Heinz Calculator: Work Out a 57-Bet Heinz on Six Horses

Four winners from six horses is a good day, and the Heinz calculator above is loaded with one. At 10p a line, the six horses are at 11/10, 15/8, 11/4, 7/2, 11/2 and 8/1. The 7/2 and 8/1 horses were beaten; the other four won. The bet cost £5.70 and returns £41.17.

That return comes from eleven of the 57 lines: six doubles, four trebles and one four-fold. The other 46 each include at least one of the two beaten horses. The rest of this page follows the money through those eleven lines and then looks at what the same bet does on other days. Every figure below comes from the same settlement code that runs the slip, so any of them can be reproduced by changing the results above and reading the return.

Entering a bet in the Heinz calculator

Choose Heinz as the bet type and the Heinz calculator sets six selections. Type each price, set each result and enter the stake per bet. “10p Heinz” means 10p a line and £5.70 in total. To work to a fixed budget instead, press Total: £10 in total comes to about 18p a line, and on the example day that returns £72.23.

Tick each way and every one of the 57 lines gains a place version, 114 in all. Each row then shows its own terms box, which is useful: six races often have different field sizes, and the place price for each horse depends on its own race.

Entering the horses in race order doesn’t change the return, but it makes the numbered line-by-line list much easier to match with a settlement slip later.

The eleven lines that paid

Number the horses 1 to 6 as listed, so the beaten horses are 4 and 6, and the winners are 1, 2, 3 and 5.

The six doubles among the four winners return between 60p and £2.44 each, depending on the pair. The smallest is 1+2, the two shortest prices, and the largest is 3+5, the 11/4 and 11/2 shots. Together the doubles return £8.14.

The four trebles return £2.26, £3.92, £5.12 and £7.01, a total of £18.32. The one four-fold that avoids both losers, 1+2+3+5, returns 10p × 2.1 × 2.875 × 3.75 × 6.5, which is £14.72.

That is £41.17. The calculator’s summary gives the same count by size: doubles six of fifteen, trebles four of twenty, four-folds one of fifteen, and nothing bigger. The single four-fold is worth more than all six doubles together. That is normal on a four-winner Heinz: every line has the same stake, but a four-fold multiplies four prices together, so one surviving four-fold can outweigh a handful of doubles.

What two, three, four, five and six winners are worth

Keeping the same six prices at 10p a line:

Two winners return one double. The two shortest prices, 11/10 and 15/8, return 60p from £5.70. The two longest, 11/2 and 8/1, return £5.85, which only just covers the stake. At prices like these, two winners on a Heinz is a losing day or close to it.

Three winners return three doubles and a treble. The three shortest return £4.73, still a loss. The three longest return £39.15.

Four winners return six doubles, four trebles and a four-fold. The four shortest return £29.96. The example day, with a spread of prices, returned £41.17.

Five winners return £233.30 at the five shortest prices, and six winners return £2,350.73.

This is the Heinz in one list. It is designed for the top of that range. On two or three winners it gives back little, because there are no singles and the doubles are a small share of a 57-line stake. It becomes a strong bet only once four or more horses win.

Where the money is on a six-winner day

Open the breakdown on the day all six win and the shape of the bet is plain. The fifteen doubles return £32.74 and the twenty trebles £189.87. The fifteen four-folds return £591.66, the six five-folds £940.43 and the one six-fold £596.01.

The biggest part of the return comes from the five-folds, and the single six-fold line is worth about eighteen times all fifteen doubles together. Those lines pay only when almost everything goes right, which is the trade at the heart of the bet.

Settling a Heinz with one sum

A Heinz can be checked without adding 57 lines. Take each winner’s decimal price, add one, and multiply those figures together. Take one away, then subtract each winner’s decimal price, which removes the singles a Heinz doesn’t include. Multiply what is left by the line stake.

On the example day the four winners are at 2.1, 2.875, 3.75 and 6.5. Plus one gives 3.1, 3.875, 4.75 and 7.5, and their product is about 427.95. Take away one, then 15.23 for the four prices, and you have 411.72. At 10p a line that is £41.17, which matches the slip.

The sum only holds for a clean day. Each way lines, dead heats and Rule 4 deductions all give a horse more than one value, and for those the calculator is the way to settle it.

Each way Heinz bets

An each way Heinz is two Heinz bets on the same horses, one on the win and one on the place, so 10p each way costs £11.40. With 1/5 terms on every race, the example day returns £44.62: the same £41.17 on the win side, with the rest from the place lines on the four winners.

The place side comes into its own when horses run well without winning. Had the two beaten horses placed, every place line would pay and the total would reach £80.53. With all six placing and none winning, the place Heinz alone would return £39.36 from the £11.40 stake, on a day that returns nothing win only.

Non-runners, Rule 4 and dead heats

In a Heinz each horse appears in 31 of the 57 lines, so a change to one horse reaches more than half the bet.

A non-runner is settled out of every line it is in, rather than killing them. If the 7/2 horse had been withdrawn instead of beaten, its lines would survive on the other winners, and the bet would return £83.87, more than double the £41.17 it made when that horse ran and lost.

Rule 4 cuts one winner’s price in every line it sits in. A 25p deduction on the 11/10 winner lowers the return to £37.40.

A dead heat divides the stake at that horse’s leg in each of its lines. If the 11/10 horse had dead heated for first with one other, the bet would return £26.78.

Testing a Heinz before the racing

The Heinz calculator doesn’t need results to be useful. Before the first race, enter your six horses at the prices on offer and try the days you can realistically expect. Mark three as winners and three as beaten, and look at the return. Then try a different three. If most three-winner days lose money at your prices, the bet is relying on four or more, and that is worth knowing before the stake goes down.

The same exercise shows whether each way is worth it. Tick it, set the terms for each race, and mark a few horses as placed rather than beaten. On a set of bigger prices in big fields, the place side of a Heinz can turn an ordinary day into a small profit. On shorter prices in small fields it mostly adds cost.

It also shows the effect of a single horse. Try replacing the shortest price with a bigger one and watch how every line containing it changes. Because each horse sits in 31 lines, one selection can move the whole bet more than you might expect.

One card or six meetings

A Heinz can be built from six races on one card or from races at several meetings on the same day. It settles the same way either way. On one card, the ground and the weather are shared by every race, so a sudden change of going can affect all six horses at once. Across several meetings, the results are more independent of each other. That makes no difference to the arithmetic, but it can affect whether the six results tend to go the same way, which matters for a bet that needs four or more of them to go right.

Heinz, Lucky 63 and beyond

A Lucky 63 is the Heinz plus six singles. On the example day it would return £42.69, the Heinz’s figure plus the four winning singles, for 60p more stake. With a single winner the Lucky 63 pays its single and the Heinz pays nothing.

Beyond six horses, the Super Heinz takes seven selections and 120 bets, £12 at 10p, and the Goliath takes eight and 247 bets, £24.70 at 10p. Both are in the calculator’s list, and they settle the same way. For how the whole family fits together, from the Canadian upwards, see the Heinz bet guide. The Yankee calculator covers the four-horse version of the same idea.

Stakes, and checking a settlement

On the example day, a 5p Heinz, £2.85 in total, returns £20.59; a 20p Heinz returns £82.34; a 50p Heinz £205.86; and a £1 Heinz £411.72. The lines scale exactly with the stake.

To check a bookmaker’s settlement in the Heinz calculator, enter the prices you were paid at and the results as declared, using the returned starting prices for any horse backed at SP. If the totals differ, compare the summary by size first. A wrong number of paying doubles or trebles points to a result; the right count with the wrong total points to a price, a Rule 4 deduction or a dead heat.