Last updated: 14 October 2026 · By Power.Win Editorial Team
Quick Answer: A round robin bet splits your picks into every smaller parlay combination and stakes each one separately. Three picks grouped by 2s becomes three two-leg parlays, so one loss doesn’t wipe the slip. Power.Win’s rulebook calls this a System, and names each size — Trixie, Yankee, Canadian, Heinz.
A round robin is the bet people reach for when they like three teams and can’t stand the thought of one of them ruining the whole slip. It does solve that. What it doesn’t do is improve a single price, and it costs more than the number you typed into the stake box.
This page works the arithmetic in dollars: three picks by 2s, a four-team round robin by 2s and by 3s, and what Power.Win’s own sportsbook rules call each of those shapes. Every odds figure below is illustrative and used to make the maths readable. None of them are Power.Win’s prices.
How do you win a round robin bet?
You win a round robin by getting enough picks right that at least one of the smaller parlays inside it survives intact.
That is the whole mechanic, and it follows from what a round robin actually is. It isn’t one bet. It’s a set of parlays placed in a single action, where the sportsbook builds every combination of a size you choose and stakes each combination on its own.
You set three numbers when you place one:
- How many selections you are including — three, four, five, and so on.
- The grouping size — pairs, trebles, or both at once. This is the “by 2s” or “by 3s” on the bet slip.
- The stake per combination — not the stake for the ticket, which is the part that catches people out.
From those three numbers, the count is fixed. Group n selections into combinations of k and the number of bets is the binomial coefficient — the count of distinct ways to choose k things from n. That is why three picks by 2s is always three bets, and four picks by 2s is always six.
Two consequences matter more than anything else on this page.
First, the minimum number of correct picks before anything pays is k, the grouping size. A round robin by 3s returns nothing on two correct picks, because every treble inside it contains at least one loser.
Second, your real outlay is the per-combination stake multiplied by the number of combinations. Typing $10 into a four-team round robin by 2s takes $60 off your balance, not $10. The bet slip shows both figures; the one people remember is the smaller one.
What does “by 2s, x3 wagers” mean?
By 2s means the sportsbook pairs your selections into every possible two-leg parlay. The “x3 wagers” is the count: three selections make exactly three pairs.
With picks A, B and C, those pairs are fixed and there are no others:
| Combination | Legs | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Parlay 1 | A + B | Both A and B to win |
| Parlay 2 | A + C | Both A and C to win |
| Parlay 3 | B + C | Both B and C to win |
Now in dollars. Put $10 on each combination, so $30 total outlay, with all three picks priced at −110 — an illustrative figure, not a Power.Win price. Two −110 legs multiply to a two-leg parlay returning $36.45 on a $10 stake.
| Picks correct | Combinations that win | Returned | Net on $30 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 of 3 | 3 | $109.34 | +$79.34 |
| 2 of 3 | 1 | $36.45 | +$6.45 |
| 1 of 3 | 0 | $0 | −$30.00 |
| 0 of 3 | 0 | $0 | −$30.00 |
Set that against the alternative. The same $30 on a single straight three-leg parlay at the same prices returns $208.74 if all three land, and nothing if they don’t.
So the transaction is visible. You gave up about $99 of upside on the perfect outcome, and in exchange you turned a 2-of-3 result from a total loss into $6.45 of profit.
That $6.45 deserves a second look. One wrong pick out of three leaves you six dollars and change ahead on a $30 outlay. The round robin didn’t rescue the slip. It reduced it to roughly break-even, which is a different and much smaller promise than most people have in mind when they tick the box.
What does “by 3s, x4 wagers” mean?
By 3s groups your selections into trebles instead of pairs. Four selections make four trebles, which is the “x4 wagers” on the slip.
With picks A, B, C and D:
| Combination | Legs | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Parlay 1 | A + B + C | All three to win |
| Parlay 2 | A + B + D | All three to win |
| Parlay 3 | A + C + D | All three to win |
| Parlay 4 | B + C + D | All three to win |
Drop one selection from each treble and you can see the pattern: each combination is the full set minus one pick. That is why four selections give four trebles.
