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Weapons of Mass Destruction – Lucky 15s v Yankees

Slim

Slim

Rookie
Joined
Dec 6, 2019
Messages
4,157
Here is a simulation to prove that not only is a Lucky 15 not a Gaylord bet but in fact it beats the bollocks out of Yankees despite being cheaper and giving you more bets.

Parameters:
  • Bank: €100,000
  • Daily stake: €1,000 in play (not the whole bank)
  • Length: 100 days straight
  • Races per day: 28 (4 meetings × 7 races)
  • Field sizes: 4–16 runners
  • Prices: industry odds with a 2% edge per runner (no BOG)
  • Beating the price: one or two notches up = one/two steps along the fractional ladder
  • Picking: random, same horses fed both bet types where they overlap
  • Lucky 15 = 66 tickets/day (€15 each = €990)
  • Yankee = 90 tickets/day (€11 each = €990)
  • Settling: Lucky 15 has 4 singles, 6 doubles, 4 trebles, 1 fourfold, plus double odds for one winner. Yankee = 6 doubles, 4 trebles, 1 fourfold.

Run 1: everything at SP. Lucky 15 €68.7k; Yankee €54.3k. Yankees are all doubles/trebles/fourfold, the edge compounds. Lucky 15 has four singles plus “double odds for one winner”, so it bleeds slower. Gap €14.5k.


Run 2: beat every price by one notch (5/4→11/8, 2/1→9/4, etc.). Lucky 15 €77.5k; Yankee €63.8k. Both better, gap €13.7k. Similar story to Run 1 — Lucky 15 still leaks less.


Run 3: beat every price by two notches. Only 10% of slips allowed one selection at 11/1+; the rest all shorter. Lucky 15 €113.8k (+€13.8k); Yankee €106.6k (+€6.6k). Same horses, same days, same budget. Lucky 15 had more winning days, smaller worst days, higher finish. Gap €7.2k.


If you’re playing multiples, play Lucky 15s. Singles matter. The one-winner concession matters. Beat the price — your job on every multiple is that it settles shorter at SP than when you struck it. If your acca isn’t shorter at SP, you’ve already lost. Yankees are great for a spike and awful for keeping a bank. Stick to a fixed daily stake and the Lucky 15 structure pays you back more often.


Conclusion:
The Lucky 15 double-the-odds-one-winner remains a far superior bet to any other.

Adding BOG gives you more edge.

The prices you are taking need to be beating SP, ideally BSP.

That’s hard to do for every selection but your aim should be that the acca price you take is bigger than the BSP acca price.

Long prices are not good for multiples. Keep them to a small percentage of your bets. The real sweet spot is roughly 10/1 or shorter.

Just back f$%^ing winners.


Now who’s the f$%^ing Gaylord?
 
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Absolutely tremendous post imo.

Slim's best yet since I started reading them here - and that's amid numerous really good ones.
 
Im at work so cant really give a detailed response. But just 2 questions.

Does that work out differently if you have the same amount of bets but increase the value of the Yankees to the value of the Lucky 15's ? I.e a £10 win Lucky 15 versus £13.63 win yankee.

Also betting in shops don't they offer shorter prices than are available with the same firm online. If so if you're losing 2 clicks on each selection to start off with it's negating the treble the odds and the best odds isnt it ? I don't know if it's still the case as I haven't used shops for a long while. But a mate of mine went for a shop bet Saturday at William hills and the horse was 9/2 in the shop but available at 11/2 with them online. So im guessing its still the case.

Interesting post all the same.
 
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Danny said:
Im at work so cant really give a detailed response. But just 2 questions.

Does that work out differently if you have the same amount of bets but increase the value of the Yankees to the value of the Lucky 15's ? I.e a £10 win Lucky 15 versus £13.63 win yankee.

Also betting in shops don't they offer shorter prices than are available with the same firm online. If so if you're losing 2 clicks on each selection to start off with it's negating the treble the odds and the best odds isnt it ? I don't know if it's still the case as I haven't used shops for a long while. But a mate of mine went for a shop bet Saturday at William hills and the horse was 9/2 in the shop but available at 11/2 with them online. So im guessing its still the case.

Interesting post all the same.
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With regards to your second question Danny, maybe someone can enlighten me/us on how things stand now with Hills. (Or any other firm who do or used to do similar).
What i mean is, i had gone thru a race for the Monday and was in town on a Sunday lunchtime. Hills were 7/1 about a horse which i had put in at 7/2. I could only get peanuts on online but where i was at the time there were two Hills shops. So i reckoned between me, the missus and any who i could get to help, i might get a decent amount on in the two shops.
But when i tried the first bet the manager said there were no prices. I showed him the prices on the site and he said that online Hills was a different entity to the retail business. .
Mad !!!!!

And yes, it won at 3/1.
 
Danny said:
Im at work so cant really give a detailed response. But just 2 questions.

