Lucky 15 calculator (win and each way, Lucky 31 and 63, UK, October 2026)

The point of a Lucky 15: compound the value

Two ideas make a Lucky 15 worth building. Both are maths, and you can check both on this page:

1. Each way bets can be value. Bookies pay the place part of an each way bet as a fixed fraction of the win odds (1/4 or 1/5, for the first 2 to 4 places). The exchanges price what the market thinks each horse's chance of placing really is. When a red-hot favourite pushes the other horses' odds out, the bookie's formula and the exchange can disagree, and the bookie's place price can be the bigger one. Worked through below.
2. A Lucky 15 compounds whatever you put into it. A normal acca compounds the bookie's margin against you, which is why it's terrible value for the average punter. A Lucky 15 of +EV each way selections compounds your edge instead. The numbers are below.

Outright (win-only) Lucky 15s are rarely value, so the usual tickets are 50p each way (30 bets, £15) or £1 each way (£30). Those are buttons in the calculator. The catch comes with it: compounding multiplies the swings as well as the edge, so most tickets lose and the profit sits in rare big results.

What a Lucky 15 is, in plain English

Pick four horses in four different races. Call them 1, 2, 3 and 4. A Lucky 15 is every possible bet you can make on them:

The stake is per bet. A £1 Lucky 15 means £1 on each of the 15 bets, so it costs £15. A £2 Lucky 15 costs £30. Each way doubles the number of bets (more on that below), so £1 each way costs £30.

The rule that matters: a bet pays only if every horse in it wins. That's why it's called "lucky": you don't need all four to come in. One winner gives you a payout from the single on it. Two winners give you two singles and a double. And so on. The more that win, the more bets pay, and the returns snowball, because the winnings from doubles, trebles and the fourfold multiply the odds together.

Worked example: what a £1 Lucky 15 pays

Four horses at evens (2.0), 2/1 (3.0), 3/1 (4.0) and 4/1 (5.0), £1 a bet, no bonuses. Total stake £15. Here's what each possible result returns:

Check the all-four line by hand. Singles: 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = £14. Doubles: 6 + 8 + 10 + 12 + 15 + 20 = £71. Trebles: 24 + 30 + 40 + 60 = £154. Fourfold: 2 × 3 × 4 × 5 = £120. Total: 14 + 71 + 154 + 120 = £359.00. There's a shortcut. Multiply (1 + each winner's odds) together and take away 1: 3 × 4 × 5 × 6 − 1 = 359. The calculator uses the shortcut and it's tested against adding up all 15 bets one by one.

Notice the two things that matter. First, one winner at 2/1 loses £12.00: you stake £15 and get £3 back. Second, all four winning pays £344.00, which is why people keep buying the ticket. Almost all the profit lives in the rare results.

Why one winner usually isn't enough

With no bonus, a lone winner has to pay for the other 14 losing bets. A £1 Lucky 15 costs £15, and one winner returns only that horse's single, so its odds must be at least 15.0 decimal (14/1) to break even. That's an outsider. Most Lucky 15s with one winner lose money. It's the part nobody puts in the advert.

That's why bookmakers' one-winner concessions are worth reading: if the single is paid at double the odds, the same winner at 3.0 pays £5.00 instead of £3, and the break-even odds fall to 8.0 (7/1). It helps, and it still leaves you down on most one-winner results.

Lucky 15 bonuses: what's real and what isn't

Lucky 15 bonuses are the bookmaker's own concessions, not part of the bet. They differ by firm and they change. Here's what I found when I checked on 22 October 2026, from Racing Post's Lucky 15 betting sites guide (July 2026) and Fitzdares' published terms:

The small print matters as much as the headline:

• The all-winners bonus is a percentage of your winnings (return minus stake) on the win part. Nothing is paid on the place part of an each way bet.
• Concessions typically cover horse and greyhound racing on certain markets, not ante-post.
• A non-runner or void selection normally kills the bonus.
• Bonuses are not rules of racing or of the bet, so a firm can change or pull them.

You may see other "Lucky 15 bonus" ladders online, such as a rising percentage for one, two, three and four winners. I couldn't find that as a standard UK rule, so the calculator doesn't use it. It offers what the bookmakers above actually publish (lone-winner multiple and all-winners percentage), and it's off by default. Turn on only what your bookie offers. William Hill's and Paddy Power's current terms I haven't verified, so check them on your bet slip.

