The football accumulator is one of the most popular types of bets in the country. However, there is still a lot of confusion on how does an accumulator work? Anyone that has placed a bet as probably tried their luck at an Acca, spending an eternity carefully selecting teams that they think will win and lose, placing these on their slip and then waiting out the weekend fixtures to see how they do.
Most accumulators are let down by a few results, and there is nothing worse than getting incredibly close to a winning slip only to be let down by a single result – usually the dreaded draw that you never thought to choose.
This is because football accumulators are simply difficult to win. The more teams you select for your Acca, the more money you are likely to win, yet this also increases the odds in favour of the bookies, which is why they love accumulators so much!
Of course, there are a few things that you can do to tip the scales in your favour, although it helps to know what exactly accumulators are and how they work first! Let’s take a closer look at this and how you can try to improve your odds of winning:
What is an Accumulator Bet?
An accumulator is a single bet consisting of several events, with the odds of each event accumulating to calculate your payout. You need all the selections to win to get the return on the bet.
There are various events you can bet an accumulator on, most commonly football matches and horse racing, although it’s possible to create an accumulator on pretty much any event you can think of.
The one notable restriction is that your accumulator can’t have bets from the same event. For example, you could not choose Mohamed Salah to score a brace, to score first, and for Liverpool to win 2-0 on a single accumulator.
You might be wondering when betting on several events become an accumulator, as there are multiple names bookies use for types of bets, so it can sometimes get confusing. Here is a quick overview:
- Bet on one event: A single
- Bet on two events: A double
- Bet on three events: A treble
- Bet on four events: A quadruple (also known as a four-fold)
- Bet on five or more events: An accumulator
As you can see, an accumulator involves betting on more than five events, so the accumulative odds are massive and, therefore, much harder to win!
How Does an Accumulator Work?
As anyone that’s placed a bet knows, finding a selection of winners at good odds is challenging enough, so imagine how much more difficult it becomes when combining all of these into a single bet.
So, whenever we place an accumulator bet, we are basically increasing the odds in favour of the bookies even further – as if they needed any more of an advantage!
Therefore, the best strategy for an accumulator is to select short-priced favourites into your bet.
For instance, imagine Spain are playing Ukraine with odds of 3/10. You could place a tenner on them, but for £3 reward, the risk is hardly worth it. Instead, you could combine Spain with other short-priced favourites and watch these odds accumulate in your favour.
Rather than placing a £2 on single bets across five games, you could place just £2 on an accumulator involving the same five games and have a significantly higher reward for a much lower stake.
Now, this all sounds quite easy, but the big thing to remember is that correctly guessing five teams to win – even if they are favourites – is ridiculously hard. There is always a team or two likely to let you down!
Even just a single loss and the accumulator is bust, so by adding more teams to increase your returns, you are also increasing the chances of losing the bet.
What is a ‘Draw no Bet’ Accumulator?
A standard accumulator is based around the match odds market.
This means you choose a selection of home wins, away wins, and draws, then wait for results to come through. It is one of the more straightforward types of bets, and when combined with the potentially massive returns, it’s easy to see why accumulators are so popular.
However, there are a few variations of the classic match odds accumulator, some of which are becoming increasingly popular.
For example, both teams to score (BTS) and over/under 2.5 goals are some of the big hitters in recent years. These are popular due to the fact you don’t need to rely on selecting multiple winners, instead of relying on goals.
However, perhaps the most popular accumulator to arise in recent years is the draw no bet accumulator.
This type of wager involves placing bets on multiple games, but if any end in a draw, then that particular selection is then void. It’s popular because it works much the same as a standard Acca but with some added insurance if there is a draw.
If you’ve placed an accumulator, you know exactly how frustrating it is to be let down by a draw. So, a draw no bet accumulator offers some degree of protection should one of your teams fail to win, although they do need to draw.
Given there are always draws over the weekly football fixtures, the draw, no bet accumulator, is a great way to cover yourself from those frustrating results.
What is the Best Way to Win an Accumulator?
Sadly, there is no straightforward answer to this question. If there was, there would be way too many millionaires out there, and bookies would probably stop accepting Acca bets!
You can look at the odds of a match and use this to estimate the percentage of a home or away win. For example, if a home team are 1/8 to win, then there is around an 80% of them winning according to the odds.
Of course, we all know that anything can happen in a football match. Every team has an off day, shock results happen, and there are no solid ways of predicting this. Therefore, always relying on short-priced teams is no guarantee of success.
Conversely, if you rely less on short-priced teams and fancy a few upsets, then your potential winnings are going to be much higher, although so is the chance of losing the bet!
The one thing you are in control of is finding the best odds. Accumulator odds vary from each bookmaker, so always do some research to find the best odds for your Acca, as this will increase your potential winnings!
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