The 9 From 13 Perm: 715 Lines and What They Actually Cost
Larger permutations sound impressive in conversation but can be genuinely difficult to picture in practical terms until you see the actual line count and the cost that follows from it. A “9 from 13” perm is a good case study precisely because it sits at a size where the numbers start to feel serious, without yet reaching the scale of the biggest systems on offer.
Why Case Studies Like This One Are Worth Doing
It’s easy to let line counts and costs stay abstract until you actually sit down and work through a specific example in full. Treating the 9 from 13 perm as a genuine case study, rather than a quoted figure from a perm provider’s table, builds a habit of checking the maths yourself before committing money to any system, large or small.
Setting Up the Calculation
A 9 from 13 perm means selecting 13 fixtures you believe are reasonable score draw candidates, then automatically covering every possible group of 9 among them. The number of such groups is given by the combination formula:
C(13,9) = 13! / (9! × 4!) = 715 lines
As with any “X from Y” perm, it’s worth noting C(13,9) equals C(13,4) — the maths of choosing which 9 to include is identical to choosing which 4 to leave out, which gives you a quick sanity check: C(13,4) = (13×12×11×10) / (4×3×2×1) = 17,160 / 24 = 715. Same answer, confirmed a second way.
Cost at Three Common Unit Stakes
| Unit Stake | Calculation | Total Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 2p per line | 715 × £0.02 | £14.30 |
| 5p per line | 715 × £0.05 | £35.75 |
| 10p per line | 715 × £0.10 | £71.50 |
The gap between the 2p and 10p versions of exactly the same perm is striking: £14.30 against £71.50, a fivefold difference for identical selections and identical coverage. This is the clearest illustration of why unit stake deserves as much thought as perm size itself — doubling your confidence in a perm structure by moving from 9-from-13 to a slightly larger system is one kind of cost increase, but simply raising the unit stake on the same perm is a far steeper and easier-to-overlook one.
Comparing Cost-Efficiency Against Smaller Stakes
A useful way to assess whether the larger outlay is “worth it” relative to smaller alternatives is to compare cost per unit of coverage rather than raw totals. At 2p a line, the 715-line perm costs 14.30 to guarantee a winning line for any correct group of exactly 9 out of your 13 selections. Compare that with running several smaller, cheaper perms instead — say three separate 6-from-9 perms (C(9,6) = 84 lines each, 252 lines total) at the same 2p stake, costing £5.04 in total. The smaller approach is far cheaper, but it covers a fundamentally different and narrower set of combinations, split across three separate groups of 9 fixtures rather than one unified set of 13. The comparison isn’t simply “cheaper is better” — it’s about whether your confidence genuinely spans all 13 fixtures as a single pool, or whether it’s more naturally split into smaller, more confident clusters.
When a 9 From 13 Perm Makes Sense
This system suits a player who has done the research to identify 13 genuinely reasonable draw candidates but isn’t confident enough in all thirteen to enter them as straight picks, and wants meaningful protection against several selections failing — up to 4 of the 13 can miss and you still have a line covering the correct remaining 9. It’s a system built for moderate-to-high confidence spread across a wider list, not for padding out weak guesses.
When It Doesn’t
If your actual confidence is concentrated in a smaller core of six or seven fixtures with the rest being genuine guesswork, a 9 from 13 perm is likely the wrong tool — you’d be paying for broad coverage across fixtures you weren’t that confident about in the first place. A smaller, cheaper perm focused tightly on your strongest selections, or a hybrid of fixed bankers plus a modest perm, often suits that situation better.
Sanity-Checking the Formula on a Small Case
If the 715-line figure feels hard to picture, confirm the formula on a smaller version first. A 2 from 3 perm gives C(3,2) = 3 lines — easy to write out by hand, since each line simply pairs two of the three selections while leaving one out. That small, verifiable example and the 715-line calculation use exactly the same formula; only the numbers plugged into it have grown.
Deciding the Budget First
As with any perm, decide the total amount you’re willing to spend before working out which unit stake the 715 lines allows, rather than picking a unit stake first and being surprised by the total. At this line count, even a stake that sounds modest compounds into a genuinely significant outlay.
Whatever stake you settle on, a 715-line perm remains a bet on an uncertain game, not a guaranteed return on the research behind it. Set your perm budget as money you can comfortably afford to lose, play only if you are 18 or over, and seek BeGambleAware-style support if stake sizes ever start creeping up without a clear, deliberate decision behind the change.