See what a bonus is worth: with a 10% all-winners bonus, the all-four result in the first example pays an extra £34.40 (10% of the £344.00 winnings) for a total of £393.40. The bonus is worth having, but you only get it when every horse wins: in the each way example further down that's about 1 in 17,490 tickets.

Why each way can be value

An each way bet is two bets on one horse: one to win, one to place (finish in the top 2, 3, 4 or more, depending on the race). The bookie pays the place part from a fixed rule: a fraction of the win odds, usually 1/4 or 1/5.

Place price = 1 + (win price − 1) × fraction

A 10/1 shot (11.0) at 1/4 odds a place pays 1 + 10 × 0.25 = 3.5 (5/2) for a place. The formula only looks at the horse's win price. It doesn't look at the race.

The exchange's To Be Placed market does look at the race. It's real money on who finishes in the places, so you can set the exchange's place price against the bookie's fractional one. When the bookie's price is bigger, that place part is worth more than it costs, and it only needs the horse to come 2nd, 3rd or 4th.

The red-hot favourite effect

Say a race has a red-hot favourite at 1.8 on the exchange (about 56% to win). The favourite soaks up win probability, so every other horse's win odds are pushed out: together the rest of the field has only about 44% of the win chance between them. The bookie still pays a fixed fraction of those longer odds for a place, so their place prices stretch with them.

And the places have to be filled. With four places there are 4 × 100% = 400% of "place chance" to hand out across the field. The favourite can take at most 100% of it. So the rest of the field must share at least 300%, while holding only about 44% of the win chance. On average, their chance of placing is at least 6.75 times their chance of winning.

Now compare the bookie's formula for the 10/1 shot. A place price of 3.5 only needs a 28.6% chance of placing to break even, which is 3.29 times the horse's 8.7% chance of winning. In a race like this, the exchange can price the place chance higher than that. That's the gap. An average hides the spread, though: some horses will be fairly priced or worse, and some will be value. The story explains why the gap can exist and the exchange price is the proof, so you check horse by horse.

Worked example (illustrative numbers, not a tip)

I made these numbers up to show the method. Real prices differ race to race.

The place part pays 3.5 against a fair 3.2: +9.4%. The win part is slightly worse than the exchange: −4.3%. An each way bet is both parts at equal stakes, so the win part is a cost the place part has to pay for, and the whole bet is worth +2.5%. That's small on one bet. The Lucky 15 is how it gets bigger. No commission appears in any of this, because nothing is laid: you back it and the exchange is only the price check.

Is this selection value? A free check

Enter the bookie's win odds and place terms, then the exchange's place price (and the exchange win price if you want the whole each way bet). It shows the place-part edge and the exchange place price at which it stops being value.

Three things before you trust a number from it:

• Same number of places. Use the exchange place market that pays the same places as the bookie's terms. Extra place offers change that, and are covered on the each way calculator.
• Exchange place markets can be thin. The back and lay prices can sit well apart. Using the lay price is the cautious choice. A one or two per cent edge is within the noise.
• It's an estimate. The exchange price is the market's opinion of the chance of placing, not the truth. A big edge is usually a mismatch (wrong places, stale price) before it's a gift.

Each way Lucky 15: 30 bets

An each way bet is two bets on a horse: one to win, one to place (finish in the top few). An each way Lucky 15 is the same 15 bets twice: 15 on the horses to win, and 15 on them to place. That's 30 bets, so £1 each way costs £30.

The place bets pay at a fraction of the win odds. Place odds = 1 + (win odds − 1) × the fraction. For the example below, with four horses at 8/1, 10/1, 6/1 and 12/1 (decimal 9, 11, 7, 13) and 1/4 odds a place, the place odds are 3.0, 3.5, 2.5, 4.0. A horse that wins has also placed, so it pays both parts.

Two things stand out. Nothing placing is the worst case, but it only costs you the £30.00 stake. And placing without winning is where each way bets quietly bleed: all four horses can finish in the places and you still lose, because the place bets don't cover the win bets that lost. Lucky 31s and Lucky 63s work the same way with 31 and 63 bets (62 and 126 each way).

The acca analogy: compound the margin, or compound the edge

+EV (positive expected value) means a bet is worth more than it costs on average. Any single bet can still lose.

An acca is the cleanest way to see compounding. The bookie's price on each leg is a bit worse than the true chance: that gap is his margin. Multiply four legs together and the margin multiplies too. If each leg is worth 95p for every £1 staked, the four-fold is worth 0.95 × 0.95 × 0.95 × 0.95 = £0.81, so it costs you 19p in the £ instead of 5p. That's why an acca is terrible value for the average punter.

