What Is A Single Bet?

In simple terms, a single bet is a bet placed on one single outcome of one event or match.

Because of its simplicity, single bets are highly popular and are the most common type of bet placed worldwide. Whether you’re a beginner or advanced bettor, anyone can place a single bet.

So, let’s take a look at the different types of single bets you can place, how it differs with various sports, how to place a single bet, tips on placing single bets and where to find the best odds.

Examples Of Single Bets

A single bet is the most basic type of bet you can place and are very easy to calculate.

When you place a single bet you are simply betting on one outcome to happen, it is then just a case of selecting how much you want to wager on it.

However, single bets don’t have to be boring – it’s not just a case of predicting who will win a match. You can place single bets on a whole host of markets, and they come with a huge range of odds too.

If, for example, you take the Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City, some examples of single bets with their odds are:

As you can see from the above, single bets can be placed on a range of different outcomes, many of which don’t even relate to the result of the game.

For example, say you bet on ‘Total Goals Over 3.5’, it doesn’t matter who wins the match, who scores, how many corners are won, or who gets carded. It doesn’t matter if it ends in a draw. The only outcome you’re interested in is whether there were more than 3.5 goals in the match. If there was, you win your single bet.

This is one of the reasons why single bets are very popular, as they are largely considered as more likely to land than, say, multiplier bets or accumulators.

Multipliers and accumulators rely on either several factors from one match, or several factors from multiple matches so there are a lot more variables, and therefore a lot more chances of the bet failing.

Single Bets In Different Sports

The above example is obviously from one single match of football, but there are many other single bets you can place on leagues and tournaments too. For example, you can bet on who will win the Premier League or FA Cup and who will be the top league goal scorer.

Also, different sports have their own range of single bets you can place. We’ll take a look at a few of these below:

Horse racing – place a single bet on which horse will win the race

Tennis – you can place single bets on who will win the match, who will win Set 1, how many games will be played, what the final score will be, how many aces will be served

Snooker – you can place single bets on the match winner, the correct score, tournament outright winner, highest break, or if there’ll be a 147

Darts – single bet options include tournament winner, match winner, correct score, highest checkout, or how many 180’s will be thrown

Boxing – place a single bet on match winner, method of victory or what round it will finish in

Cricket – single bets can be placed on tournament or league winner, match winner, top batsman, top bowler, runs scored or even who will win the coin toss!

How To Place A Single Bet

Although single bets are very easy to place, sometimes the hard bit can be trying to find the markets you want to bet on.

When you go on a bookmakers website, you’ll usually find a menu of sports listed down the left hand side or on tabs across the top.

Clicking on the relevant sport will then open up a new page with a list of potential matches or events for you to choose from.

Often betting markets are then put into sections with the main page only showing ‘Popular’ betting markets for that match. There can be many other markets under different tabs such as ‘goals’, ‘goalscorers’, ‘outrights’, ‘competitions’ or they can be sectioned off by date.

Make sure you take a good look at all the options, so you get the full range of bets and all of the odds available. When you find one you want to bet on, simply select the odds and it will be automatically added to your bet slip. You then just enter the stake you want to wager and select ‘confirm’.

If you wanted to bet on Liverpool in this example, you would click on the 1.20 odds (the odds listed first are the home team in the match odds market), the bet would then appear in your bet slip where you can enter your chosen stake and then place bet to confirm.

Tips On Placing Single Bets

Although anyone can place a single bet, and it can be completely punted, there are a few tips you can follow to make it more successful.

Research/Stats

Placing single bets on a basic outcome such as match winner often doesn’t come with the best odds. This is especially true if there is one specific favourite or dominant player/team.

However, you can usually find better odds on things less predictable such as goal scorers, goals, corners and cards in football or markets such as outright tournament winners, or specific factors such as highest checkout in darts or aces in tennis.

It’s possible to do some research on these factors to see how likely it is to happen. The more informed you are, the better equipped you are to make single bet predictions.

Study the previous results of the team/players, for example, Is there one team keeping a lot of clean sheets? Is one player most likely to receive a card? Does one team win a lot of corners? You can even research the referee to see how often he dishes yellow cards out!

