Perhaps not surprisingly, the ‘Alphabet’ bet is so named because it contains 26 different bets.
The bet is made up of six different selections; 2 ‘Patents’ which is a separately well-known bet made up of 14 bets in total, one ‘Yankee’ which contains another 11 bets and of course a six-fold accumulator.
Based on that alone you probably fully understand when we say that an Alphabet is one of the most complicated bet types around.
Owing to the large number of bets contained within, Alphabets tend to cost quite a lot of money to place so you must always consider your unit stake. For example, if you placed a £1 Alphabet, it would actually cost you £26 in total.
With this in mind, we do not recommend this as a ‘fun’ bet. Instead, make sure your knowledge is up to snuff, especially where horse racing is concerned because your six horses may all run well, but only one may win.
The Alphabet Wager Explained
Just as the alphabet has 26 letters, the Alphabet bet has 26 different bets, all coming from six initial selections be they football teams, horses or whatever else you bet on.
The Alphabet brings together other bets; two Patents contain 14 bets, the Yankee consists of 11 and there is a six-fold accumulator on the six selections.
To understand the Alphabet, you need to know how the Patent and Yankee each break down.
- Patent: 3 selections, 7 bets made up of 3 singles, 3 doubles and a treble.
- Yankee: 4 selections, 11 bets made up of 6 doubles, 4 trebles, and a four-fold.
So, the two Patents therefore give us 14 bets, the Yankee gives us 11 and the six-fold completes our 26-bet Alphabet wager.
Permutations
If you like six horses on race day, as a punter you cannot put all six into a Patent or a Yankee. So, you must carefully plan your bets, adding the selection you feel gives you a bigger chance of winning.
Imagine then that as a punter you were placing an Alphabet wager on these six horses:
- Noble Truth, 3.05
- Broome, 3.40
- Naval Crown, 4.20
- Rohaan, 5.00
- Missed The Cut, 5.35
- Stratum, 6.10
Of these, you may have thought that Noble Truth in the 3.05 and Stratum in the 6.10 are your least likely winners. Place these into positions one and six in your Alphabet bet. That means they won’t be included in the Yankee portion of the bet.
The reason for this is that you want your four strongest chances in the Yankee and if you’re right, you’ll get a bigger return. The bets will break down like this:
- First Patent Bet: includes horses 1-3; Noble Truth, Broome and Naval Crown.
- Second Patent Bet: includes horses 4-6; Rohaan, Missed The Cut and Stratum.
- Yankee: includes horses 2-5; Broome, Naval Crown, Rohaan and Missed The Cut. Leave out horses 1 and 6 here as we’d decided they give us the least chance of a win, potentially maximising the Yankee payout.
- Acca: all six horses are included to win.
Any returns you get from an Alphabet depend on which bet is successful. If for instance your second Patent was to make a return, it would pay out less than your accumulator on all six horses.
This is a combo bet and a very good, if complicated one. The added complication makes it better than a typical multiple bet and also encourages you to use a little skill in terms of the order in which you place it, as explained.
The major difference is that in a normal multiple or ‘accumulator’, any winnings from the last selection are rolled over to the next and so on. Combo bets however are made up of new stakes for each bet that is placed.
Combo bets start off small, for example the Patent on its own is 7 bets, but can go all the way up the scale past the Yankee, the Alphabet and all the way to then Goliath which contains a huge 247 individual bets.
Whatever happens, watch your unit stake.
The amount you put into that box isn’t the final amount. It is multiplied by the number of bets included, in this case 26. Here’s how much an Alphabet can cost depending on the unit stake:
| Unit | Total Stake |
|---|---|
| £0.10 | £2.60 |
| £0.25 | £6.50 |
| £0.50 | £13.00 |
| £1.00 | £26.00 |
| £1.50 | £39.00 |
| £2.00 | £52.00 |
| £2.50 | £65.00 |
| £3.00 | £78.00 |
| £5.00 | £130.00 |
| £10.00 | £260.00 |
So double check before you click to confirm your bet.