I’m going to share with you the strategy that I put in place for how I place my winning accumulator bets. In fact, I use this method for each and every single bet I make, but before I dive in, there is something that you need to know. It’s pretty much impossible to win every single accumulator bet that you place. It’s something I have learned over the years and I’m afraid, it’s fact! But there is a big difference between not winning every acca that you place and still being profitable. Being profitable is very much doable, and something that I can hold my head up and say that I am. If you think about it, most of the acca’s that I place are often at odds of 15/1 and upwards, with some as much as 40/1. You don’t need to win many of these throughout the season to become a profitable accumulator bettor. If you placed £10 for every game week of the Premier League then your outlay would be £380 for that season (38 game weeks x £10 bet). On this premises if we win just one accumulator at odds of 40/1 then we are going to be in the money (40/1 x £10 bet = £400 profit). Ideally, we’d win many more than this, but that’s pretty much the rule of thumb that I work from. Article updated 2021 - Advertisement Bookmakers with the best value One of the things that I am going to do is search out the bookmakers that have the best value. I’m not going to go into this too much in this article as I’ve done a ton of research, which you can find in my Best Value Bookmaker for Accumulator Betting article. Just click the link to find out more. In summary, they are broken down into two: Bet365 - You can Open an account with bet365 today! (T's and C's Apply, 18+) Bet Victor – These guys will give you a welcome offer when you register a new account but they are usually about the best it gets in terms of value from your bets. How to win an accumulator - In brief Learn the league you are betting on to save time Dont bet on teams/ leagues that you are unfamiliar with Check out social media and tipping sites to see who they are betting on for comparison Spend the majority of your time on researching your bets Look for the best price and if possible, a betting offer Select your leagues and asses value A common theme that a lot of losing accumulator bettors do is bet on a variety of leagues from across the world. One thing that I have found works really well for me is narrowing the playing field down and really getting to know just a few leagues or even a certain country’s leagues, rather than just betting on what’s coming up next. I live in the UK, so naturally I have a good understanding of teams from that region and in particular the four main leagues in the Premier League, Championship, League 1 and League 2. As I have a base for these types of games already I rarely fly too far from these types of fixtures and seldom look abroad. Now, a little disclaimer here, I’m not saying that you should bet on these leagues exclusively, if you are not familiar with them then find ones that you are familiar with. Also, don’t feel as though even if you are familiar with a certain league or country that you should limit to these leagues. But, you should look to really learn up on the teams and their form before betting on them and really get to know what’s going on. I’ve dabbled previously in foreign leagues, but I find that the majority of my profit comes form games in the UK, so this is my bread and butter. The reason behind this is pretty simple; time. You can spend hours, even days researching your accumulator picks and if you are a professional bettor then this is likely something that you will do. In reality, who really has that time? If you have a base then you can quickly move onto my next point, which is value. I like to spend a few minutes quickly looking through the list of games and the odds that are on offer. My base of UK leagues allows me to see quickly how teams are priced then determine if they might be good value. If I deem they are, then they go onto the ‘maybe’ pile for later research. The base that I have and the few minutes it takes to look at which teams I think are ‘value’ will save me hours in the long run trawling through potentially dozens of games. You might be thinking that a lack of research for each game will mean some games slip through the value net. And you’d be right! I’m sure there have been several occasions where if I had spent hours looking at each game there’d be some I’d include, but for the most part, I’d rather save time and not worry too much about the ones that got away. As a final word in this section, if you are new to betting on football then you really need to start from the ground up. I’ve got tons of articles on here to help you get started and if you are willing to put in the work, then you’ll do just fine! Check who’s backing what If you’re reading this then you’re probably aware that every Tom, Dick and Harry are offering a tipster service. Some charge, some are for free, but whatever their circumstances, none of them want to look bad by offering up poor tips. Some would argue that I am in the same boat, but I offer my tips as a service to you guys, as much for this section as anything. Also, in case you didn’t know, you can get my tips completely free of charge each week by signing up below. After I’ve got a soft list, I like to have a scout around the Internet to see who else is backing what. Twitter is usually a good place to start and folks such as @simondawkins23 is usually there or thereabouts. I wouldn’t spend too long on this but if they are including some of the same teams I’ve picked out then it would add an extra layer of assurance. Get heavy with your list It’s time to get your grind on and start to narrow down your picks by following your research. This section of the process should be where you spend most time. The above can be covered in a few minutes, but I like to take my time over this. Usually, whilst watching Soccer AM with coffee and laptop in hand. At this point I just want to mention that for the purpose of this section I will be looking at acca’s that include the Win-Draw-Win market. I’ve written a couple of articles on How to win Over/Under 2.5 goals accumulators and How to win BTTS accumulator bets if you want to read about those. My first port of call is to head over to Soccerbase.com and check out what they are saying for each of the games. It gives a good overview of each teams current form and head to head. They will also offer up a short synopsis of how the game may play out with a prediction for each game. If it starts to match up with my initial feelings then the game gets the amber light to progress to the next stage. My next call is to Whoscored.com. These guys are similar to Soccer Base but go into much more detail. Here I tend to look for a final reassurance and to see which players are likely to start and who’s injured. Obviously the closer you can get up to kick off, the better this will be. I like to check up the average player ratings of the guys who are in the team as well. If you don’t already know, WhoScored has a huge database of information for each player based on algorithms that process this information. In fact, they are so in-depth these days that some bookmakers offer markets for who will be Whoscored.com’s highest rated player! The site also offers up some interesting betting markets based on the stats they have gathered. Some won’t be related to the W-D-W market, but could come in useful if you are willing to add other markets into your acca. Finally, I link up my original picks to those that seem to true with the stats and combine the information to form my acca. I rarely tend to include over 5 teams for each accumulator so the best 5 will the ones that make the cut. If you can’t find 5, and this may happen more often than you think, even from a full Saturday’s play of English football, reduce the number of teams to 4 or even 3, but make sure you never include teams just for the sake of it. Find the best price Once I’m happy with my acca the last thing to do is to find the best price in the industry to place that bet. This means that you will need more than one bookmaker to bet with. I harp on about having the ability access multiple sites, but it really is so important to do so in order to get the best value. I’m going to include a screen shot of the same accumulator for several bookmakers below to show you how much each can vary. As you can see, BetVictor on this occasion are the best price in the industry. But, just look at how far ahead they are even of the second best price in Betfair. You’d make £15 more for every £10 you place just for placing the bet at BetVictor over Betfair. The worst price on that list was at Betway and you’d get £55 LESS for every £10 placed if you wagered the same bet with Betway. Anyone who tells me that they can’t be bothered to use multiple bookmakers is missing an insane amount of value. It takes minutes to sign up and you only need to do it once. I mentioned earlier about my Best Value Bookmaker article, but if you missed it then click this link to check out that article. Final thoughts So there you have it! That’s how I go about making my selection each week and also how I’ve gone about being a profitable accumulator bettor season after season. It’s not rocket science, right? It may seem like a lot of effort but as you get used to where you are going and what you are looking out for then it becomes a lot easier and actually really good fun. Remember, if you want to keep up to date with my free betting tips and also with exiting new posts and projects on What Acca, then sign up to my mailing list below.
What Acca Accumulator Betting Tips and Strategy