In dollars, at $10 per combination and $40 total outlay, with every leg at an illustrative −110. Three −110 legs multiply to a treble returning $69.58 on $10.
| Picks correct | Combinations that win | Returned | Net on $40 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 of 4 | 4 | $278.32 | +$238.32 |
| 3 of 4 | 1 | $69.58 | +$29.58 |
| 2 of 4 | 0 | $0 | −$40.00 |
| 1 of 4 | 0 | $0 | −$40.00 |
By 3s is a narrower net than by 2s and a bigger payout when it holds. Three correct picks out of four still returns a profit; two correct picks returns nothing at all. You are buying cover against exactly one wrong answer, and nothing more.
Those four trebles are not an exotic structure. In Power.Win’s sportsbook rules they are part of a named bet, which the next two sections unpack.
What does a 4-team round robin pay?
A four-team round robin by 2s creates six two-leg parlays. By 3s it creates four trebles. Add the straight four-fold and you have eleven bets off one slip.
| Grouping | Combinations | Outlay at $10 each | Correct picks before anything pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| By 2s | 6 | $60 | 2 |
| By 3s | 4 | $40 | 3 |
| By 4s | 1 | $10 | 4 |
| All three at once | 11 | $110 | 2 |
The by-2s version is the one people mean by “4 team round robin”, so here it is worked through at $10 per combination, $60 outlay, every leg at an illustrative −110:
| Picks correct | Combinations that win | Returned | Net on $60 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 of 4 | 6 | $218.68 | +$158.68 |
| 3 of 4 | 3 | $109.34 | +$49.34 |
| 2 of 4 | 1 | $36.45 | −$23.55 |
| 1 of 4 | 0 | $0 | −$60.00 |
Look at the 2-of-4 row. A combination won, money came back, and the slip is still $23.55 down. Half your picks correct is a losing result in a four-team round robin by 2s, and the returning money makes that easy to misread.
Three of four is where the structure earns its keep: +$49.34 on a $60 outlay, against $0 for a straight four-leg parlay on the same picks. One wrong answer out of four, and you are up roughly 80% of your stake rather than wiped out.
Run all eleven bets and you have what rule 4.4.6 calls a Yankee: one four-fold, four trebles and six doubles from four matches. The name is just a label for the eleven tickets, and at $10 each that label costs $110.
Some people don’t want every combination at all. They want the single four-leg ticket, which is a different question with a different answer, and what a $100 4-team parlay pays works that one through on one ticket instead of eleven.
What does Power.Win’s rulebook call a round robin?
Power.Win’s sportsbook rules never use the phrase “round robin”. The structure is there in full, filed under rule 4.4.3 as a System, with a separate name for each common size.
Two definitions do the work. Rule 4.4.2 covers the Combo — a bet on several independent outcomes where every single leg has to be predicted correctly, one wrong leg loses the entire Combo, and the payout is the stake multiplied by the combined odds. That is the parlay the rest of this page keeps building out of.
Rule 4.4.3 then defines the System as a set of Combos covering every variant of the same size drawn from a fixed set of outcomes, with the same stake on each and the same number of legs in each. That is the mathematical definition of a combination applied to a bet slip, and read slowly it describes a round robin exactly: same grouping size, same stake per combination, nothing left uncovered.
