belongs to the Patent at every price, and the three-winner row to the Trixie at every price. So the singles are not extra cover bolted on top of the same bet — they are money moved out of the outcomes where you were going to win anyway and into the ones where you were not.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Patent bet?
A Patent is seven bets across three selections: three singles, three doubles and one treble. A £1 unit stake therefore costs £7.00 in total. Every selection appears in four of the seven bets, so each winner contributes to several returns at once.
What is the difference between a Patent and a Trixie?
A Trixie uses the same three selections but only four bets — the three doubles and the treble — so it costs £4.00 per £1 unit instead of £7.00. The trade-off: with just one winner a Trixie returns nothing, while a Patent still pays the winning single.
How many winners do I need to make a profit on a Patent?
One winner only covers the £7.00 outlay if its decimal odds are above 7.00 — a £1 Patent with a single winner at 8.00 returns £8.00. At typical odds you need at least two winners: two at 2.00 and 4.00 return £14.00, doubling the outlay.
Is a Patent better than a Lucky 15?
They cover different numbers of selections: a Patent is 7 bets on three picks, a Lucky 15 is 15 bets on four, so a Lucky 15 costs more than twice as much at the same unit stake. If you have four selections, work the numbers with the Lucky 15 Calculator and compare.
Multiple bets like the Patent stake seven times your unit stake, so set that stake with your total outlay in mind. 18+. Please bet responsibly — see our responsible gambling resources.