What is a Tricast Bet?

You’ll find the option to place a tricast bet (sometimes called a trifecta) on any good sports betting site that offers betting on greyhound racing, horse racing, or both.

A tricast bet requires you to correctly predict the first, second, and third place finishers in a race, in the correct order.

You can also place a combination tricast bet, which allows you to correctly predict the first, second, and third place finishers in any order. Let’s take a look at how tricast bets work.
 

How Tricast Bets Work

A tricast bet is any bet that involves predicting the first three finishers of an event. You’ll find this type of wager available almost exclusively on horse racing and greyhound racing. Most often on major races, or large handicap horse races.

What is a Straight Tricast Bet?

A straight tricast bet is very similar to a straight forecast bet, but where in a straight forecast bet you’d make two selections to come first and second, in a tricast bet you’d make three selections to come first, second, and third, in that order.

Even if your selections do come in first, second, and third, but in the incorrect order, you won’t make any returns from this bet.

What is a Combination Tricast Bet?

A combination tricast bet allows you a little more flexibility than a straight tricast bet. In this kind of bet you need to make three selections to come first, second, and third, in any order.

As long as your selections come in the first three places, you’ll win the bet, but if one comes fourth (or worse) you won’t make any returns.

Tricast Bet Example 

We’ll use a horse race as an example, as this is the sport where tricast bets/trifectas are most common. 

You have a bet on the first three finishers of the 2024 Epsom Derby. At the time of writing the three most fancied horses are:

●    City of Troy (9/4)
●    Los Angeles (4/1)

●    Ancient Wisdom (5/1)
You would make your tricast by selecting the Epsom Derby race at your chosen online bookmakers site. Next, you choose forecast/trifecta option and select the horses that you think will come in first, second, and third place. Then, enter your stake.

This kind of bet is unique in the way that it is paid out. Sometimes the bookmaker will tell you what your payout will be, sometimes you need to wait to see your dividend from the total pool of bets.

Combination Tricast Bet Example

In the example above, you’d only receive any winnings if all three horses finished in exactly the places that you predicted. In a combination tricast you need to pick the first three horses, but you can have them in any order.

To make this extra security possible, you need to wager more money to get the same returns. You need to place six bets to cover all possibilities, these are shown below.

●    1st: City of Troy, 2nd: Los Angeles, 3rd: Ancient Wisdom
●    1st: City of Troy, 2nd: Ancient Wisdom, 3rd: Los Angeles
●    1st: Los Angeles, 2nd: City of Troy, 3rd: Ancient Wisdom
●    1st: Los Angeles, 2nd: Ancient Wisdom, 3rd: City of Troy
●    1st: Ancient Wisdom, 2nd: Los Angeles, 3rd: City of Troy
●    1st: Ancient Wisdom, 2nd: City of Troy, 3rd: Los Angeles

This means you need to multiply your original wager by six.

How Do Tote Trifectas Work? 

If you have a tricast bet with the Tote then your payout will always be a dividend. This is worked out from the total number of bets that were placed with the Tote and the total number of correct bets out of these.

The more bets and fewer correct bets, the higher your payout. The more correct bets but fewer bets overall the lower your payout. 

It’s for this reason that it’s a good idea to bet with the Tote only if you fancy long priced horses.