What is an Accumulator Bet

One of the most common and recognisable bet types is an accumulator. Whether it is a bet on the weekend football, or on the daily horse racing, many people up and down the country will place accumulator bets with the bookmakers. The hope when placing an accumulator is that all of your selections win, giving you a very big pay out.

An accumulator can be placed on any sport you like and the bet has four or more selections in it. To win your accumulator bet you have to have every single selection in your bet win, however if just one of your selections loses then your bet is a loser. An accumulator is just one single bet, so a £10 accumulator will cost you £10. This is not a multiple bet, despite featuring multiple selections.

The more selections you add to your accumulator, the more money you will win, depending on the odds of course. However, because you need every selection to win when you place the bet, this means that the chances of you winning become a lot higher, in line with the pay out from the bet.

Many people each week will place accumulator bets of 10+ teams and while these bets will offer a great pay out, the chances of them coming in are very slim. If you are betting in this way then you need to be prepared to have a lot of losing bets and be patient while waiting for your accumulator to land.

The obvious downside to placing your accumulator bets is that you can have many winners each week, but never see a return for those winners like you could with other bets. For example, if you place four accumulators, one each week for a month and each bet has ten teams, you could end up picking 36 winners out of 40 selections, but seeing no return on your bet. This is because just one selection losing means that your bet will lose, so nine out of ten correct each week will give you nothing.

I see accumulator betting as a high risk, high rewards strategy. The rewards if you do manage to land an accumulator, especially if you land one that has double figure selections in it are huge and you will receive a nice pay out from the bookmakers. However, the risk is that you could consistently pick out a large number of winners but because you have just one loser, you will not get a return on your bet. Despite that, many people place accumulators each week and they are a fun and challenging bet to place, with the potential to give you a huge pay out if you can land a big one.

Accumulators quite frequently make mainstream headlines where punters have gained huge rewards from relatively small steaks.