The named sizes follow, each with its bet count written into the rule:
| Rule | Name | Selections | Bets created | What those bets are |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.4.4 | Trixie | 3 | 4 | 1 treble + 3 doubles |
| 4.4.5 | Patent | 3 | 7 | 1 treble + 3 doubles + 3 singles |
| 4.4.6 | Yankee | 4 | 11 | 1 four-fold + 4 trebles + 6 doubles |
| 4.4.7 | Canadian (Super Yankee) | 5 | 26 | 1 five-fold + 5 four-folds + 10 trebles + 10 doubles |
| 4.4.8 | Heinz | 6 | 57 | 1 six-fold + 6 five-folds + 15 four-folds + 20 trebles + 15 doubles |
| 4.4.9 | Super Heinz | 7 | 120 | 1 seven-fold + 7 six-folds + 21 five-folds + 35 four-folds + 35 trebles + 21 doubles |
| 4.4.10 | Goliath | 8 | 247 | 1 eight-fold + 8 seven-folds + 28 six-folds + 56 five-folds + 70 four-folds + 56 trebles + 28 doubles |
One row in that table is not a round robin. The Patent at 4.4.5 includes three singles, and a System under 4.4.3 is built from combinations of the same size. Mixing a treble, three doubles and three singles means mixing sizes, so a Patent sits next to the family rather than inside it.
The rest of the column on the right is worth reading as a price list. Those counts are how many separate tickets the name buys. A Goliath at $1 per bet is $247 committed before a single whistle, on eight selections you have to be close to perfect about.
What can void a leg inside a round robin?
Two rules decide what happens when a leg stops being a clean bet, and both behave differently in a round robin than in a single parlay.
Rule 6.11 voids related outcomes. If selections inside a Combo are connected rather than independent, the rulebook voids those bets. Its own example is backing a team to win the league alongside that same team winning the deciding game. In a round robin this matters more, because one related pair can turn up inside several combinations at once, and each of those combinations is affected.
That is also why same-game and correlated-leg selections are a rules question rather than an arithmetic one, and rule 6.11 is where the answer sits.
A voided leg is priced at odds of 1. Where the sportsbook voids a bet or part of one, general rule 6.4 settles it at odds of «1», so a combination containing a voided leg settles on the legs that are left: a two-leg parlay can end up settling as a single, and the slip keeps running rather than being cancelled. A late leg is a separate case, and it does not void automatically. General rule 6.5 says a bet accepted after an event has started “will have action unless a material advantage has been gained by the End User”, and only then may the sportsbook void it. The automatic void for a late leg sits in the racing rules at 3.5.2, and the rulebook’s own precedence clause 3.10 keeps a sport rule from being read across to other sports.
The practical reading is simple. A voided leg shrinks the combinations it appears in rather than cancelling the slip, and a related pair of selections can quietly take out more combinations than you expected when you built it.
Are round robin bets a good idea?
A round robin is a risk-spreading tool, not an edge. It changes nothing about any individual price, and it increases the amount of money you have at risk.
The tables above already proved the three things that matter.
No price got better. Every combination settles at the odds its own legs carry on their own. The sportsbook’s margin sits inside each of those prices, and a round robin buys more tickets that contain it. Six two-leg parlays carry that margin six times over.
The outlay multiplies quietly. The same per-combination stake becomes $30 on three picks by 2s, $60 on four picks by 2s, and $110 on the full eleven-bet four-team round robin. The stake box shows one number and the balance moves by another.
Being nearly right pays modestly. Two of three correct returned $6.45 on a $30 outlay. Two of four correct, by 2s, was a $23.55 loss despite a winning combination.
What a round robin genuinely does is answer a specific question — “what happens if one of these is wrong?” — with a number instead of a zero. For someone who would otherwise not place the bet at all, that is a real and legitimate reason to use the structure. It is not a reason to expect it to return more over time, and nothing above suggests it will.
If you want the layer underneath all of this, including why one wrong leg takes down a whole parlay and how a combined price is actually built from its legs, parlays and combo bets with crypto covers that ground.
What does a round robin look like on Power.Win?
On Power.Win, the structure lives in the published sportsbook rules as a System, with the named sizes above, funded in crypto only.
The Power.Win sportsbook carries pre-match and live betting across major sports and esports. Deposits and withdrawals are crypto only, with no fiat rail in either direction.
