What Is A Canadian Bet?

Betting can get a bit complicated at times. With Tricast bets, Lucky 15 bets and Heinz bets, it’s a lot to take in. But don’t panic, we’re on hand to help you understand the ins and outs.

Another multiple type of cover bet, A Canadian bet is also well known as a Super Yankee bet. This is because of its close association with a Yankee bet.

When placing a Canadian bet, you’re picking 5 horses or competitors and creating 26 bets. It’s particularly appealing in horse racing because it provides numerous chances to get some profits.

Confused? Fear not, this article will guide you through how a Canadian / Super Yankee bet works, how to put the bet on, the structure of the bets and how to calculate potential returns.

How Does A Canadian Bet Work? A Step By Step Guide

A Canadian bet is made up of 26 different wagers combined into one. When you place a Canadian bet it will create the below bets:

• 10 Doubles
• 10 Trebles
• 5 Four-folds
• 1 Five-fold

Now, if the five fold landed it would be time to get the champagne out as the rewards would potentially be massive.  As with any horse races, there is no such thing as a guarantee. However, all is not lost if all five of your selections don’t win.

This is where the Canadian (Super Yankee) adds more potential than standard accumulators. This is because of your 26 bets within the Canadian bet, only two need to win for you to get any returns back.

Canadian (Super Yankee) Bet Breakdown

Let’s have a look at what combinations are contained within a Canadian bet. You’ve studied the racecards and the racing form of the horses you fancy and picked your five selections.

Doubles

Trebles

Four-folds

Five-fold

So that’s the combinations of the wagers involved in a Canadian bet explained, but what results might return some money to you?

Don’t forget, because there are 26 combinations in a Canadian bet, your unit stake will multiply by 26.  Therefore, a £1 unit stake would cost you £26 to place the bet.

Placing a Canadian Bet

Let’s use a real example of how to place a Canadian bet at the Kilbeggan races.

You’ve done all your research on each of the races and have found 5 horses you think will fit well with a Canadian bet:

1. 4pm – Picture Of You at odds of 5 (4/1)
2. 4.35pm – Walhaan at odds of 6 (5/1)
   
3. 5.40pm – Hill Rocket at odds of 7 (6/1)
   
4. 6.15pm – Miss Gherkin at odds of 6 (5/1)
   
5. 6.50pm – Clifftop at odds of 5 (4/1)
   

Once you have been into each of the above racecards and selected the horses, your bet slip will look like this:

If you then click on the highlighted option of ‘More Multiples’ the bet slip will expand to show you all the multiple bet options available. At this point, you will see the Super Yankee (Canadian) bet option.  Just enter your unit stake and place the bet.

Don’t forget it multiplies your unit stake and the stake box tells you by how much. In this case it’s by 26 times.

Once you place the bet on Bet365, you will be shown the potential returns like this:

A couple of points to remember is:

• Bet365 don’t show the potential returns until you place the bet. However, some other bookies display this in the bet slip before you place the bet.
• Some bookies display this bet as a Super Yankee bet and some as a Canadian bet.
  

Calculating Winnings for a Canadian Bet

Manually calculating all of the possible winning combinations of a Canadian bet is messy and up another level from the Yankee bet.

Purely due to the complexity of the calculations, we highly recommend you use an online Canadian / Super Yankee bet calculator. 

However, for those of you who like number crunching, there is a way to work out returns for each wager within your Canadian bet.  Get your brain into gear and we’ll walk through it.

For this set of calculations, let’s use the odds and horses from our earlier example at Kilbeggan races. As a reminder, here are those horses:

1. 4pm – Picture Of You at odds of 5 (4/1)
2. 4.35pm – Walhaan at odds of 6 (5/1)
   
3. 5.40pm – Hill Rocket at odds of 7 (6/1)
   
4. 6.15pm – Miss Gherkin at odds of 6 (5/1)
   
5. 6.50pm – Clifftop at odds of 5 (4/1)
   

To calculate the odds, you need to multiply the odds of the horses in each combination.

Doubles

Trebles

Four-folds

Five-fold

That completes all 26 individual bets within your Canadian bet.  To get the total odds of the bet you just need to add up the totals from all 26 bets.  In this case, the total odds for this bet are 14,082.

Can You Use A Canadian Bet On Any Sports?

Pretty much yes.  The Canadian / Super Yankee bet isn’t restricted to only Canadian and American sports. Whilst horse racing is the most popular sport for this type of bet, there are plenty of other sports it can be used on.

