Introduction to Accumulators (Accas) in Matched Betting

Overview

This guide is just a brief introduction to accumulators to help you complete the welcome offers that involve them. In this brief guide we cover the following:

1. What is an accumulator (or ‘acca’)?

2. Acca terminology

3. How best to apporach accas when matched betting

What is an Accumulator (or 'Acca')?

An accumulator bet or ‘acca’ is a single bet done for multiple teams ALL to win each of their games, rather than just for one team to win their game.

Another way of considering this is an accumulator bet combines together separate single bets all into one bet.

Many normal punters enjoy doing bets on accas because they get a larger pay out for less risk if they are correct and all their selections win. Normal punters tend to do accumulator bets on football, but may also do them on horse racing, tennis and rugby.

An example of a simple acca bet with 3 selections would be:

Brighton to win at odds of 2.15; then Tottenham to win at odds of 1.40; and Chelsea to win at odds of 2.45.

The total combined odds for the acca would then be worked out by the bookmaker by multiplying the odds together.

So, in this example the total accumulator odds for Brighton, Tottenham and Chelsea all to win would be 2.15 x 1.40 x 2.45, which would be 7.37.

This means a £10 stake on this accumulator would give returns of £73.70 (£10 x 7.37), and winnings of £63.70, if all three teams did end up winning.

(In comparison, if a punter had done 3 separate single bets on each team to win instead, total winnings would have only been £30.50 and the punter would have had to risk £30 of their money instead of just £10).

However, the important thing to remember is that an acca only wins if ALL the selections in the accumulator win. If even one team (or a single selection) doesn’t win their game then the accumulator loses.

Acca Terminology

Accumulators can also be referred to by some bookmakers as ‘Multiples’.

A double is an accumulator which includes two selections. (e.g. Man City and Tottenham both to win their games)

A treble is an accumulator which includes three selections. (e.g. Man City, Tottenham and Wolves all to win their games)

A four-fold is an accumulator which includes four selections. (e.g. Man City, Tottenham, Wolves and Palace all to win their games)

A five-fold is an accumulator which includes five selections. (e.g. Man City, Tottenham, Wolves, Palace and Liverpool all to win their games)

After that the names continue on as above based on the number of selections in the acca.

The selections in an acca may also be referred to as ‘legs‘. This is especially the case when the games for each selection in the acca are at different times.

You might hear someone say for example “I’m just waiting on the last leg of my acca now”. This would mean the person was waiting for one more game to finish before they knew whether their accumulator bet had won or not.

Remember if that last leg lets them down the whole accumulator bet loses, even if all the other selections have won.

Accumulators in Matched Betting

Bookmakers often provide special offers and promotions where we have to bet on an acca (rather than a single bet), in order to unlock a free bet.

An example would be “bet £10 on an accumulator with minimum odds of 2.0 to release a £5 free bet”.

Fortunately acca offers like this are quite easy for us to deal with in matched betting.

Two approaches to dealing with accas

There are two different ways we can deal with accumulator offers in matched betting.

Which approach we choose to use depends on what accumulator lay markets are available in Smarkets and whether we have access to the Premium matched betting tools over at Oddsmonkey.

(If you haven’t got Oddsmonkey yet remember you can get a 7 day trial of their premium services here for just £1.)

APPROACH 1: Using accumulator lay markets at Smarkets

You can see the accumulator lay markets which are available via Smarkets using the button below:

Alternatively when on Smarkets just type ‘acca’ into the search box and you will see a list of available accumulator markets.

Accas on Smarkets are more readily available over weekends when Premier League games are on.

It is then simply a case of choosing one of Smarkets’ ready made accas, then selecting the exact same teams to win at the bookmaker (making sure each selection is above any minimum odds thresholds required by the bookmaker for the offer you are completing).

When you have selected the same teams at the bookmaker you will get your accumulator odds pop up in your betslip.

If, for example, you need to use the accumulator for a Qualifying Bet you then treat it as you would a normal qualifying bet. Open up your qualifying bet calculator and type your stake, your acca back odds (shown in the bookmaker’s betslip), and your blue box acca lay odds.

IMPORTANT: At Smarkets we use the blue lay odds box that is ‘against Yes’. Ignore the No row completely.

An example of this is shown below.

You would then proceed to place your bet at the bookmaker then Smarkets as you would normally.

Ready to do your first offer involving an accumulator? Head over to the Mr Green offer here.

APPROACH 2: Using Oddsmonkey Premium Acca Tools

If no good accumulator lay markets are available at Smarkets, or if the bookmaker offer is on a more advanced accumulator (e.g. a five-fold one) that cannot be layed off directly at the exchange, we have to use an Oddsmonkey Premium Tool called the ‘Acca Finder’.

You can find this under Tools > Accumulators > Acca Finder.

The tool will search for Accumulators in seconds for you based on which bookmaker offer you are doing.

IMPORTANT: This tool requires you to use acca selections from games that do not start at the same time, nor from games that overlap. This is important to understand because we initially only lay the earliest selection in the acca then wait to see the result of this early game…

If this early selection (or leg) ‘loses’ and our lay bet wins at the exchange we don’t need to do anything further.

If this early selection (or leg) ‘wins’ though then we need to follow what the Acca Finder tell us to do next – which is to lay the next game in our accumulator using the lay stake the tool tells us to use.

In addition to the Acca Finder, Oddsmonkey also has several other fantastic accumulator tools which include Acca Builders and the Sequential Lay Calculator. We use all of these tools on a frequent basis to take advantage of reload offers.

If you’ve got any questions about this guide or any other of our matched betting guides, please feel to ask in our Facebook Group, or message us here. We and the community are always happy to help!