The sportsbook rules define the whole family at section 4.4. The Single sits at 4.4.1, the Combo at 4.4.2 and the System at 4.4.3, and the seven named sizes run from 4.4.4 to 4.4.10, each with its bet count written into the rule itself. Two further rules in the same document govern how a leg behaves: 6.11 on related outcomes inside a Combo, and 3.5.2 on a leg accepted after its event has officially started.
Power.Win is operated by 3-102-968317 SRL, Costa Rica, licensed by the Tobique Gaming Commission, licence 0000209. Power.Win isn’t available to players in the United States: section 5 of its Terms and Conditions lists the United States of America among the countries whose players aren’t eligible to deposit or play real-money games. Read this page as an explanation of how round robin bets work, not as an invitation to sign up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a round robin the same as a parlay?
No. A parlay is one ticket that needs every leg to win, while a round robin is a set of parlays staked together in one action. Three picks by 2s is three separate two-leg tickets, which rule 4.4.3 defines as a System.
What is the smallest round robin you can place?
Three selections grouped by 2s, which produces 3 two-leg parlays and takes $30 off your balance at $10 a combination. Two selections cannot make one, because grouping 2 picks by 2s produces exactly 1 parlay and nothing is spread.
Which named bet covers five selections?
A Canadian, also called a Super Yankee, under rule 4.4.7. It covers 5 matches with 26 bets: one five-fold, 5 four-folds, 10 trebles and 10 doubles. At $10 a combination that commits $260 before a single match starts.
Does a round robin lower the sportsbook’s margin?
No. Under rule 4.4.2 each Combo settles at the odds its own legs already carry, so the margin priced into them is untouched. A 4-team round robin by 2s holds 6 of those tickets, and the margin sits in all 6.
What happens to the rest of a round robin if one leg is voided?
It keeps running. A voided leg is priced at odds of «1» under general rule 6.4, so the affected combinations settle on the legs that remain instead of the slip being cancelled. A leg accepted late is a different case: general rule 6.5 says it has action unless an unfair advantage was gained.
Sources (Citations)
- Power.Win Sportsbook Rules (power.win/sportsbook-rules): bet types at section 4.4 — 4.4.1 Single, 4.4.2 Combo, 4.4.3 System, 4.4.4 Trixie, 4.4.5 Patent, 4.4.6 Yankee, 4.4.7 Canadian / Super Yankee, 4.4.8 Heinz, 4.4.9 Super Heinz, 4.4.10 Goliath, each with its own stated bet breakdown; 6.4 (a bet or part of one declared void is settled at odds «1») and 6.4.6 (a bet made after an Event had started); 6.5 (a bet accepted after an Event has started has action unless a material advantage has been gained); 3.10 (Sport Rules take precedence over General Rules, so the racing-section rule 3.5.2 does not read across); 6.11 (related outcomes inside a Combo are void). Read 14 October 2026.
- Power.Win Terms and Conditions (power.win/terms): section 5, country eligibility. Read 14 October 2026.
- Power.Win Sportsbook (power.win/sportsbook): pre-match and live betting across major sports and esports, crypto-only funding. Read 14 October 2026.
- Wolfram MathWorld, Binomial Coefficient (mathworld.wolfram.com/BinomialCoefficient.html) and Combination (mathworld.wolfram.com/Combination.html): the definition of the count used for every combination total on this page. Read 14 October 2026.
- Combination counts: computed as binomial coefficients and cross-checked against the breakdown written into each rule — Trixie 4, Yankee 11, Canadian 26, Heinz 57, Super Heinz 120, Goliath 247. Every odds figure in the worked examples is an illustrative −110 per leg and is not a Power.Win price.
Take the Lead, Gamble Responsibly
A round robin spreads one opinion across more tickets; it does not make the opinion more likely to be right, and the sportsbook’s margin is priced into every ticket it buys.
Work out what a slip is worth risking before the bet slip is ever open, and use the deposit limits, reality checks and self-exclusion tools on Power.Win’s responsible gambling page. If the betting has stopped being fun, treat that as the signal to stop; the support resources are listed on that same page.
By the Power.Win Editorial Team