The same maths works in the other direction. If each leg is worth £1.05 for every £1, four legs are worth £1.22, an edge of about +22% from a 5% edge per leg. A Lucky 15 is every acca on your four selections at once. Fill it with selections you have an edge on and the edge compounds. Fill it with ordinary bookie prices and the margin does. Four selections at 5.0, with the true chance a set percentage better or worse than the price:

Read the rows. At −5% (a 5% margin on every leg) the Lucky 15 loses 10.3% of what you stake. At +5% it makes 11.1%. The singles and doubles in a Lucky 15 compound less than the fourfold does, so the ticket's edge is smaller than the pure acca's, but those smaller bets are what keep it alive when only one or two horses come in.

It multiplies the variance too. Look at the last three columns. At fair prices the fourfold lands 1 in 625. Even with a 5% edge on every leg, the ticket makes any profit only 20% of the time and returns nothing 39% of the time. The edge is an average, carried by rare big results. That's what "+EV lottery ticket" means: a decent average and a painful lot of losing tickets.

The each way version, with the numbers from above

Four horses like the one in the worked example (10/1, 1/4 odds, 4 places, exchange win 11.5, exchange place 3.2), £1 each way, so 30 bets and £30 staked. The calculator's Load the page example button fills this in. The win part and place part are each a 15-bet Lucky 15 of their own:

A +2.5% edge on each each way bet became +6.2% on the ticket. The place part's +9.4% compounds to +21.5%, and the win part's −4.3% compounds to −9.0%, which the place part pays for. The same compounding goes against you when the edge is negative, as the table above shows.

The swing is the other half of the picture. A ticket loses everything when none of the four horses places, which is 22.3% of the time here (1 in 4.5). It makes any profit only 22.6% of the time (1 in 4.4). Place parts are why it isn't worse: a horse only has to finish in the places for the place bets to pay, and that's far likelier than winning.

What people actually stake: 50p or £1 each way

Outright Lucky 15s are rarely value. The win prices at the bookie carry a margin, and beating the exchange's win price on all four horses at once is unusual: in the example above the win part was −4.3% while the place part was +9.4%. When there is an edge, most of it sits in the place part, which means each way. So the usual tickets are each way Lucky 15s, staked small:

Stake	Bets	Total staked	Expected profit (page example)	Worst case
50p each way	30	£15.00	+£0.94	−£15.00
£1 each way	30	£30.00	+£1.87	−£30.00
£2 each way	30	£60.00	+£3.74	−£60.00

The calculator has 50p each way (£15) and £1 each way (£30) buttons that set an each way Lucky 15 straight away. Treat the total as what the ticket costs, the way you'd treat a lottery ticket, and size it so a run of losing tickets doesn't matter.

Lewis's Lucky 15 story

The whole point of a Lucky 15 is that you compound the value of a filthy each way. Each ways can be value because a red-hot favourite pushes the odds up of all the other horses, and the bookies still apply fractional terms. So we can compare the each way market on the exchanges to the fractional implied odds and see value, because a horse still has to come 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on.

In the same way an acca is terrible value for the average punter because the bookie compounds his margin, we compound value on an each way Lucky 15. Very rarely would an outright Lucky 15 be of value, so you'd find yourself doing 50p each way (£15) or £1 each way (£30).

I made almost £5k on one Lucky 15, and over £1,000 on several others. It's been called a +EV lottery ticket, and that's about right. It's far more volatile than regular matched betting. The big wins are rare by design, and what lets you keep going is the float: the money matched betting has already made, there to absorb the swings.

I'll tell you the other side too. One day I won £4k and that bookie closed my account. In the end I was gubbed by nearly every bookie, Bet365 included, and (weirdly, and by coincidence) so was my family. That's what pushed me towards shops and tools like Bookie Bashing.

The honest bit: most of the time, it loses

Take the page example again: four horses, £1 each way (£30 a ticket), and an expected profit of +£1.87 a ticket (+6.2%). It's a made-up edge, deliberately large enough to see. Here's what the average hides:

• 22.3% of tickets (1 in 4.5) return nothing at all.
• Only 22.6% of tickets (1 in 4.4) make any profit. About 77% lose money.
• Run 50 of them, and in the middle of 2,000 simulated runs you finish −£154.94. The bad end (1 run in 20) is −£762.12, the good end +£1,730.88, and 62% of runs finish down even though the average ticket is +EV.
• In a typical run the balance dips about £351.94 below where it started at its lowest, and in a bad-luck run £796.63. That's the cash you need to be able to see disappear and carry on.