Does that work out differently if you have the same amount of bets but increase the value of the Yankees to the value of the Lucky 15's ? I.e a £10 win Lucky 15 versus £13.63 win yankee.

Also betting in shops don't they offer shorter prices than are available with the same firm online. If so if you're losing 2 clicks on each selection to start off with it's negating the treble the odds and the best odds isnt it ? I don't know if it's still the case as I haven't used shops for a long while. But a mate of mine went for a shop bet Saturday at William hills and the horse was 9/2 in the shop but available at 11/2 with them online. So im guessing its still the case.

Interesting post all the same.
Click to expand...

I ran it again over a full year with equal slips per day — 66 Lucky 15s v 66 Yankees. Same horses, base prices, no boosts. Result? It actually makes the Yankee look even worse. By cutting its number of lines, you’re cutting down the few chances it has to hit the four winners it needs just to stand beside a Lucky 15. The singles and the “one winner double odds” still keep the Lucky 15 ticking; the Yankee just compounds the edge harder.

On the shop prices point — that’s down to what you choose to put in. If you know a shop is clipping you two clicks under the online price, don’t use them. The inputs are at your discretion. None of that changes the fact that the Lucky 15 structure is mathematically superior to a Yankee no matter what prices you’re feeding in.

365-day sim (base prices, equal slips):

  • Final bank: Lucky 15s €26,774.47 | Yankees –€46,051.92
  • P/L: Lucky 15 –€73,225.53 | Yankee –€146,051.92
  • Positive days: Lucky 15 68 | Yankee 51
  • Best / worst day: Lucky 15 +€7,594.11 / –€851.55 | Yankee +€10,023.02 / –€994.62
  • Fourfolds landed: 9 (shared across both)
 
Top man cheers for that Slim. Looks like im in for a change of multiples in future.
 
As another question which online bookies do the double the odds concession ? Or which ones dont if thats quicker.
 
Danny said:
Top man cheers for that Slim. Looks like im in for a change of multiples in future.
Click to expand...

And that’s the whole point. I learned this not through maths, but by placing thousands of multiples.

I tested doing €3 Lucky 15s with €5 accas. My results told me I was burning money — all those €5s each day/week/month were costing me, because there was a massive opportunity cost in not using the funds for extra Lucky 15s. The value in Lucky 15s is the grind. When your selections are value, the Lucky 15 realises your edge the most.
 
Danny said:
As another question which online bookies do the double the odds concession ? Or which ones dont if thats quicker.
Click to expand...
It’s a long time since I was able to place one. Any Flutter company will be a no. Others might be able to answer you.
 
Danny said:
As another question which online bookies do the double the odds concession ? Or which ones dont if thats quicker.
Click to expand...
Just having a gander at my Betfred account. They say they do 3x the odds one winner lucky 15. 4x the odds one winner lucky 31. 5x the odds one winner lucky 63.
 
Slim said:
And that’s the whole point. I learned this not through maths, but by placing thousands of multiples.

I tested doing €3 Lucky 15s with €5 accas. My results told me I was burning money — all those €5s each day/week/month were costing me, because there was a massive opportunity cost in not using the funds for extra Lucky 15s. The value in Lucky 15s is the grind. When your selections are value, the Lucky 15 realises your edge the most.
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It might be a private question and dont feel you have to answer it what was the biggest amount you've ever landed on one. I know you'd punt a fair bit heavier than most of us so it's all realitive really.

I dont think ive ever landed all 4 on a yankee or a L15. Mainly because I play at fairly big average prices. Also when I was younger I played a lot of Canadians and Heinz bets rather than Yankees. Ive had a few 4 out of 5 a few times and 5 out of 6 once at decent prices and a couple of times at shorter prices but never taken the lot. I had a lot of wins around 2-4 k with obviously the same sort of amounts running onto the failed last selections. It drove me to the brink of sanity that I couldn't ever land that last step but I couldn't of gone any closer on 2 separate occasions I was done by a nose the for absolute lot also various other 2nds and fallers have let me down.
 
29/12/2018

4 winners

7/2
14/1
4/1
7/2

€52,246

€20 Yankee with 4 winners. I was on a train to a funeral so I couldn’t go to the betting shops. There were no concessions, and amazingly I only had 4 selections on the day, so I just had more on the Yankee. At the time I had a very set way of making selections each day, but it was unusual to only have 4. The stars aligned. The last two won in photo finishes, five minutes apart.

But you have to put this in context: I was doing €400–€800 in multiples a day, and on a Saturday it was €2k–€3k in pure win-only Lucky 15 filth. I know all this because I emailed Brian Hartigan to tell him I’d finally got the bastards. He told me to invest it wisely; I replied I was going to have more bets because I was smarter than the market. I wouldn’t mind a chat with that lad now.
 
