Football accumulators are one of the most popular bets in the UK. However, Football accumulators are also one of the worst value propositions (generally) that you can make as a sports bettor.
In a recent YouTube upload, I unravel my thoughts on Acca’s and improvement tips, when placing a football accumulator.
Check it out here:
Quick Links:
- 0:47 How football accumulators work
- 2:45 How to win more on football accumulators
- 5:23 Football accumulator tips
If you want to win more on football accumulator tips, you must understand how they work and where to find value in this market. Initially, it might be difficult to understand what the betting margin is fully, but it’s one of the most important aspects of understanding how football accumulators work.
To put it simple the betting margin is the edge a bookmaker has on the market its offering. For example in the above image the payout for Betfred is 95.7%. This means that if you bet on every outcome of this match with Betfred you would lose 4.3% of your stake.
Their payout is 95.7% of what you stake
If you want to understand how betting margin (also known as payout) and overround betting works, please check out this post on the blog!
How Football Accumulators Work:
Making money from football accumulator betting is not easy. (Although most social media tipsters will try to make you think it is!)
The reason being, is that when it comes to getting value from football accumulators. You need to find value in multiple selections or have one very big value bet in your accumulator to compensate for the other selections which may not be value.
Thousands of football fans place multiple football accumulator bets each weekend for fun, but that’s all it is – fun. It’s not a successful betting strategy. If you want actually to win money long-term, you have to find bets that offer a bigger price than their actual probability of happening. That is how you find an edge when betting.
Bookmaker’s love football because most of the time people are putting together poor value bets. Putting them together in an accumulator compounds the bookmaker’s edge.
For example if a bookmaker has a 4% margin on a bet adding another bet it becomes 8%. The more selections that get added the larger the bookmakers edge becomes.
However the same can be said for a bet that has positive value. If a sports bettor can find two bets with an edge of 5%, then adding them in a double can give them a bet with a 10% expected return on their money.
It is possible to find three or more good value bets over the course of the weekend and put them all together in a treble, but I would still prefer to place three single bets.
Let me explain why…
Should You Place Accumulator Or Single Bets?
Personally I like to go with single bets when possible. However, there are some advantages to putting bets together in an accumulator.
- Increase the value of a single bet.
- Disguise your sharp bet (good for account longevity).
- Take advantage of bookmaker promotional boosts on accumulator bets.
If you want to win more often then you are better off placing single bets. For example, let’s say you found a 4.0 (3/1) shot you thought should be 3.0 (2/1) – excellent that is a value bet in your opinion. However, that bet still only has a 33.3% chance of winning based on the odds you make it, and only a 25% chance of happening in the bookmaker’s opinion.
When you add football selections together in an accumulator bet, the return increases however the implied probability of that bet landing also increases. If the odds were over 50/1 for example it has less than a 2% chance of winning. This means that your bet is going to land very rarely and you will have long losing streaks.
Now this doesn’t mean you should not place accumulator bets on football. What it does mean is that you should be aware that the more selections you add, the less likely you are to win.
Football Accumulator Betting Strategy:
To be successful when betting on football you need to have a strategy in place!
Mindless betting each weekend will just end in long-term losses. When it comes to making from football accumulators there are a few ways that you can do this. Which will win long term.
- Take advantage of bookmaker promotions on accumulators (Money back offers, boosts etc).
- Add together multiple value selections.
- Find one selection with a large amount of value, add selections that don’t negate this value.
The objective of all good sports bettors is to find value. When we talk about value all we mean is find a selection where the odds are bigger then they should be. If we can back Man City at odds of 2.0 (implied win chance of 50%) against Everton at home. Every football fan on the planet who follows the Premier League instinctively knows this is a good bet.
Why?
We all know that Man City’s chances of beating Everton at home are much greater then 50%. Probably closer to 80% which represents odds of 1.25. If you want to learn our favourite ways to profit from football accumulator betting.
There’s a full post on Football Accumulator betting strategy here.
This details exactly how I approach football accumulator bets and how I have profited from them over the long term.
Football Accumulator Tips:
The biggest football accumulator tip that I can give you as someone has made over six figures from sports betting is…
Have a good reason for your bet, don’t just put an accumulator together because you are bored at the weekend. Multiplying the +EV odds (good value bets) together compounds your edge against the bookmaker. This is the type of accumulator betting that will win long term.
If you start to treat your betting like a game, a game that you want to win in the long term. It all becomes about finding these pockets of value that you can exploit. Football accumulator betting can be one of these area’s of value with the right approach.
Just remember to always have a good reason for your bet, have positive value on your side!
Related: Football Betting Video Course