5 Tips for Creating the Perfect Accumulator Betting Strategy
Understand the math behind accumulator bets and learn a few tricks to quickly improve your betting skills
A parlay, acca, teaser, combo or accumulator bet is a bet with multiple selections.
The best way to bet accas is to avoid them. Yet, most casual punters are continually looking for high odds accumulator tips. No wonder why betting sites that publish weekly accumulator tips are so popular these days.
But why are accumulator bets so attractive?
Well, because most punters are driven by greed. They want to take the easy path to success, but we all know that Vegas wasn't built on winner's, don’t we?
Don’t be tricked into thinking that luck will eventually hit and that you’ll recover all the losses in an instant, even if you may often see titles like ‘Tennis Punter Turns £5 Into £186,000 With Monster Acca’. After all, they aren’t called mug bets for nothing!
But we guess that if you’re reading these lines you’re looking for ways to improve your betting skills. So next, we’ll give you a few tips to make your habit less costly and more fun.
Quickly navigate to your desired topic:
- Employ an Efficient Staking Plan
- Back Shorter Odds
- Don’t Add More Than 3 or 4 Selections on a Bet Slip
- Consider System Bets or Acca Insurance
- Don’t Rely on Other People’s Predictions
1. Employ an Efficient Staking Plan
Money management is the cornerstone of any successful betting strategy. Making good use of your betting budget is essential for every punter. There’s no way around it.
No matter how good you are at picking winners, you will undoubtedly end up losing, in the long run, if you aren’t following a sharp staking plan, due to variance – the unpredictability of the length of a winning streak or losing streaks. That’s the reason why Martingale, Fibonacci and all the other progressive betting systems always drive punters to bankruptcy sooner or later.
The best thing to do if you’re currently staking randomly or progressively is to use the flat betting strategy, which implies wagering the same amount of money every time you bet.
This bit of advice alone is often enough to improve a punter’s performance.
Want to see how it works right now?
This is what you’d have to if you’re commonly placing one bet per day: Divide your bankroll by the number of days in the month (28/29/30/31) and use the result as your stake.
By using a flat staking plan, you aren't letting luck decide the size of your winnings. Thus, you have more control over your fortunes. To break even at the end of the month, you’d require roughly:
- 1 winning acca with odds of at least 30 per month
- 2 winnings accas with odds of at least 15 per month
- 3 winnings accas with odds of at least 10 per month
- 1 winning acca with odds of at least 7.50 per week
- 2 winning accas with odds of at least 3.75 per week etc.
Feel free to develop a risk versus reward trade-off that fits your needs, and remember to focus on minimising losses in the first place, without pursuing potential profits.
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2. Back Shorter Odds
Value betting is the way to go when it comes to placing single bets, but this is an accumulator betting guide, so we have to be honest and tell you that you shouldn’t take that path when you wager on footy accas.
And the reason is simple: You will require all selections to win (unless you’ve placed a system bet), so you won’t be successful if you are going with the value betting approach. So, don’t go for long shots, but rather focus on the predictions with the highest winning probability.
But there’s one small catch: We’re not suggesting that you bet on the favourites.
Why?
Odds can be misleading at times, and punters who go down this road often end up relying mostly on the odds alone when evaluating probabilities, skipping the critical pre-match research. Don’t be lazy!
Just think about horse races, where the favourites win less than half the time.
We advise you to look at Asian Handicap markets, such as AH 0, +1.0, +1.5, +2.0, etc., as well as other betting markets, to create safer bets. Finding low-risk betting tips in the bookings, corners, possession, shots on target or other betting markets isn’t impossible, even if the outright result of a football match is very hard to predict.
Another thing to keep in mind is to avoid crowding your bet slip with selections with numerous low-odds selections, so we’re going to discuss this next.
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3. Don’t Add More Than 3 or 4 Selections on a Bet Slip
No acca strategy can be profitable in the long run, because acca bets simply don’t pay out anywhere near the true odds of your wagers. The bookie’s margin increases with every extra selection that’s added on a bet slip, as we’ve explained in another post. Therefore, acca betting is regarded as being a waste of time and money in the eyes of betting professionals.
We believe that if you’d realise what the actual chances of success big accumulators have, you would probably never bet again. But we understand that you enjoy placing footy accas every now and then, so we won't discourage you from doing so. Instead, we’re going to help you understand the math behind acca bets.
The actual probability of winning an average 6-fold acca is often less than 1%.
Yes, you’ve heard well.
Hence why you only win a few times per year, or even less…
So, if you want to maximise your chances of success, the obvious recommendation would be to stick to doubles, trebles or 4-fold accumulators. Also, it would be wise to keep the total odds between three (2/1) and six (5/1) for better results.
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4. Consider System Bets or Acca Insurance
Some punters prefer adding riskier predictions to their bet slips, and others simply can't imagine placing a bet without adding at least 8-10 selections. If you don't want to follow to the previous bit of the advice, at least apply some of the following suggestions.
System bets can help you cut losses and profit more from your knowledge if you come to think of it: You lose less money, win more often, and you don’t have to despair when the last match is a loser.
And even if you are not too happy with the lower potential winnings offered by system bets, try to realise that you’ll feel a lot better if some of your 3/4, 6/8 or 7/10 bet combinations win, when compared to losing.
Taking insurance on your acca bets could be a decent alternative to system betting, although the odds may be unconvincing at times. Acca insurance refunds your stake when only one of your +4-fold bet slip loses, at the cost of reducing the total odds.
Additionally, some online bookmakers will allow you to cash out your bets. This can be used in some situations to either claim a part of the potential win before all the fixtures on the bet slip have ended or to reduce losses. Albeit you can use this feature to your advantage, make sure you develop a plan before you act, as cashing out further increases the bookie’s margin – read this post for clarification.
Of course, taking free bets, bonuses, odds boosts, other promotions can also be a good idea, but be sure to check the T&C’s before claiming any offers.
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5. Don’t Rely on Other People’s Predictions
If you’re stalking tipsters on social media just to copy their picks, and then you’re waiting for a miracle to happen, you’re always going to depend on their randomness, you’ll never improve your betting skills.
More willingly, you could follow punters and read betting previews to get better at analysing sporting events, and ultimately have more fun when your acca wins.
Try to develop your own betting model, instead of looking for the bet of the day, acca betting tips and the likes.
Still, if you want to check out what other people are betting, you must verify the credibility of the source. Don’t take tipsters too seriously before you track their results daily for at least a month, to be able to tell if the betting history is legit, as there are a lot of betting scams out there these days…
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This betting guide has been worthwhile if you came here seeking 20-fold accumulator tips, and you ended up considering single bets or at least reducing the number of selections you regularly add on your bet slip.
Anyone who is saying that acca bets can be profitable in the long run is either working for the bookies, very inexperienced or just somebody who is trying to make their affiliates lose.
Remember that nobody will be able to teach you how to win football accumulators or generate profits in the long run – even if they say otherwise – because it is mathematically impossible. If you think you can prove us wrong, please show us the betting history and stats that include your latest 1000 settled bets.
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