11 bets · 4 selections
Yankee bet calculator: 11 bets from four selections, worked out
A Yankee is four selections combined into 11 bets: six doubles, four trebles and one fourfold. There are no singles, so two of your four selections have to win before the bet returns anything at all.
How a Yankee is made up
A Yankee covers every double, treble and the fourfold across four selections. That comes to 11 separate bets, so a £1 Yankee costs £11.00 rather than £1 — and £22.00 if you place it each way.
| Line type | Number of bets | Share of the bet |
|---|---|---|
| doubles | 6 | 54.5% |
| trebles | 4 | 36.4% |
| fourfold | 1 | 9.1% |
| Total | 11 | 100% |
A worked Yankee example
Take four selections at 2/1, 3/1, 6/4 and 4/1, staked at £1.00 a line with every selection winning. The figures below come from the same calculation the tool above runs.
- Unit stake
- £1.00
- Total stake
- £11.00
- Returns
- £404.50
- Profit
- +£393.50
| Selection | Fractional | Decimal |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2/1 | 3.00 |
| 2 | 3/1 | 4.00 |
| 3 | 3/2 | 2.50 |
| 4 | 4/1 | 5.00 |
When a Yankee is the right bet
The Yankee is the Lucky 15 without its safety net. Dropping the four singles cuts the cost from 15 units to 11, which sounds like a small saving until you realise what you have given up: with one winner a Lucky 15 pays and a Yankee does not. That is the entire distinction, and it is worth being deliberate about rather than picking whichever name is familiar.
Where the Yankee earns its place is with selections at genuine prices. The four extra units you save by skipping the singles get spread across the multiples instead, and when two or three of your legs land at 3/1 or better the doubles and trebles compound quickly. With four short-priced favourites the same bet is poor value, because the singles you have given up were the part most likely to pay.
A Yankee also behaves well when a horse is withdrawn. The void selection settles at odds of 1.00, so the fourfold collapses to a treble and each affected treble becomes a double. In practice a non-runner turns your Yankee into something close to a Trixie on the remaining three, and the calculator shows exactly what that leaves you with.
Bookmaker bonuses generally do not apply to a Yankee. The one-winner and all-winner uplifts are features of the "lucky" family — Patent, Lucky 15, Lucky 31 and Lucky 63 — because those bets include the singles. If a bonus matters to you, the Lucky 15 on the same four selections is the bet to compare against.
A practical way to decide between the two is to ask what a single winner would need to be priced at to cover the extra four units a Lucky 15 costs. If your shortest-priced selection would not come close to returning fifteen units on its own, the singles are not really insurance — they are four units spent on a return that will not change the outcome of your day. In that case the Yankee is the more honest expression of the bet you are actually making.
What it does well
- Cheaper than a Lucky 15 on the same four selections
- More stake concentrated into the multiples
- Strong returns when several bigger-priced legs land
What it costs you
- One winner returns nothing at all
- No bookmaker bonus in the usual terms
- Still an 11-unit outlay, so not a small bet
Yankee questions
How many bets are in a Yankee?
Eleven: six doubles, four trebles and one fourfold. A £1 Yankee therefore costs £11, or £22 placed each way.
How many winners do you need for a Yankee to pay out?
At least two. With only one winner there is no line that can settle, because every bet in a Yankee combines at least two selections.
What is the difference between a Yankee and a Lucky 15?
The Lucky 15 adds four singles to the same 11 bets, making 15 in total. It costs four units more and pays out when only one selection wins, which a Yankee never does.
What happens if a selection in a Yankee is a non-runner?
That leg is settled at odds of 1.00 and the bet reduces around it. The fourfold becomes a treble and each treble containing the withdrawn horse becomes a double, leaving you with the equivalent of a Trixie on the other three.
Is a Yankee available each way?
Yes. An each way Yankee is 22 bets — the 11 win lines plus 11 matching place lines — so a £1 each way Yankee costs £22 and settles the place half at whatever fraction the race is paying.
Do bookmakers pay a bonus on a Yankee?
Not usually. The consolation and all-winner bonuses are attached to the bets that include singles, which means Patent, Lucky 15, Lucky 31 and Lucky 63 rather than the Trixie, Yankee, Canadian and Heinz family.