How to use accumulator in football betting

An accumulator is a bet that combines three or more selections into a single wager that gains a return only when all parts win. The advantage of an accumulator is that winnings are much higher at the expense of increased risk, only a single selection need lose for the entire bet to lose.

accumulator slip

Accumulators are available for all sports, however bookmakers vary in their rules on combining selections from more than one to create a single bet. Selections from the same event cannot be combined into a single accumulator, this is to prevent anyone trying to place several bets on the same runner, more formally the selections must be mutually independent.

However, the mistake a lot people make is thinking that by adding as many football match as possible to a single accumulator ticket, they are increasing the odds and the eventual payout. Although this is true to a certain extent; yes the odds are hugely increased so also is the risk and the potential of losing that bet.

ACCUMULATOR OR PARLAYS

You will rarely find a professional bettor who uses accumulators (or parleys to our US readers) in their betting strategy. The reason behind this is simple; it is difficult enough to predict one result correctly let alone more than one and our chances of success grow smaller with every added event. The other problem with accumulators is that the bookies very rarely offer you fair odds for a successful event so every time you link events together you end up receiving less and less compared to the true chances of success. That's not to say that accumulators aren't tempting, where else can you make significant returns for such a modest outlay? 

When is an accumulator too long??

As you'll have aready guessed, an accumulator that contains 2 bets is far more likely to be successful that an accumulator with 10 in it. You should always be aware that the longer they are, the more chances there are that a result will go wrong and you’ll lose the lot. If you keep an accurate spread sheet of your bets (and you really should), you will be able to determine how often your accumulators are successful. If you do really well with four selections then maybe you could look to try five. If you don’t do well with four, then maybe three is the best option. Always remember that winning a two event accumulator is far nicer than telling your mates about how you managed to get nine out of ten correct – winning is winning.