In this special article, guest author Thomas Randall talks us through how you can make your lucky 15 bets even better!

Online bookmakers hate taking Lucky 15s and here is why.

The bet was actually withdrawn from betting shops many years ago only to be reinstated when customers left chains in droves to go to independents that still accommodated it.

So wait a minute, I can hear a few of you saying ‘what is a Lucky 15 bet’?

A Lucky15 is a series of bets that covers 4 selections (usually on horses). It consists of 4 singles, 6 doubles, 4 trebles and an accumulator, 15 bets in total, hence the name.

Ok, so what’s so great about that? The beauty of this bet is the way it is marketed by the bookmakers. Because 15 bets is a lot of cash to lay out (especially if they don’t all oblige, most bookmakers offer a consolation of double the odds for one winner only in your 4 selections and some like Betfred even offer treble odds).

Exploiting A Lucky 15 Bet To Your Advantage

There are many shrewd ways of exploiting these consolations in the Lucky 15 bet to your advantage as a punter with an online bookmaker.

The first way which is quite well known is to do the Lucky15 each-way with all the selections in races where the place terms are weighted in the punters favour.

For example, a Lucky 15 where all the selections are second favourites in non-handicap races of 8, 9 or 10 runners where the favourite is a very skinny price (6/4 or shorter). The shorter the price the favourite is in fact the more advantageous the place terms become for the punter in that type of event.

Place the bet as late as possible checking which horses are likely to go off second favourite by monitoring Betfair. Also, make sure none of your selections are non-runners because you will not get a consolation (double/treble odds one winner or placed selection) if one or more of the four selections fail to take their chance.

Another Way To Maximise Your Lucky 15 Returns

There is another way of using Lucky 15s that is pretty ingenious as well and it works on slips that pay double odds for a consolation as well as treble (but treble is much better). It goes like this…

When you pick your four selections out try to find one more horse as well but instead of doing a Lucky 31 (A Lucky31 is similar to a Lucky15 but with 5 selections consisting of 5 singles, 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 four-timers and an accumulator) do 5 Lucky 15s permed in the following way.

Ok, You have picked 5 horses A,B,C,D,E. Next take 5 Lucky15 slips and write them out the following way

Slip 1- 4 selections A,B,C,D that’s 15 bets

Slip 2- 4 selections A,B,C,E that’s 15 bets

Slip 3- 4 selections A,B,D,E that’s 15 bets

Slip 4- 4 selections A,C,D,E that’s 15 bets

Slip 5- 4 selections B,C,D,E that’s 15 bets

Ok, that is 75 bets so far.

Let us suppose we had done a £1 Lucky 31 instead. That is £31 total outlay obviously, and if only one selection wins which is probably the ‘average’ result for punters on a typical day then you get treble the odds for that selection. If your winner was only say 4/1 then you’d of got treble odds making it 12-1 and your return £13.

However you could instead divide your original outlay of £31 by 75 and have 5 lucky 15s with a unit stake of 41.333 pence permed in 5 slips.

Now look what happens if you only get one winner. The 5 slip permutation with one winner will have that one selection in four of the slips. For example, if A is your only winner it appears in slips 1,2,3 and 4.

If A was a 4-1 winner then if you got double the odds a winner in your Lucky 15 you would get back 41.333 pence at 8-1 on 4 slips or £14.88 which is more than £13 is it not?

If the shop you go in pays treble the odds (such as Betfred) then you would of received 41.333 pence at 12-1 on 4 slips and that is £21.49, which is getting towards double £13 is it not?

There you are ladies and gents all you need now are the right selections and you can start hammering those bookmakers!

Thomas Randall is a professional sports trader and betting consultant. For more information from Thomas on how to get the better of your bookie contact thomas.randall@hotmail.com