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How Do Accumulator Bets Work?

Accumulator BetEven if you are a complete newcomer to sports betting, the chances are that you have heard the term ‘accumulator’ (or ‘acca’ as they are colloquially known). This is a type of bet that offers you the opportunity to win more money – but at a greater risk.

It’s known as an accumulator because your odds increase as you add more bets to your slip, as these are multiplied together. Common accumulators are known as:

  • Doubles – Two Bets
  • Trebles – Three Bets
  • Four-Fold – Four Bets
  • Five-Fold – Five Bets
  • Six-Fold – Six Bets

And so on. The downside of an accumulator is that only one of its legs needs to fail for you to lose your bet. But the rewards are far, far greater than betting on individual outcomes.

To explain accumulators better, let’s take a look at an example. Listed below is a typical weekend of fixtures in the English Premier League:

  Home Draw Away
Southampton vs Tottenham 11/10 23/10 5/2
Burnley vs Leicester City 6/4 23/10 9/5
Crystal Palace vs Hull City EVENS 21/10 16/5
Newcastle United vs Swansea 13/10 11/5 11/5
QPR vs West Ham 11/8 12/5 19/10
Stoke City vs Sunderland 19/20 9/4 16/5
West Brom vs Liverpool 3/1 5/2 10/11
Man City vs Aston Villa 1/4 5/1 10/1
Everton vs Man United 23/10 23/10 6/5
Arsenal vs Chelsea 29/20 9/4 19/10

Now, there are several options available to you. Let’s say you fancied Man Utd to beat Everton: you would place your single stake (let’s say £1) on a 6/5 win, which would return £2.20 if successful.

To take things further, let’s say you felt that both Man Utd and Man City were going to win at the weekend. You could place two single bets:

  • Man Utd – £1 stake at odds of 6/5 = £2.20 return
  • Man City – £1 stake at odds of 1/4 = £1.25 return

So for an outlay of £2, you would win £3.25 if both of your single bets were successful – a profit of £1.25.

Now let’s try this scenario again, but this time in an accumulator (a double). And remember, in an accumulator your odds are multiplied together. So:

  • Man Utd & Man City – £2 stake at odds of 1.75/1 = £5.50 return

So for an outlay of £2, you would win £5.50 if your bet was successful – a profit of £3.50.

As you can see then, an accumulator is far more profitable to you than placing two single bets. In fact, in the example above, you could place just £1 on the Manchester double and win £2.75 – which is more profit than your two singles!

Finally, let’s just work through an example of another accumulator – a treble – to show you how adding more teams can multiply your profit even further. So let’s say you fancied Man Utd, Man City and Arsenal all to win:

  • Man Utd – £1 stake at odds of 6/5 = £2.20 return
  • Man City – £1 stake at odds of 1/4 = £1.25 return
  • Arsenal – £1 stake at odds of 29/20 = £2.45 return

These are your three single bets, and for an outlay of £3 you would win a grand total of £5.90 – a profit of £2.90.

Now, let’s take a look at those outcomes in a treble:

  • Man Utd, Man City & Arsenal to win – £3 stake at odds of 5.73/1 = £20.21 return

So for an outlay of £3 here you would win £20.21 – a profit of £17.21.

These examples highlight just how profitable accumulator betting can be; and why it is so popular around the world.

But remember….

It only needs one leg of an accumulator to let you down for your bet to lose. So in the example above if both Manchester teams won – but Arsenal lost – you wouldn’t win a penny. Zilch. Zero.

And that’s the thing with accumulator betting: it’s a game of risk and reward. You take the risk by putting all your eggs in one basket so to speak, but you take the rewards for your courage when your bet comes in.

Many people make good money with accumulators, but most are strategic about it – and make sure they use the right promotions to skyrocket their profit when the bets land.

Other Things to Consider

The good thing with accumulator betting is that you can mix things up a bit to enhance your chances of winning. Instead of just betting solely on the English Premier League, you can add other teams from La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, even the Champions League to your acca – and this helps you to find more likely winners.

And it’s not just football where accumulators are so popular. Imagine you wanted to bet on the individual matches during the Wimbledon tennis championship, for example. You can bet in exactly the same way outlined above: on the outcome of single matches, or bunch these together into an accumulator.

In some cases, you can even cross sports: one popular acca from earlier this year was ‘Chelsea to Win the Premier League and Lewis Hamilton to win the F1 Championship’.

Still undecided about accumulator betting?

Then take a look at this (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11401335/Man-wins-92000-bet-on-2-accumulator.html). Here a punter bagged a whopping £92,000 return on a £2, fourteen-fold acca. This is, of course, a once-in-a-lifetime type win, but if he had bet on those fourteen games individually then he would have barely won enough for a fish and chip supper.

Risk and reward, that’s the key.

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Dave Jackson

Author: Dave Jackson

Dave is an absolute resourse of information when it comes to tennis and football betting. He's currently writing his first book ‘Smash & Grab – Punters Guide To Accumulator Betting’ which is out later this year.

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