What is an Accumulator Bet?
An Accumulator bet, also known as an acca or a combination bet, is where you have more than one bet combined into one bet. All of the selections in your accumulator bet must win for it to pay out. Also, a bet builder is just an accumulator bet on the same event. Some bookmakers will have different names for bet builders.
Each selection in your Accumulator Bet are typically called a 'Leg', and usually the more legs, the higher the odds, as they get multiplied together to make the accumulator odds.
There are multiple ways to lay an accumulator bet to guarantee a profit, sometimes it will be very easy as you might be able to just lay the whole accumulator on an exchange. Other times you might have to use more complex methods to lay your accumulator and we will go though all of the methods below.
We are going to start with laying a bet builder, where all of the selections are on the same event. Laying a bet builder is a bit unique and it usually only involves placing one lay bet.
How to Lay a Bet Builder
A bet builder combines multiple markets on the same event. For example, a bet builder could be 'Tottenham to Win, Both Teams to Score, Over 2.5 Cards'. This bet is a combination of 3 markets where all outcomes need to happen in order for the bet builder to pay out.
A bet builder involves at least 2 markets, but sometimes when you are doing a bet builder for a promotion there may be restrictions i.e. Minimum 4 Markets, but usually it will be a restriction on the odds, so you will have to make it be 2 selections with minimum bet builder odds of 4.0, for example.
To easily lay your bet builder you just need to select the perfect markets such that you can just place 1 lay bet and cover all of the outcomes. For example, you could choose Tottenham to Draw and BTTS No (Both Teams not to Score), and then on the exchange place a lay bet for the correct score to be 0-0.
This works because betting on a Draw + BTTS-No is the same thing as betting on the correct score to be 0-0. This allows you to place a bet builder bet with 2 markets and easily lay it at the exchange.
There are some other combinations for 3 leg bet builders, and these are listed below:
-
Draw + BTTS-Yes + Under 2.5 Goals == 1-1 Correct Score
-
Team to Win + BTTS-No + Under 1.5 Goals == 1-0 Correct Score
-
Team to Win + BTTS-Yes + Under 3.5 Goals == 2-1 Correct Score
It is also worth noting that some exchanges such as Smarkets and Betfair Exchange also have the 'Winner and both teams to score' Market which allows you to lay 2 markets in the same bet. You can simply select these options for the bet builder and then use this market on Smarkets or Betfair Exchange if there is enough liquidity.
They might also have the 'Winner and Over/Under' which allows you to bet on the outcome and then over/under markets for total goals, which can also help you lay a 2 leg bet builder
Now we have been through a 2 leg bet builder, and a 3 leg bet builder, but some times you will be required to do 4 or more leg bet builders, as a part of a promotion qualifying bet, or in your free bet. To lay some higher leg bet builders it is simply a case of using the correct combination of markets and we have listed some below.
4 Leg Bet Builder:
-
Draw + BTTS-Yes + Over 1.5 Goals + Under 2.5 Goals == 1-1 Correct Score
-
Team to Win + BTTS-No + Over 0.5 Goals + Under 1.5 Goals == 1-0 Correct Score
-
Team to Win + BTTS-Yes + Over 2.5 Goals + Under 3.5 Goals == 2-1 Correct Score
5 Leg Bet Builder:
-
Draw + BTTS-Yes + Over 1.5 Goals + Under 2.5 Goals + Correct Score 1-1 == 1-1 Correct Score
-
Team to Win + BTTS-No + Over 0.5 Goals + Under 1.5 Goals + Correct Score 1-0 == 1-0 Correct Score
-
Team to Win + BTTS-Yes + Over 2.5 Goals + Under 3.5 Goals + Correct Score 2-1 == 2-1 Correct Score
Laying an Accumulator on Smarkets
Smarkets will allow you to lay certain accumulators and it will usually only be possible for accumulators from a particular promotion. This is because if everyone is trying to lay the same accumulator e.g. Fulham, Ipswich, Man Utd All to Win, then there should be enough liquidity in laying that multiple.
Lets say for example you have an accumulator bet on Fulham, Ipswich, and Man Utd All to Win on Paddy Power. Before confirming your accumulator bet you should go to Smarkets and check the lay odds by doing the following.
Find your selections and click on the buy/back box for the team to win (This might seem unusual, as you want to lay the selections on Smarkets, but this is just a step that you need to do to lay multiples with their platform).
You want to select 'buy' for all of the teams that you already backed in your accumulator so that they pop up in your betslip as shown below, make sure you do not enter a stake for any of the selections.
And only now should you click 'Sell' in the Multiples Section at the bottom. Once you click 'sell' in the multiples section you are now placing a lay bet on all three of the teams that you selected. It should tell you the Multiple Lay Odds and you should be able to enter a stake and place the lay bet.
Now you should be able to enter the Accumulator Back Odds and the Accumulator Lay Odds along with your stake into our Standard Betting Calculator to get your lay stake and figure out your profit. Make sure to use it in free bet mode if it is a free bet accumulator.
Laying an Accumulator on Betfair Exchange
Betfair Exchange do not offer a 'Multiples' Feature allowing you to choose events and lay accumulators however they do sometimes offer pre-built accumulators on high liquidity events. These Betfair Exchange pre-built accumulators (if present) will often have better odds than if you were to lay the multiple on Smarkets.
To find the accumulators simply go to the search bar at the top and type in 'Acca'. Or, you could also navigate to the correct section by clicking Football > Specials > Acca's.
If the specific Accumulator combination that you want to lay is offered on Betfair Exchange and has enough liquidity then simply do the same as with Smarkets, using our Standard Betting Calculator treating it like it's one bet.
Laying an Accumulator on Matchbook
Similar to Betfair Exchange, Matchbook have an Enhanced Specials section. These are some additional markets created by matchbook to try to match bookmaker promotions. So if there is a good Paddy Power free bet accumulator, Matchbook might have a market to lay it on this enhanced specials page.
To get to the enhanced specials page you can just click here, or simply go to the matchbook website and type in 'Enhanced Specials' in the search bar.
This enhanced specials page will have all kinks of unique markets, and when there is an accumulator that matches an accumulator you have on a bookmaker then you can simply use our Standard Betting Calculator to calculate what lay stake you should use when laying the accumulator on Matchbook.
Also, bear in mind Matchbook charge a 5% commission on their enhanced specials markets rather than their usual 2%.
Other Methods to Lay an Accumulator
If you have an accumulator where all of the events are at different times, and none of the events overlap (i.e. each one finishes before the next one starts) then you can use another method to lay that accumulator, which will probably also give you more favourable laying odds.
You can use sequential lay betting, where you place a lay bet on each event one at a time. Whether you place a lay stake on the next event, and the size of that stake changes throughout the bet, so you will need to use a Sequential Lay Calculator.
Sequential Lay Betting can be quite complicated so we recommend you simply read through our Sequential Lay Betting Guide if you are interested in using this method to lay accumulators.