Danny said:
It might be a private question and dont feel you have to answer it what was the biggest amount you've ever landed on one. I know you'd punt a fair bit heavier than most of us so it's all realitive really.

I dont think ive ever landed all 4 on a yankee or a L15. Mainly because I play at fairly big average prices. Also when I was younger I played a lot of Canadians and Heinz bets rather than Yankees. Ive had a few 4 out of 5 a few times and 5 out of 6 once at decent prices and a couple of times at shorter prices but never taken the lot. I had a lot of wins around 2-4 k with obviously the same sort of amounts running onto the failed last selections. It drove me to the brink of sanity that I couldn't ever land that last step but I couldn't of gone any closer on 2 separate occasions I was done by a nose the for absolute lot also various other 2nds and fallers have let me down.
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I’ve had literally hundreds of run-ups to final and third-winner selections that got chinned… it’s the crack cocaine of value betting. My friends used to ask me how I resisted the temptation to cash out. The answer was simple: because it’s all going back in play tomorrow anyway, what’s the point? I was playing to get handed the keys of the shop, not to squirrel away a few grand — I already had that.
 
I've got and always have had the same attitude to cashing out bets. If its not going to change your life or even change the game for you then whats the point.

It's why I hate it when people say luck evens itself out. It certainly doesn't there are only the critical moments when you need a bit of luck and its at these times it tends to abandon us most. I had many bits of luck down the years but id of traded all of them for one bit of luck at the opportune moment.

Just to add to that its the only real reason ive returned to punting as I mentioned when i started Diary of a fool. I feel like for all the work I put in back then I never got the big payday I thought it deserved. I've come back on the basis I will land one i will have my day and then ill do a Thanos go sit on a rock somewhere and watch the sun go down knowing all has been put right in the world.
 
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Hat’s off to you guys, I’m a bag of nerves playing for a tiny fraction of those size bets. Got balls the size of a pea, me :(
 
Danny said:
I had many bits of luck down the years but id of traded all of them for one bit of luck at the opportune moment.
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Exactly this. I gave up on racing about 10 years ago, stuck all my balances on Lowther in a nothing race at Kempton and walked away.

Days later someone mentioned the horse in dispatches and I logged on to see it had come in by a head at 20/1. Certainly got me back in the game but when I've gone big on life changing sums they've not come in and when I haven't they've made all.
 
barjon said:
Hat’s off to you guys, I’m a bag of nerves playing for a tiny fraction of those size bets. Got balls the size of a pea, me :(
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Or a larger brain. It's all relative as said my best mate more like a Dad to me who died a fair few years back was a 20p L15 punter all his life never changed. I used to always be watching the races with him. He was elated when he won a ton. I was always frustrated and miserable when I'd picked up a couple of bags but 10 had been left behind. I had sleepless nights, spent hours and hours stuck at a laptop watching replays. Whilst he'd take five minutes picking them out of the Sun. When racing was finished id be back home to the laptop he'd crack a couple of cans and watch the footy or a film without a care in the world. I certainly even at level stakes would've won more than him down the years. He would often say things like where you found that from or that I could fall in shit and find a fiver.

I knew at the time who was happier in life. So who's really winning. RIP buddy.
 
Danny said:
Or a larger brain. It's all relative as said my best mate more like a Dad to me who died a fair few years back was a 20p L15 punter all his life never changed. I used to always be watching the races with him. He was elated when he won a ton. I was always frustrated and miserable when I'd picked up a couple of bags but 10 had been left behind. I had sleepless nights, spent hours and hours stuck at a laptop watching replays. Whilst he'd take five minutes picking them out of the Sun. When racing was finished id be back home to the laptop he'd crack a couple of cans and watch the footy or a film without a care in the world. I certainly even at level stakes would've won more than him down the years. He would often say things like where you found that from or that I could fall in shit and find a fiver.

I knew at the time who was happier in life. So who's really winning. RIP buddy.
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What you’re describing is life utility. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot over the years. I was first introduced to the concept by David Malinsky (RIP), who used to say that guys driving an hour off the Strip in Vegas just to get an extra half-point weren’t making the life-utility calculation. He even joked about coming up with a “miles travelled per half-point” formula to find the optimum.

I’ve always believed in output, not input. Hours and hours of study mean nothing if you’re not very good at it — or if you could simply build a relationship with someone who is and then free up your own time to add value somewhere else. In betting, hard work doesn’t always equal more profit. Sometimes it just eats away at your life utility.
 
That's absolutely spot on even in life i know people who drive further and waste time to get the cheapest petrol to save a few pence. I say put a value on your time. If you can pay someone to do something cheaper than your times worth do it. I know a punter who outsourced some his horse rating data stuff to the Philippines and got work that wouldve taken him hours a week done for peanuts.
 
I consider the effort/gain ratio re most things

Which why I like automation of tasks as I have neither the time or inclination to do a lot of manual work.

I def see the logic in farming out stuff sometimes
 
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