Think of a Flag bet calculator as a Yankee calculator that also understands up and down bets. A Flag is a Yankee (six doubles, four trebles and a four-fold) with six pairs of single stakes about bets added, 23 bets on four selections. £1 a bet costs £23, and the free calculator above settles it however your four picks do.
Flag bet calculator: the 23 bets
| Part of the bet | Bets |
|---|---|
| 6 doubles | 6 |
| 4 trebles | 4 |
| 1 four-fold | 1 |
| 6 up and down pairs (single stakes about) | 12 |
| Total | 23 |
Each up and down pair is two conditional singles: £1 on A, and if it wins, £1 of the return rides on to B. The same goes from B to A. Four selections make six pairs (AB, AC, AD, BC, BD and CD), which is where the extra 12 bets come from.
How a Flag pays compared with a Yankee
Here’s the slip above, 2/1, 6/4, 3/1 and 5/2 at £1 a bet:
- One winner (the 2/1): £6. A Yankee pays nothing here.
- Two winners (2/1 and 6/4): £23.50, about your stake back. A Yankee on the same two returns the £7.50 double from £11.
- Three winners: £98.
- All four: £367.
So the Flag trades a bigger stake for a softer landing. With two winners from four you break roughly even instead of losing most of the stake. Whether that’s worth £12 more than a Yankee depends on how often you tend to get two right, and how big the prices are.
Each way, Rule 4 and non-runners
Each way doubles it to 46 bets. The place half has its own doubles, trebles, four-fold and up and down bets at the place terms.
Void a non-runner and the multiples treat it as odds of 1.0. In an up and down pair the stake passes straight through it to the other selection, as if it had won at evens. Rule 4 and dead heats are under the extra options and apply to every bet the selection is in.
Three picks instead of four is a Round Robin. Without the up and down bets it’s a plain Yankee, and the bet calculator has every other type.
A Flag costs more than twice a Yankee. Check the total stake on the slip. BeGambleAware.org is free and confidential if it stops being fun.