You may have noticed that I always list four correct score predictions in order of confidence. Now, you could put the same stake (say £1) on each single tip. Each round of fixtures would cost you £4 but you would would win £6 for each 5-1 correct score, £7 for each 6-1 correct score and so on. Turning £4 into, say, £7 is nice enough but there are riskier but potentially more lucrative alternatives.

Henceforth, let's assume that all correct score bets are 5-1 - this is a reasonably conservative assumption. If you placed a £1 double on two correct scores you would win £36 if they both came up or zero if only one came up. You would win £36 and not £25 because a 5/1 winner turns £1 into £6 and not £5 (you get your original stake back too). If instead of a double, you bet £1 on three selections, you would win 6x6x6 = £216 if all three results came up - rather than £6 + £6 + £6 if you did three single bets. Of course, the chances of getting three out of three are remote. Wilder still, you could place a £1 accumulator on 4 matches to win £1296 but you would win nothing for even 3 correct scores.

So the trade off is between regular but relatively insignificant wins at one end of the scale and infrequent but massive wins at the other. There are bets that fall in between these two extremes. Here I will talk about one called a Lucky 15. The Lucky 15 consists of 15 bets on 4 selections. Four of these bets are singles, these are your bread and butter. If only one of your four selections is correct, you will win that bet. Most bookmakers pay double the odds if you only get one selection correct so, using our earlier staking plan, you would have made 15 x £1 bets. 14 would have lost but the fifteenth would have paid you £1 (stake) + £10 winnings (£5 doubled) = £11. So you have nearly recouped your stake for one out of four. Not as good as if you had done singles alone but not a disaster.

Six of the fifteen bets are doubles i.e. there are six ways of pairing together any two selections from your original four. If you got two out of four scores right, you would win £36 for your win double and £12 for your two win singles - a total of £48 for a £15 stake - more than treble your investment.

Four more bets would be trebles as there are four ways you can select (or perm) three matches out of four. Should you be lucky enough to get three scores right out of four, you would stand to win:
One correct score treble = £216
Three correct score doubles, each worth £36 = £108
Three correct score singles, each worth £6 = £18
GRAND TOTAL = £342

Your fifteenth and final bet in the Lucky 15 would be your accumulator, your grand slam. It would only pay out if you got every selection correct - but what a payout! For four out of four, you would win:
One correct score accumulator = £1296
Four correct score trebles, each worth £216 = £864
Six correct score doubles, each worth £36 = £216
Four correct score singles, each worth £6 = £24
15 winning bets, GRAND TOTAL = £2400

And that's just at odds of 5/1. The first time I landed a correct score treble, the odds were 7/1, 7/1 and 9/1.

To conclude, the Lucky 15 is a great bet for guaranteeing relative security for a low rate of success while offering great odds if you land three or four correct scores together. An Irish woman famously backed all 7 of Frankie Dettori's wins at Ascot in 1996 but won a mere £19 by doing them all as singles.