Add the "double odds for a lone winner" and "10% for all four" bonuses and the same ticket is worth +£4.64 on average, and profits 22.6% of the time, with 52% of 50-ticket runs finishing down. Better, and still a ticket that loses most weeks.

Why matched betting builds the float

A +EV bet is only +EV if you keep playing through the bad runs. Stop at the bottom of a swing and you've turned a positive-expected-value method into a loss. What lets you carry on is a float: a bankroll that already exists and that you can afford to watch dip. Matched betting is where you build it. Sign-up offers and reloads are locked in with a lay at the exchange, so the outcome is known before the race. Keep those profits as your float, and a Lucky 15 is a small slice of money you can lose, not your rent.

That's the order: matched betting first, float second, +EV third. It's not a way to guarantee income and I won't call it one. It's a positive-expected-value bet with huge swings, only worth taking with money you can afford to lose.

How to use the Lucky 15 calculator

1. Check each selection is value first. Use the "Is this selection value?" check: bookie win odds and place terms against the exchange's place price for the same number of places.
2. Pick the bet and the type. Choose Lucky 15 (four selections), Lucky 31 (five) or Lucky 63 (six), then win only or each way.
3. Enter the stake. For each way, enter the stake per part: £1 each way is £2 on every line, £30 in all for a Lucky 15.
4. Enter each selection's bookie odds. Decimal (9), fractional (8/1) or "evens". For each way, set the place terms (1/4, 1/5 and so on) and the number of places from your bet slip.
5. Add fair odds if you have them. To see the expected value, enter the fair win odds (for example the Betfair Exchange price) and the fair place odds (the exchange To Be Placed price for the same number of places).
6. Add bookmaker bonuses only if they are real. Choose the lone-winner concession and the all-winners bonus your bookie actually offers, or leave both off.
7. Read the results. See the total stake, the best and worst case, the return for any result you pick, the chance of nothing back, and how repeated tickets play out.

Two shortcuts. Try a result lets you set each horse to Won, Placed only or Lost and shows the exact return. Every possible result (at the bottom of the calculator) lists all of them, best to worst, with the chance of each.

What the calculator doesn't model

• Non-runners, Rule 4 and dead heats. Re-work the bet or check your bookie's rules if one happens.
• Maximum payouts and bonus caps. Bookmakers cap single-bet payouts and some cap bonus payouts per day.
• Correlation. The simulation assumes the horses are independent, which is right for horses in different races.
• Your fair odds being right. The expected value is only as good as the fair odds you enter. Exchange prices have their own margins, so treat an edge of a couple of per cent with suspicion.

I won't present any of this as low risk or as an income you can count on, and UK advertising rules are part of the reason: the ASA has ruled against ads for matched betting that implied low risk or financial security, and the CAP Code says gambling mustn't be presented as a solution to money worries or an alternative to a job (ASA matched betting advice). This site is for adults only (18+).

FAQs

Why can each way bets be value?

Bookies pay the place part as a fixed fraction (1/4 or 1/5) of the win odds for the first 2 to 4 places. The formula ignores the race, but the places still have to be filled. A red-hot favourite pushes the other horses' win odds out, so their place prices stretch, while the exchange's place market prices the real chance of placing. Where the bookie's place price is bigger than the exchange's, the place part is worth more than it costs.

Why is an acca bad value but a Lucky 15 can be good?

A normal acca compounds the bookmaker's margin across every leg: four legs at 95p in the £ are worth 81p. A Lucky 15 made of +EV each way selections compounds the edge instead: four legs at £1.05 in the £ are worth about £1.22. It also multiplies the variance, so most tickets still lose.

What is the usual stake for an each way Lucky 15?

Outright Lucky 15s are rarely value, so the usual tickets are each way: 50p each way (30 bets, £15 in total) or £1 each way (30 bets, £30). Treat the total as what the ticket costs.

How do I check a selection is value?

Work out the bookie's place price (1 + (win odds - 1) x the place fraction) and compare it with the exchange's To Be Placed price for the same number of places. If the bookie's is bigger, the place part has an edge of bookie place price divided by exchange place price, minus 1. The free check on this page does the sum.

What is a Lucky 15 bet?

