We got asked about this in our DMs recently so here is a quick explanation for anyone who has seen the term Yankee on their sportsbook and had no idea what it meant.
The short version
A Yankee is a bet where you pick four selections and the sportsbook bundles them into 11 separate wagers for you.
Those 11 wagers are every possible double, treble, and four fold combination from your four picks. You do not need all four to win.
Get two right and you collect on a double. Get three right and you collect on three doubles and a treble.
Get all four and you clean up on all 11 bets.
It costs 11 times your unit stake so a $2 Yankee is $22 total.
Why bettors use it instead of a parlay
We started using Yankees on NFL Sundays after one too many weeks of going three for four on a four leg parlay and getting nothing back.
A Yankee on that same three for four week would have paid out on the doubles and the treble from our three winners.
We actually tracked it for a few weeks and the Yankee came out ahead of straight parlays over that stretch because we kept having one pick per week that let us down.
The downside
You need at least two of your four picks to win otherwise you get nothing. And because you are paying for 11 bets instead of one the upfront cost is higher.
If all four picks win a straight parlay would have paid more for a smaller outlay.
You are basically trading some of that upside for protection against one loser and whether that trade off makes sense depends on how often you go three for four versus four for four on your parlays.
