Yankee and Lucky 15 bets are both built on four selections, but the Lucky 15 includes singles while the Yankee does not. A £1 Yankee is 11 bets and costs £11, while a £1 Lucky 15 is 15 bets and costs £15, and the extra £4 buys four singles that return something from just one winner.
What a Yankee is
A Yankee uses four selections and contains 11 separate bets in total: 6 doubles, 4 trebles and 1 fourfold. For a £1 Yankee, this means a total stake of £11.
Because it does not include singles, a Yankee requires at least two winning selections to return anything. Getting one selection right will not result in a payout, however long its odds, since every double needs both of its selections to win, every treble needs three and the fourfold needs all four.
What a Lucky 15 adds
A Lucky 15 incorporates the same 11 bets as a Yankee, plus 4 singles, one on each selection. This brings the total number of bets to 15, at a cost of £15 at £1 a bet. The singles are what make the difference: with a Lucky 15, one winner already returns something, while the same result on a Yankee returns nothing.
The five-selection versions
The Super Yankee, also known as a Canadian, uses five selections and 26 bets: 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 fourfolds and 1 fivefold. Like a Yankee, a Super Yankee does not include singles, so it also needs at least two winners for any return. At £1 a bet it costs £26.
A Lucky 31 also uses five selections, but adds the 5 singles to the Super Yankee, for 31 bets in total, or £31 at £1 a bet. It stands in the same relation to the Super Yankee as the Lucky 15 does to the Yankee: the added singles mean one winner out of five already returns something, at the price of 5 extra bets.
The core differences are structural, not a matter of odds:
- A Yankee has 11 bets and no singles, costs £11 at £1 a bet and needs two winners for a return.
- A Lucky 15 has 15 bets including 4 singles, costs £15 at £1 a bet and can pay on one winner.
- A Super Yankee extends the Yankee to five selections with 26 bets and still lacks singles.
- A Lucky 31 extends the Super Yankee with 5 singles, producing 31 bets in total.
Ultimately, it comes down to the chosen structure. A Yankee or Super Yankee excludes singles, so it costs less for the same unit stake but needs at least two winners before anything comes back. A Lucky 15 or Lucky 31 can pay on a single winning selection for a bettor prepared to stake more for that cover.
Gambling is for adults 18 and over and always costs money; UK players can set deposit limits, use GAMSTOP or call the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133.
