What a single actually is

A single is one name and one price. The shop prints 5/2. You put £10 on it. If the name wins they pay 5/2 on that tenner: £25 profit plus the stake back, £35 returned. If it loses they keep the tenner. That is the whole bet. Every other ticket on the Saturday coupon is this one stacked, sliced, or wearing a hat it did not ask for.

People talk as if the coupon were a zoo. It is not. A correct score is a single. A fight winner is a single. A horse to win the 3.15 is a single. The name on the slip changes. The deal does not: one result, one price, one stake. You are right, or the shop keeps the money. This desk will keep saying that until the hats come off.

5/2 in decimal is 3.50. Stake × decimal = return. 10 × 3.50 = 35. American +250 is the same price in another hat — the one Las Vegas likes, the one a British shop will still settle if you convert it first. Put it through the odds box at the top of the calculators page if the shop printed the wrong alphabet. The box does not care which font you arrived in.

When you want two names on one stake you have left the single and walked into an accumulator. That is a different article because it is a different risk: every name must win, and the Saturday coupon starts looking like a pension until 4.55pm. Stay here if you only want one name. The arithmetic is short. That is the point.