Waiting for Port Vale’s next game? Discover ‘system bets’, how they work and what they offer
The 2023-24 League One season is slowly but surely wrapping up and the last few weeks for Port Vale have been disappointing, to say the least. With only one point from our last five matches, things are looking bleak and we currently sit in the relegation zone – a mere three points from despair.
It’s understandable that we need something to take our minds off the dismal results while we wait for the next match. If you’re into the sports betting scene, you may have heard of system bets but be a little unsure of what they are. It’s an interesting concept, allowing bets on multiple combinations of outcomes, in a similar manner to accas, and I’ll explain the premise below.
What is a system bet?
System bets or multi bets are not to be confused with accumulators. Indeed, they work like accumulators but instead of winning only if all your results come in, system bets give you multiple potential winning combinations and thus can be seen as more forgiving than accas.
The premise is simple – you pick a number of outcome selections, such as the winners of League One matches. Your system bet is then built on combination of wins from those selections. Let’s look at an example: you want to bet on Port Vale to beat Fleetwood, Cheltenham to lose to Burton, and Charlton to lose to Wycombe:
- Port Vale to beat Fleetwood.
- Burton to beat Cheltenham.
- Wycombe to beat Charlton.
These are your selections and you want to turn this into what’s known as a Trixie system bet that breaks your selections down into individual “legs” based on the potential outcomes from the matches:
- Port Vale and Burton win.
- Port Vale and Wycombe win.
- Burton and Wycombe win.
- Port Vale, Burton and Wycombe win.
- None of the three teams win.
Here we have four potential legs that you can earn a payout on, with the only outcome where you win nothing is if all three of your selections lose. The great thing is that only two of your selections have to win, but if all three teams win, the system bet counts as all three legs winning too, so you get an increased payout.
This may seem complicated but it’s easy to grasp once you have placed a few system bets and get used to how the different selections and outcomes work.
Types of system bets
Aside from the basic mechanics, there is a range of pre-defined types of system bets. Each system bet type has a specific number of selections, total bets and outcomes. The most popular types of system bets include:
- Angel
- Trixie
- Patent
- Yankee
- Super Yankee
- Lucky 15
- Lucky 31
- Lucky 63
- Heinz
The Angel is the simplest system bet and this includes two selections spread across three bets, with the three bets being broken down as two singles and one double. For example:
- Port Vale beat Fleetwood.
- Burton beat Cheltenham.
Those are your selections, and the singles and doubles for the outcomes and payouts are:
- Single: Port Vale win.
- Single: Burton win.
- Double: Both teams win.
In this scenario, you only need one of the outcomes to come true to win, but you can get a payout for all three outcomes if both teams win.
As we go down the list, essentially the number of selections and outcomes increases for progressively more wild and interesting bets. For example, the Yankee is a system bet involving four selections spread across 11 bets, with payouts happening on six doubles, four trebles and one four-fold accumulator.
Benefits of system bets
As you can see, system bets offer an advantage over traditional accas – this is because with a traditional multi-selection accas, ALL the results have to be correct to win. If one team lets you down, you win nothing or get a small cashout.
This is not the case with system bets. If one team doesn’t win, you can still get a payout. Not only that, but the more selections you get right, the higher your payout is, and you can get payouts for multiple outcomes. A system bet is essentially a supercharged acca that theoretically gives you a better chance of a payout, without any downside.
The Future
As we are currently sitting in the second relegation spot in the League One Table and face demotion to League Two, these last 11 games are pivotal but there is still a chance that we can overtake Charlton or Reading if the results go our way. Hopefully the tides will turn, and sunnier days are ahead.