What is a single bet?

A single bet is one that you are betting on a single outcome of a certain event and is perhaps the most used and easiest type of bet to understand for punters. Punters place a bet on a market such as a horse to win a race or a football team to win a match and if the selection wins, the bookie will pay out the winnings. If the selection loses, the bookmaker will keep the stake.

The single bet is good as it means you are only betting on one outcome rather than multiples, where you need a number of results to be paid out. 

Single bets can be used on a favourite that will have low odds or can even be odds-on, or on outsiders with larger odds that can potentially pay out bigger winnings.

Single bets can be placed all through the World Cup, and there are lots of games to take advantage of with four games a day during most of the group stage of the competition.

Single bet example

You place a single bet of £10 on England to beat Brazil at 2/1 in the full-time result market. If England beat Brazil over 90 minutes, then your single bet has won and you will be paid out your stake plus the winnings, which will be £30. If the full-time result is a draw, then your bet will lose. If England beat Brazil in 90 minutes, then you will lose your bet.

What is an each-way single bet?

An each-way single bet actually consists of two bets, one to win and one to place, and are settled as two bets. As it’s two bets, you are placing double the stake, so if you placed £10 you would actually be placing a £20 bet, £10 for the win part and £10 for the place part.

The place part of the single each-way bet is calculated as a fraction of the win odds, which is usually 1/5. See below for an example of an each-way single bet if you had placed a £10 each-way bet on a horse at 9/2. Your total stake is £20 and your potential winnings are £74 including your stake. This is calculated by adding £55 for the win part (£10 x 9/2 = £10 stake returned) and £19 for the each-way part (£10 x [9/2 x 1/5] + £10 stake returned).

If the horse was to win, you would win the full £74, including the £20 stake, as your win and place bets would both be successful.

If your horse was just to place, then you would win £19, including the £10 stake, as your place bet would be successful.

If your horse was to fail to place, then you would lose both bets.

Now you know everything you need to know about single bets, take advantage of the best bookmaker offers on our free bets page.