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Lucky 31 vs Lucky 15: the same runners, settled in pounds
A £1 Lucky 31 costs £31, a Lucky 15 £15. Five runners settled through both at 0-5 winners, showing when the extra £16 pays and when it only costs.
A £1 Lucky 31 costs £31 and a Lucky 15 £15. The Lucky 31 is a Lucky 15 on four of its horses plus 16 extra bets that all include the fifth. Those 16 pay only if the fifth horse wins; if it loses, the Lucky 31 returns what the Lucky 15 does, £16 worse off, before any bonus.
That is the whole of Lucky 31 vs Lucky 15 in one paragraph. The rest is the arithmetic, run on one set of runners through both bets at every winner count. This is an evergreen explainer: no race, offer or rule change sits behind it, and the numbers below will be as true next season as today.
Lucky 31 vs Lucky 15: what is in each bet?
This desk read Sky Bet’s bet-types page on 23 September 2026. It says a Lucky 15 “consists of fifteen bets involving four selections” and a Lucky 31 “consists of 31 bets involving five selections”, and that for multi-bet slips “your stake is multiplied by the amount of bets involved”.
| Lucky 15 | Lucky 31 | |
|---|---|---|
| Selections | 4 | 5 |
| Singles | 4 | 5 |
| Doubles | 6 | 10 |
| Trebles | 4 | 10 |
| Four-folds | 1 | 5 |
| Five-fold | 0 | 1 |
| Bets | 15 | 31 |
| Cost at £1 a bet | £15 | £31 |
The same page lists the Yankee (11 bets) and the Canadian, also sold as a Super Yankee (26 bets). They are the Lucky 15 and the Lucky 31 with the singles taken out. The singles are what let one winner return something; without them, the slip needs two.
Where does the extra £16 go?
Name the five runners A, B, C, D and E, and put A to D in the Lucky 15. Every bet in that Lucky 15 also sits inside the Lucky 31. The 16 bets the Lucky 31 adds are exactly the ones that contain E:
- 1 single on E
- 4 doubles (E with each of A to D)
- 6 trebles (E with each pair from A to D)
- 4 four-folds (E with each three from A to D)
- 1 five-fold (all five)
That is 16 bets, which squares with the table: 5 minus 4 singles, 10 minus 6 doubles, 10 minus 4 trebles, 5 minus 1 four-folds, plus the five-fold.
Two consequences follow, and neither needs an odds assumption. If E loses, all 16 of those bets lose, and the Lucky 31 returns pound for pound what the Lucky 15 on A to D returns, with £16 more staked. If E wins, the 16 bets together return E’s decimal odds multiplied by the Lucky 15’s return plus £1. So the extra £16 is, in effect, a bet on E that is multiplied by however well the other four did.
Lucky 31 vs Lucky 15 settled in pounds, all runners at 2/1
The worked example: five runners, all at 2/1, £1 a bet. The Lucky 15 covers A to D; the Lucky 31 covers all five. These are desk arithmetic at prices the desk chose, not an operator’s payout: no bonus, no Rule 4, no dead heats, no non-runners, returns including stake. Net is return minus stake (£31 or £15).
Because a Lucky 15 can hold only four of the five horses, its result depends on which horses won. The table shows both cases: E among the losers, and E among the winners.
| Winners of five | Lucky 31 returns | Lucky 31 net | Lucky 15 net, E lost | Lucky 15 net, E won |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | £0 | −£31 | −£15 | n/a |
| 1 | £3 | −£28 | −£12 | −£15 |
| 2 | £15 | −£16 | £0 | −£12 |
| 3 | £63 | +£32 | +£48 | £0 |
| 4 | £255 | +£224 | +£240 | +£48 |
| 5 | £1,023 | +£992 | n/a | +£240 |
The all-winners line checks against an operator’s own figure. This desk read Paddy Power’s Lucky 31 calculator page on 23 September 2026; its worked example puts five selections at 2/1 with £1 on each bet and gives a return of £1023 and a profit of £992. The desk’s arithmetic lands on the same number.
The shortcut behind the column: at 2/1 each winner turns £1 into £3, so a full Lucky-X on k winners returns 4 to the power k, minus 1. Three winners: 64 minus 1, £63. Five: 1,024 minus 1, £1,023.
Read across a row and the comparison is not close to symmetrical. With four winners and E the loser, the Lucky 15 nets £240 and the Lucky 31 £224: the £16 gap, exactly as the structure predicts. With four winners and one of A to D the loser, the Lucky 15 has only three of its four up and nets £48, while the Lucky 31 nets £224. Same race results, same prices, a £176 swing decided by which horse you left out.
How many winners does a Lucky 31 need to make a profit?
It depends on the prices, and any guide that gives one number without stating the odds is quietly assuming them. The same bet at two other flat prices, still £1 a bet and desk arithmetic on the same basis:
| Winners of five | Lucky 31 net, all evens | Lucky 15 net, evens, E lost / E won | Lucky 31 net, all 5/1 | Lucky 15 net, 5/1, E lost / E won |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | −£29 | −£13 / −£15 | −£25 | −£9 / −£15 |
| 2 | −£23 | −£7 / −£13 | +£17 | +£33 / −£9 |
| 3 | −£5 | +£11 / −£7 | +£311 | +£327 / +£33 |
| 4 | +£49 | +£65 / +£11 | +£2,369 | +£2,385 / +£327 |
| 5 | +£211 | n/a / +£65 | +£16,775 | n/a / +£2,385 |
At evens a £1 Lucky 31 needs four winners to show a profit; three return £26 against £31 staked. At 2/1 it needs three. At 5/1 it needs two, where two winners return £48. The Lucky 15 follows the same pattern one horse down: at evens it needs three of its four, at 2/1 three (two only breaks even), at 5/1 two.
