Football accumulators are one of the most popular bets in the UK. However, Football accumulators are also one of the worst value propositions (generally).
In a recent YouTube upload, I unravel my thoughts on Acca’s and tips for improvement 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 it’s important that you understand how they work and where the value is. It might be difficult to fully understand the betting margin when you first start betting, but it’s one of the most important aspects of understanding how football accumulators work.
If you don’t understand how betting margin and overround betting works, please check out this post on the blog!
How Football Accumulators Work:
Football accumulator betting is one of the hardest bets to find value in. It’s tough to find one good value bet, let alone ten and get them all to win at the same time.
I know thousands of football fans place an Acca each weekend for fun, but that’s all it is – fun. It’s not a successful betting strategy. If you want to actually 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.
Be prepared though, when you do, many firms like Bet365 will limit your account for winning.
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.
For example, 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 put those ten football selections together in an Acca, you might like the return when you put it your £10 stake but think about the implied probability. If it was over 50/1 it has less than a 2% chance of winning. It is almost like throwing away money, you will get lucky one weekend, but the win won’t cover the losses long-term. That’s why bookmakers love football accumulators.
Football Accumulator Betting Strategy:
To be successful when betting on football you need to have a strategy. Mindless betting each weekend will just end in disaster. There are a lot of pre-off and in-play strategies you can use – you just have to find what suits you. For example, you can scalp the team news pre-off or focus on trading the over/under 2.5 goals market in the opening 15 minutes or look to exploit time decay in the final 15 minutes of the match odds market.
There’s a full post on Football Accumulator betting strategy here.
Predicting a football game over 90 minutes is hard. A lot can happen, and not only that – you might have a team absolutely boss the game but fail to score with bad luck. It’s much easier to focus on small sections of time within that 90 minutes and take value from the markets.
A shrewd way to view betting is to think about what would the bookmaker want me to do?
Then do the opposite.
The bookmaker wants you to place an accumulator on ten teams because they know the probability and value are with them. If you form a strategy and trade the markets smartly, then you will have an advantage over everyone else.
Football Accumulator Tips:
The biggest football accumulator tip that’ll help you make money is to ensure you are getting betting lines at a positive expected value. Multiplying the +EV odds together compounds the profit margin. Again, it’s the complete opposite of what sportsbooks want.
Finding football accumulator tips that beat the closing line is hard. The best time to look for such bets is mid-morning as the football betting market’s prices change. Now I realise this is probably frustrating for many readers, but value is rarely available for long. Thinking you will simply get a football accumulator tip now and it will still hold value tomorrow is a mistake. Typically, value is only on offer for an hour or two at the most.
We’ll a football accumulator strategy down on the YouTube channel in the future so keep an eye out for it!
Related: Football Betting Video Course