A Lucky 15 is 15 bets on four selections in four different events: four singles, six doubles, four trebles and one fourfold accumulator. Every possible combination is covered, so one winner is enough for a return. A £1 Lucky 15 costs £15.

How do you calculate Lucky 15 returns?

Each bet pays only if every horse in it wins, and it pays the stake multiplied by the combined odds. For a set of winners, the total return is stake × (the product of (1 + odds) for each winner, minus 1). With winners at 2.0 and 5.0 and £1 a bet: (3 × 6) − 1 = £17.

What if only one selection wins?

You get the winning single only, and the doubles, trebles and fourfold all lose. With no bonus, a £1 Lucky 15 costs £15, so a lone winner needs odds of 15.0 (14/1) or bigger just to get your money back. Many bookmakers pay a lone winning single at double odds, which cuts that to 8.0 (7/1).

What bonuses do bookmakers give on a Lucky 15?

Two kinds, and both are the bookmaker's own concessions: the lone winning single paid at double odds (Betfred pays treble), and a bonus on winnings if all four win, usually 10%, 15% at bet365, per Racing Post's July 2026 guide. They usually apply to the win part of each way bets only, to horse and greyhound racing, and are lost if a horse is a non-runner. Check your own bookie's terms.

How does an each way Lucky 15 work?

Each way doubles it to 30 bets: 15 on the horses to win, and the same 15 on them to place. A £1 each way Lucky 15 costs £30. The place bets pay on the place odds (a fraction of the win odds), and a horse that wins counts as having placed, so a winner pays on both parts.

Is a Lucky 15 +EV?

Only if the prices are better than the true chances. The bet itself has no edge or flaw: every one of the 15 bets is worth what its odds are worth. Put four selections at better-than-fair odds in and the edge compounds across the doubles, trebles and fourfold. Put four at fair odds in and you break even on average, before any bookmaker bonus.

What does no-lay mean?

You back the bet at the bookmaker and do not lay it at an exchange. A matched bet locks in a result. A no-lay bet keeps the full swing: all the upside and all the downside. That is why a +EV Lucky 15 is closer to a lottery ticket than to matched betting.

What happens if one of my horses is a non-runner?

The Lucky 15 is re-settled as a smaller bet on the three remaining selections (a Patent, 7 bets), and the stake on the lost bets is returned. Bookmaker bonuses are normally not paid. A Rule 4 deduction may also apply to winnings if a horse is withdrawn before the race. This calculator doesn't model non-runners, Rule 4 or dead heats.

How do I use a free bet on a Lucky 15?

Free bet stakes are not returned, so every winning bet pays its profit only. Work out the return here, then take off the stake for each bet that won. With all four winners, 15 bets won, so subtract 15 × your stake. Matched betting free bet maths is on the free bet calculator.

Can I lay a Lucky 15?

Not as one bet. An exchange only lets you lay each horse on its own, and laying every combination would cost far more than the Lucky 15 itself, which is why people play no-lay. If you want a known result, matched betting is the method for that, not a Lucky 15.

What about Lucky 31 and Lucky 63?

A Lucky 31 is 31 bets on five selections and a Lucky 63 is 63 bets on six. Bonuses are typically bigger (Racing Post lists Betfred at 20% and 25% for all winners, and a lone winner at 4× and 5× the odds), but the more selections you add, the longer the odds against any profit. Use the Lucky 31 and Lucky 63 buttons in the calculator.

Is there a maximum payout?

Yes. Bookmakers cap what a single bet can pay. Racing Post lists £1,000,000 as the maximum at bet365, Betfred and Coral. The calculator doesn't apply any cap.

Where next

• Each way calculator: what one each way bet pays, and how to lay it for matched betting.
• What is matched betting? Build the float before you play +EV.
• Free bet calculator: what a free bet really returns.
• Dutching calculator: spread one stake across several selections.
• OddsMonkey free trial: what you get before you pay.

Update log

• 23 Oct 2026 Rewrote the page around the core logic: why each way can be value, the acca analogy (compound the edge, not the margin), the usual 50p and £1 each way stakes with buttons in the calculator, and a free "Is this selection value?" check against exchange place prices. Maths unit-tested.
• 23 Oct 2026 Calculator launched: Lucky 15, 31 and 63, win and each way, lone-winner and all-winners bonuses, expected value from fair odds, and a repeated-ticket simulation. Maths unit-tested against hand-calculated examples and a brute-force sum of every bet.