When does the fifth horse pay for itself?
Take the 16 extra bets alone, at all 2/1. If E wins, they return £3 multiplied by (the Lucky 15’s return plus £1). With j winners among A to D:
- j = 0: £3 back on £16, E’s single only
- j = 1: £12
- j = 2: £48
- j = 3: £192
- j = 4: £768
Add the £768 to the Lucky 15’s £255 at four winners and you get the £1,023 in Paddy Power’s example. At these prices the extra £16 pays for itself only when E wins along with at least two of the other four. E winning alone, or with one other, still leaves the extra stake down. And if E loses, the whole £16 is gone whatever the rest did.
That is the real question in Lucky 31 vs Lucky 15. Not “is five better than four”, but “do I rate a fifth runner enough to put £16 on it winning alongside the others”.
Is a Lucky 31 worth it over a Lucky 15?
On price, neither bet is better. A Lucky-X is a way of spreading a stake across combinations; it does not change the odds on any horse. Each bet on the slip carries the bookmaker’s margin, and a multiple carries it once for every leg, so a slip weighted towards four-folds and five-folds compounds that margin more than one weighted towards singles. The Lucky 31 puts six of its 31 bets on four-folds or the five-fold; the Lucky 15 puts one of its 15 there.
On variance, the Lucky 31 is the wider bet. Its best case is far larger and its small cases are worse: at one winner, at every price in the tables above, the Lucky 31 loses more than the Lucky 15 on the same results, and whenever E loses it trails by exactly £16. The £16 buys a much fatter tail, and it is paid for in the ordinary outcomes.
So the honest framing is a staking one. If the fifth selection is one you would back on its own merits, the Lucky 31 adds it in 16 combinations. If it is there to make up the number, the extra £16 is margin paid on a horse you did not want. The site’s Lucky 15 or Yankee comparison settles the singles question the same way, one bet size down.
Do bookmakers pay a bonus on a Lucky 31?
Bonus and consolation offers on Lucky-X bets are promotions, set in each operator’s own terms, and they vary by bookmaker. Neither operator page read for this piece, Sky Bet’s bet-types page or Paddy Power’s Lucky 31 calculator page, states bonus terms in the text read, and no other bookmaker’s terms were read at a 200 status. So no bonus percentage appears here, and every figure above excludes bonuses. A bonus paid on the Lucky 31 but not the Lucky 15, or the reverse, would change the comparison, which is why the terms on your own slip are the ones to read. How a bonus behaves when a horse is withdrawn is covered in the Lucky 15 non-runner audit.
Of the three guides ranking for this query that this desk read, from Sporting Life, StableBet and AceOdds, none settles one set of runners through both bets side by side; they explain the Lucky 31, compare it with the Canadian, or list bonuses.
What do these tables leave out?
Four things, each of which moves real returns:
- Rule 4. A withdrawal in a runner’s race cuts that leg’s winnings; the mechanics are in what Rule 4 actually costs.
- Non-runners. Your own non-runner shrinks the bets it sits in, and the extra 16 bets hold E by definition.
- Dead heats. Under standard dead-heat rules only part of that leg’s stake is settled at full odds, cutting every bet it sits in.
- Mixed prices. Real slips are not all 2/1. The E-bets rule holds at any prices: E’s decimal odds times the Lucky 15’s return plus £1.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a Lucky 15 and a Lucky 31? A Lucky 15 is 15 bets on four selections: four singles, six doubles, four trebles and a four-fold. A Lucky 31 is 31 bets on five: five singles, ten doubles, ten trebles, five four-folds and a five-fold, per Sky Bet’s bet-types page. Put the same four horses in both and the Lucky 31 is the Lucky 15 plus 16 bets that all include the fifth horse.
How many winners do you need on a Lucky 31 to make a profit? It depends on the prices, so no single number is honest. With all five at 2/1 and a £1 unit, two winners return £15 against £31 staked and three return £63, so three is the line. At evens three winners still lose £5 and four are needed; at 5/1, two winners return £48, a £17 profit. No bonuses are included.
How much does a £1 Lucky 31 cost? £31. The stake is per bet, and Sky Bet’s bet-types page says the stake is multiplied by the number of bets, so a £1 Lucky 31 costs £31 and a 50p one £15.50. The same £1 unit on a Lucky 15 costs £15, which is why adding a fifth horse costs £16 more, not £1.
Is a Lucky 31 a good bet? Not by construction. It spreads a stake; it does not improve prices. Each of the 31 bets carries the bookmaker’s margin, and every multiple carries it once per leg. It suits someone with five selections at prices they genuinely rate, who accepts that most results lose money. The expected value comes from the prices, not from the bet type.
Do bookmakers pay a bonus on a Lucky 31? Any bonus is a promotion set in the bookmaker’s own terms, and those vary by operator. The two operator pages read for this piece, Sky Bet’s bet-types page and Paddy Power’s Lucky 31 calculator page, state no bonus terms in the text read, so no percentage is printed here. Every figure in this post excludes bonuses.
The tables show what each bet pays; they say nothing about how often. On a day of zero or one winner, the Lucky 31 is simply the dearer ticket. Price the £31 as money already spent, set the weekly total before the first slip rather than after the last result, and remember that variance can hide a real edge for months, never mind an imagined one. 18+, and only with money you can afford to lose.