These sports include Formula 1, American football, rugby, football, cricket and golf. UK bookies accept Canadian bets on almost anything.  There are occasionally exceptions that prevent you from placing a Canadian bet such as placing accumulators on the same event and placing multiples that have related possibilities.

You aren’t limited to one sport per Canadian bet so you might consider using different sports and markets within a Canadian bet.  If there’s a big weekend of sport, you might fancy spicing it up a little by putting a Canadian bet on all of the events.  Here’s an example of what you could do:

1. Friday Night Rugby League – Wigan Warriors to beat Leeds Rhinos
2. Saturday Premier League – Liverpool to beat Man United
   
3. Saturday Boxing – Oleksandr Usyk to beat Tyson Fury
   
4. Sunday Rugby Union – Ireland to beat Wales
   
5. Sunday Formula 1 – Max Verstappen for a podium finish
   

Each Way Canadian Bet

As there is with a Yankee bet, you have the option to place your Canadian bet each way. You simply build your Canadian bet as normal and once you go to add your stake to the bet slip, just tick the EW box as below:

Things you need to consider when placing an EW Canadian bet:

• The amount of bets will double when placing an EW Canadian bet. This means your bets will now increase from 26 to 52.
• You only need your choices to place instead of winning to gain any potential returns.
  
• Your stake will be double that of a standard Canadian bet. If you place a unit stake of £1, your total outlay will be £52.
  
• As with a normal Canadian bet, you need a minimum of two of your bets to come in to get any returns.
  

The combination of bets in a Canadian EW bet is similar to the normal Canadian bet but includes the place element:

• 10 Win Doubles
• 10 Place Doubles
• 10 Win trebles
• 10 Place trebles
• 5 Win Four-folds
• 5 Place Four-folds
• 1 Win Five-fold
• 1 Place Five-fold

Reasons To Consider A Canadian Bet

Now the mechanics of a Canadian bet have been covered off, why might a bettor consider placing one?

• Multiply Opportunities - Instead of limiting your chances with a normal five-fold bet, you can use the same selections but increase your chances with an extra 25 bets by using a Canadian bet. Experienced bettors like this type of bet because of the additional combinations it provides.
• Risk Limitation – unlike a standard five-fold bet, the Canadian offers a level of protection in that you can still get returns if one of your choices fails.
  
• Profit – Because the likelihood of a full win on a Canadian bet is quite rare, the odds being offered on them are vast. A low stake can multiply many times if some or all of your selections get a result.
  

Pros & Cons of a Canadian Bet

Pros

• Risk & Reward – You don’t need all of your selections to win. If two of your choices come in, your returns could still generate a profit. This will be dependent on the odds though.
• Fun – As detailed earlier, you can combine five different sporting events into your Canadian. This can provide extra interest for a series of events that are running over a weekend of sport.
  

Cons

• Cost – Because there are 26 bet combinations within a Canadian bet, your stake multiplies by 26. You should be mindful of this when placing your bets and make sure you stick to your budget.
• Complexity – combination bets such as the Canadian create a lot of possible outcomes and can get a little confusing for the less experienced bettor. Make sure you have a Canadian bet calculator to hand so you can keep on top of potential returns.
  

Mistakes To Avoid With Canadian Bets

• Structure: Make sure you understand how the bet is made up and what combinations can return a profit.
• Odds : Try to avoid backing all the favourites as lower odds will reduce your potential rewards. Try to mix your choices with value bets.
  
• Cost: bet multiples such as the Canadian can get expensive very quickly due to the unit stake multiplications. Make sure you bet what you can afford.
  
• Research: Don’t bet blindly. Research the markets you are looking to place a bet on. Particularly with horse racing, there’s a lot of information available to punters. Read more about this in our Horse Racing Form article.
  

Summary

A Canadian bet is a very useful addition to your betting armoury and can help diversify your betting strategy. The risk is higher than doing say a Lucky 15 bet because there are no single bets within a Canadian bet.  However, if you are confident that two or more of your selections will win, this may well be a good fit for you.

Hopefully, this article has equipped you better with understanding how a Canadian bets works. That said, it’s probably better suited to the more experienced punter and even then, this type of bet isn’t for everyone.

It’s important that people using a Canadian bet remember that the stakes can soon escalate because of the total number of bets and you should asses your attitude to risk before placing bets.