The single as a contract

A single is one outcome, one stake and one settlement. The picture shows a single bet slip. The getting-started course already said "beginners should bet singles". Here the single is treated as a legal contract: what wins, what is void and what is a push. An accumulator hides your mistake until the last leg; a single shows it straight away. For your diary, it is the basic unit of truth.

The single as a contract, in plain words

Treating a single as a contract means you can explain the bet slip in one sentence: "The home side wins in 90 minutes, 1u, at 1.91." If the sentence needs "and also the total, and also corners", it is no longer a single, or it already involves correlation. The school does not ban other bet types for ever. It does require your first hundred rows to be singles.

How it works

Build the bet slip from the end: market, side, accepted price, 1u and the settlement rule. Do not start with "let's add one more". Once the bet is accepted, do not edit the record. A clean single is easier to dispute with a bookmaker than an accumulator spread across five leagues.

1. One sentence.
2. 1u.
3. The accepted price.
4. One row in the diary.

Example with numbers

Home win at 1.91, stake 100. It wins 1:0: +91. It loses 1:1: −100. Void (the match is not played): 0, and the stake comes back. Three outcomes, all easy to read. The same person with a four-leg accumulator does not know which leg killed it until they open the settlement.

Common mistakes

• Staking 5u on a single "because it's only one bet, so it's safe".
• Placing two singles on the same match without noting the correlation.
• Not checking whether the bet is for 90 minutes or includes extra time.
• Editing the row after settlement.

What to write in your diary

Type: S (single). If an E appears, that is a different lesson.

Single. Next: accumulators.