The basics of a football accumulator: A must read for every betting enthusiast on the planet
Ever read stories in the papers about how someone in the suburbs of Britain became rich overnight? Ever wondered what was his secret? Read on to find your answer.
Football betting has been gaining in popularity ever since the advent of the internet. It allows people with a sound knowledge of the beautiful game to win money using their skill. Or in some cases their luck (remember that guy who bet 50 quid on Leicester winning the league and ended up with umm let’s just say a lot more than 50 quid).
But football is highly unpredictable and even the most knowledgeable of fans out there may not reap rewards in the case of major upsets. However, football betting is thrilling and provides some kind of a release after a long work week.
Problems with singles and doubles
People generally favour just a single bet or maybe even a double and hence do not gather large winnings. A ‘single’ basically means just betting on a single outcome. It is the simplest and easiest bet to place and beginners usually tend to this while getting a feel of the process. It is quite easy to predict the outcome of a football match if you are constantly backing the favourite.
For example, even someone with little to no knowledge of football would have no hesitation backing Arsenal to win comfortably against a team in the fourth tier of English football. The problem is that even if you correctly predict the winners for over 50 such matches, you tend to earn very small amounts mainly due to the low nature of the odds for such matches.
Even if you picked a different market, say over 2.5 goals for a match involving Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund, two teams that play attacking football, the earnings are still not much. You could place £10 at evens(odds of 2.0) and that leaves you with just £10 in winnings. Few people might be satisfied with this but then again most will not.
In the case of doubles, the winnings do increase but then again it is not really worthy of the effort and time taken to place such a wager. A £10 bet placed at evens(2.0) on two selections would yield just an earning of £30. Similarly, a treble at evens would yield £70 which is an improvement but still not great.
In fact, most realistic selections are not at evens (2.0) but offer much lower odds like 1.4(2/5) or even 1.7(7/10) etc and would, therefore, reduce your winnings substantially.
This is where the accumulator which plays such an important role, comes into the picture
An accumulator is basically a bet involving 4 or more selections where each of the selections must win for the entire bet to win. A single bad selection could cost you the entire accumulator and this is the main reason why people are hesitant to turn to accumulators.
Accumulators though are much more rewarding and have much higher payoffs than if each bet was simply placed individually. Like the saying goes ‘no risk no reward.’
A man in Lichfield won a ridiculous £50000 using just 50p due to the power of an accumulator,
How does an accumulator work?
An accumulator can be formed with any number of selections ranging from 4 to as high as 25 depending on the bookmaker. Most websites allow at least 18 to 20 selections. Selections can be combined from any match of your choice. However, two markets from the same match can never be picked for a single accumulator.
For eg: If Liverpool face Manchester United, and you think Liverpool will win by scoring 3 goals. A selection that Liverpool win can be made but nothing else can be selected from the same match. However, most sites often combine a few selections and offer a variety of opportunities. A combined selection of Liverpool & Manchester United to score over 2.5 goals is combined into a single market and this can be selected which amounts to the same. It can be thought of a mini accumulator in itself.
Problems with accumulators
The main problem lies in the fact that every single selection must win for the accumulator to win. It’s a win or bust concept.
Assume you have a 15 fold accumulator (fold is another term for selection) and 14 favourable results. Your final selection has Bayern Munich to beat Wolfsburg and they hold a one-goal lead until the 90th minute but then concede and the match finishes a draw. This would result in a loss even though 14 results were in your favour.
Most bookmakers, however, provide provisions for such circumstances. One such provision is the concept of cashing out an accumulator. The cash out option can be used whenever the person who placed the wager decides to remove a portion of his winnings without waiting for all the results to return.
Another feature is something bookmakers call the ‘acca insurance’. In the ‘acca insurance’, a part of the stake or the entire stake itself is returned in case of a single selection letting down the whole accumulator.
Now that you know how accumulators work , it is time to see how the odds are calculated for an accumulator.
How are odds calculated?
The easiest way to calculate the odds of your accumulator would be to just multiply each individual selection with the next. Assuming you have 8 selections of 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, 2.0, 2.1 the total odds would add up to 82. The winnings can then be calculated by multiplying your stake with the odds and reducing the stake amount.
If you place £10 at 82, your winnings would be £810.
Generally, the maximum amount that can be won using an accumulator is specified and would vary depending on the website and the selections. If the max payout is exceeded, the accumulator will not be allowed to be placed. In most cases, the Premier League, World Cup and other large competitions offer the highest payouts.
There are also a number of variations on the simple accumulator. These include the Trixie, Yankee and Heinz
In a Trixie, you make 3 selections and these 3 selections are then converted into 4 separate bets. For example, if you have 3 selections called A, B and C, then the 4 separate bets would involve a combination of each of these selections; AB, AC, BC and ABC and at least 2 would need to win to generate a return. This has a small advantage over a conventional accumulator in that even 1 loss would not mean the loss of the entire stake.
Other more complex bets include the Yankee and the Heinz which follow the same principal. Beginners are however strongly advised to follow the conventional accumulator.
Gambling can be addictive and lead to a lot of unwanted stress. So please bet responsibly.