Bet Boosts

Many bookmakers offer Bet Boosts on certain single bet outcomes, for example, Erling Haaland to score for Man City.

There’s a very good chance that this outcome will happen (he rarely misses!) and the bookies know that. But they offer Bet Boosts to get your attention, in the hope that while you’re on their platform, you’ll also place other bets too.

Bet Boosts are basically an increase in odds for that particular outcome. For example, if Haaland to score anytime is usually offered at odds of 1.50, they may boost it to 2.00 for a particular match.

It’s a good idea to keep your eye on Bet Boosts as you can get added value on some single bets.

Find The Best Odds

Bookmakers are always in competition with each other to get your business. One of the ways they do this is to try and offer the best odds to their customers.

It, therefore, pays to shop around for the best odds and you can do this with a betting odds comparison site such as Oddschecker.

This will search through a range of online bookmakers and provide a table of the different odds provided at each site. The best odds are highlighted in bold so you can easily see which bookie is offering you the best value for your single bet.

Strategic Use Of Handicap Betting

Many people, especially beginners, are put off by handicap betting, but it can be a great way to increase your odds on very basic single bets.

Handicap betting is where one or both teams/players are given a mathematical deficit or advantage to level out the playing field from a betting point of view.

Let’s look at a Cup Tie between Premier League team Brighton and Hove Albion and League One Team Crawley Town.

Obviously Brighton are the favourites and if you were to place a single bet on them winning, the odds would be 1.25. Although there’s a good chance this bet will win, there is no guarantee, and if it does, it won’t return much profit. A £10 bet would return £12.50, giving a £2.50 profit.

However, if we use handicap betting, we can increase our odds.

Handicap+1 means we would give Crawley Town a one goal advantage from a betting point of view and subsequently give Brighton a one goal disadvantage. (So, in effect Crawley have started 1 nil up within the bet).

In this scenario, if Brighton win the match by one goal, the Handicap+1 bet will fail. As they haven’t overcome the one goal disadvantage to win the match. However, if they win the game by 2 goals, then the bet will win.

By betting the Handicap+1 bet we have increased the odds from 1.25 to 1.73. If we bet £10 we would get a £7.30 profit instead of £2.50

Handicap+2 means Brighton have to win by three goals and this increases the odds again to 2.88, which would give an £18.80 profit. Meanwhile Handicap+3 would mean Brighton have to win by four goals and this would give odds of 5.50 and a profit of £45.00.

Handicap betting is therefore a very viable way to increase odds and therefore profitability on a basic single bet.

Can Single Bets Be Placed In-Play?

Absolutely. Single bets are ideal for in-play betting as they can be used for a vast number of different markets. In-play betting odds can fluctuate considerably depending on the live performances and momentum switches within a match.

Most sports have natural breaks such as half-time, change of net, set breaks etc and this a great time to get involved and capitalise on the current single bet odds at that time.

Pros And Cons Of Single Bets

There are both advantages and disadvantages of placing single bets, but overall, the vast majority of bettors place single bets on a frequent basis. Let’s take a look at a few of these below.

Pro’s

• Simple to place

• Vast and varied single bet market

• Huge range of odds

• Considered more likely to land than multiplier or accumulator bets

• Can do research to help make predictions

• Can use bet boosts, handicap betting and odds comparison sites to get the most value

• Many single bets aren’t dependent on result or score

Cons

• Generally lower odds than multiplier bets and accumulators

• Can be a little one-dimensional when just needing one outcome

How Are Single Bets Used In Matched Betting?

Although some bookie offers specifically require Bet Builders or Accumulators to be placed, the majority of Matched Betting offers relate to single bets.

For example, Bet and Gets are often linked to placing a single bet on a match or race, in order to receive a free bet, free spins, or a refund in return.

Matched Betting is the only way to guarantee profit from placing single bets, providing you follow the instructions correctly, as it uses bookmaker offers strategically to lock-in any profit potential. To find out more about Matched Betting take a look at our guide.