Football Accumulators – What you need to know

Heard of an accumulator bet, but not sure what it is? Then you’ve come to the right place. Making your first accumulator bet (or acca) is easy, and we’ll show you how. As well as guiding you through the process, we’ll give you some top tips on how to get the best bet for your buck, and some of the pitfalls to avoid too.

What you have here is a no-nonsense guide to all you need to know about acca bets, so you can get started today.

Choosing a bookie

The first step in placing an acca is choosing where to bet. You can sign up with any online bookie. Most will offer you free bets as a bonus for signing up. You might want to try some of the big name bookies like Bet365 or Paddy Power, as they regularly give great odds or moneyback promotions on football accas. You don’t need to stick with just one bookie for your bets – some punters like to sign up to a few to take advantage of bonuses across the board.

Which games?

The most popular type of acca is also the smallest. A four fold football acca means betting on the results of four footie matches. That means that to get things started you’ll need to choose four football games that are coming up and decide whether each game will be a home win, away win or draw.

Who?

Obviously, the most bet on games, acca-wise, are Premier League matches and big Euro fixture, but you don’t have to stick to these. You can stick a wager on any game your bookie’s offering odds on. In fact, betting on lower league games can actually net you better odds and greater value. That being said, you don’t want to go betting on leagues and teams you have absolutely no knowledge of, so stick to betting on games you feel you have a comfortable knowledge of.

When?

With acca bets, you’re free to choose any four games you want. This means you can to wager on games that are weeks or even months apart. However, this does mean your money will be tied up longer. For this reason, most acca bets are placed on games that are kicking off at the same time, or on the same day, to keep things that bit more exciting.

Research, research, research

The hardest part of placing an acca is the hardest part of placing any bet – predicting the results. The only advice we can really give you here is that the more research you do the better. Make the most of stat sites like Football 365 and SoccerStats where you can get free access to the latest trends, footie news and statistics. Bookies’ sites can be really in informative too – they’ve usually got a list of all upcoming fixtures and head-to-head stats on games.

Be realistic

When it comes to picking results, you want to bet objectively, using all the info available to you. You’re betting here, not supporting, so while it might pain you to bet on your arch rivals and league-toppers Chelsea winning, it’s likely to net you a better payout than wagering on your own bottom-of-the-league team who have their top strikers out injured.

Stat happy

Stats really do matter. It pays to pay attention to trends that emerge in the football stats too. Take the home advantage, for example. The figures prove that this is no myth – last season in the Premier League, teams won at home 47% of the time. Away teams won just 32% of matches in comparison, and the remaining 21% were draws.

How to place your acca

Now you’ve done the hard work and decided on the games you want to wager on and the results you think are going to happen it’s time to get down to the practical business of placing your accumulator bet.

Head to the football section of your bookie’s site. You’ll find a list of all the upcoming fixtures, as well as the odds for a home win, away win or draw next to each team name. Click on one of these odds boxes to select your game and result, and it’ll be added to your betting slip.

Leave the betting slip open at this stage, head back to the list of fixtures and make your next selections. Entering a stake at this beginning stage will result in the site and bookie thinking you want to bet on just this first match rather than making an acca. So don’t enter a stake yet.

It doesn’t matter what order you pick your teams in at all.

Once you have four teams or more on your betting slip, it will update automatically and offer you the option to make an acca.

Here’s where you decide what your stake’s going to be. In the little box next to where it says ‘accumulator’ you need to enter how much you want to wager. Remember that the odds for accas are attractive – because they’re harder to achieve. So don’t go wild with your acca bets, stick to bets of no more than a tenner, unless you really feel you know what you’re doing.

Decided on your fixtures, results and stake? Then hit the Bet Now button and you’re all done.

Your winnings

Now to the juicy part. If all four of the predictions you made come through for you, then you’ve won your accumulator bet – and that’s very good news indeed, as acca odds are usually pretty tasty.

Acca odds get bigger as you small initial bet grows with each win. For example. If you bet £2 on a team with 10/1 odds and they win, it means you’ve got £20 riding on the next game, not £2. Correctly predict the next game and your wager money grows even bigger, until the whole lot is wagered on the final game. This all happens automatically with an acca, and can result in some potentially huge payouts.

Top acca tips

Want to boost your chances of scooping that acca bet, while netting yourself serious value for money? Then here are some tips to help:

• Make use of bookies offering free bets and special offers
• Check out the latest football news and injuries before you place any bets
• Carry out a thorough level of team research before placing your bets
• Look out for rewarding trends, like teams that are on winning runs
• Don’t forget you can bet on the lower leagues
• Keep your bets small to begin with – accas should be fun, so don’t get carried away.