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What Is A Single Bet?

The simplest and most common type of bet, a single consists of backing a single selection without combining any other selections or bet types. It is available across all our bookmaker partners and is the easiest bet to find, as it is the most prominently placed on nearly every app.

With a single bet, you are betting on a single outcome, whether that is a horse to win, the winner of a football match or who is going to win the Super Bowl.

These are basic wagers in which the potential profits depend on the quantity staked by the bettor and the odds offered by the bookmaker on the outcome in question. The principles here are pretty easy to understand for anyone who is new to betting. A single bet will win or lose according to the outcome of the match, race, competition or tournament being wagered on.

Assessing The Odds

If the punter wins the wager their stake is returned to them along with the profit, which is determined in fractions according to the odds. A £1 single bet on a team to win at 2/1 would return £3, £2 profit and the original £1 stake.

On a standard bookmaker (as opposed to a betting exchange), the odds are set by the bookmaker based on how likely they think the event it to happen. This means that 'unlikely' selections can have huge odds. For example, Leicester City shocked the Premier League in the 2015/16 season and were available at 5000/1 odds before the season started.

Single bets make it easier to assess the risk as a punter, with a wise strategy simply being to only bet on outcomes which you feel are more likely to occur than the bookmakers’ odds would suggest. 

Football Betting: Match Results and Outrights

If you place a single bet on the full-time result of a football match you simply want your chosen team to win the match. For example, if you plced a single bet on Everton to beat Liverpool at 2/1 with a £5 stake and Everton do manage to secure the win, you’re looking at a profit of £10 (£15 total return including your initial stake). However, if Everton lose or draw, you would lose and the stake is lost.

It’s crucial to note that with full-time result bets the team you are backing to win must have done so by the end of the 90 minutes, plus any stoppage time, in order for the wager to be valid. Victories in extra time or on penalties don’t count, unless otherwise stated by the bookmaker. It is important to remember this when betting on knockout tournaments to avoid dissapointment.

You can find up-to-date football stats and xG powered statistics in any match page in the Sporting Life Football Hub to help guide your betting decisions and understand if the price represents a good bet

Another simple, single bet might be backing a team to win a specific competition and here the odds are often higher, meaning potentially more profit on offer for the bettor.

If you fancy Manchester United to win the FA Cup at 8/1 you could place a single bet on that outcome - with a stake of £10 - and if United do win your profit is £80. This is still a single bet, but the odds are higher as there are more factors at play than in a single wager on one match. In this case Manchester United need to win several matches for the bet to be successful. 

Single bets are available in nearly every sport played professionally, including eSports, political betting and the Olympics.

Horse Racing: Race Winner Bets

Singles are also amongst the most common bets when it comes to horse racing. It doesn’t get much simpler than this, the punter just wants to place a bet on a horse to win a particular race. Again, this is a single bet.

Really all you need to know to place a single bet on a horse race is the name (or number) of the horse, the name of the racecourse, the time of the race and the amount you are willing to stake.

That said, the amounts of money you are willing to stake will depend on numerous factors, such as odds, knowledge of the horse’s form and background, the form of the jockey, the conditions at the racecourse, the distance of the race and the other horses in the field. Taking these factors into account you can assess the odds with more authority.  

If you’re looking at a racecard having done some research, or following a tip from the Sporting Life Racing Tips Centre, you might see a horse you fancy backing at 5/1 in the 2.30pm at Doncaster. You decide to place £2 on the horse to win. Your selection comes home first and the bookmaker pays out a £12 return to you, £10 profit, plus your £2 stake. 

Horse racing is one of the most notoriously difficult sports to bet on as you are not just betting on the performance of the athlete, but also of an animal – don't be disheartened if it takes some time to get used to reading form and understanding the sport.