If you are after winning a massive pile of cash from a relatively small stake, multiples betting could be just the ticket. Multiples (also know as accumulators or “accas”) are bets in which more than one outcome must happen for your bet to win. They range from doubles (two outcomes), through trebles and onwards and can contain more or less as many legs as you choose (or the bookie permits).
For instance if you fancied betting on the outcome of three football matches (let’s say Liverpool v Everton, Arsenal v Man United and Barcelona v Real Madrid) and you predicted a home win was going to occur in each, you would need Liverpool, Arsenal and Barcelona to win for your bet to come in. If each of the home sides were priced at betting odds of 2/1 and you placed a £10 multiple on the three home wins, you could expect a bumper payout of £270 (a profit of £260 plus your original £10 stake).
The reason the returns are so high is because each leg of the multiple bet is treated independently, so the £10 you have on the first match will payout £30 (including the stake), which will become the stake on the second match, which in turn pays out £90, which goes onto the third match to give the £270 total.
They can be placed on almost any sports (though football and horse racing are the most common) and bookies have embraced them in recent years with their online sportsbooks making it easy to see your possible returns for a given stake. Note however that there must be no direct relation between the various legs of a multiple bet.
So while Luis Suarez to score at anytime against Everton will be priced independently of Liverpool to win 2-0, which might be priced at 2/1 and 12/1 respectively, the outcomes are related (dubbed “related contingencies” in the betting industry) in that if Suarez scores, Liverpool are more likely to win 2-0. As such you would be unable to put those two events in the same multiple bet.
Advantages of Multiples Betting
The big advantage from indulging in multiples betting is that you can win potentially massive amounts of money from a small stake. The more legs you have, and the higher the odds of each leg, in a multiple bet the greater the eventual payout will be, and it increases vastly with just a couple of extra legs.
For instance if you add three more matches to the above example (which already paid out £270), you could be on for a small fortune; let’s say you also have Spurs, West Brom and Sunderland all to win at respective odds of 3/1, 2/1 and 4/1, then your initial £10 stake will return a total payout of £16,200 – IF all the results come in. It only takes one result to fail for your bet to go down.
Rather than placing a single accumulator bet you can also cover bets on various permutations of the legs you select (details of which below), and though you have to increase your stake, there is still a lot of scope to scoop a big win from a relatively meagre outlay while also covering various eventualities.
Disadvantages of Multiples Betting
The flip side of multiples betting is that despite having decent payouts, the effective odds are high and thus the chance of them coming in can be slim. As with all gambling, assessing the risk to reward ratio is what it’s all about, so risking the loss of a pound or two might well be deemed worthwhile when the possible return runs into the tens of thousands (or more!), which is why the National Lottery is so popular.
Clearly there is going to be a hefty dose of luck involved in winning a big multiple bet, but for that reason many people treat them as they would the Football Pools or the Lottery: a bit of fun with the possibility of a big, big win. Read on for some of the options if you do fancy a flutter on the multiples.
Types of Multiple Bet
As mentioned, anything from a double (with two selections) or upwards is classified as multiples, but from trebles (three selections) and upwards there is the option to place “full cover” multiples which cover every possible winning combination. Thus a full cover bet on three selections would comprise of three singles, three doubles and a treble, so you would have to pay a unit stake on each of the seven bets, but you would no longer require all three selections to come in for you to win some money (though note that if just one or even two come in it is possible you won’t make an overall profit depending on the odds involved).
The seven-bet three-selection full cover bet is called a Patent, but here are some of the other common full cover and multiple bets to be found with the best bookies:
- Doubles, Trebles, Accumulators – Standard, single stake multiples which require all selections to come in for the bet to win. Accumulators don’t have a limit to the number of selections/legs they encompass.
- Lucky 15 – A four leg full cover multiple that covers all four singles, six doubles, four trebles and a fourfold, this 15-bet option was invented by Betfred and often pays out at (consolatory) bonus odds if only one of your selections comes in.
- Lucky 31 – As with a Lucky 15 but with five legs and a total of 31 bets.
- Lucky 63 – Also the same as the above but this time with six legs giving a total of 63 bets.
- Trixie – A Trixie is basically a Patent but excluding the singles. Doing without the singles in this type of multiple often makes sense as the return from getting just one selection in is often less than your initial total stake anyway. So a Trixie is thus three doubles and one treble.
- Yankee – The same principle as a Trixie but with four legs giving 11 bets from which at least two legs must come in for you to win anything.
- Canadian (or Super Yankee) – As above but this time five legs with 26 separate bets and, as it has no singles, having the need for at least two selections to come in to win.
- Heinz – Made up of 57 bets (hence the name, referring to an old Heinz advertising slogan) the Heinz has six legs with 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 fourfolds, six fivefolds and one sixfold accumulator. So a £1 Heinz will cost you £57 (but would pay handsomely if all selections came in!).
- Super Heinz – Just like a Heinz but with an extra leg, giving a total of 120 separate bets.
- Goliath – The big, bad brute of the betting world, the Goliath consists of a grand total of 247 bets from eight selections! You will generally need three or perhaps four of your selections to come in to make a profit, but if you hit all eight you are in for a gargantuan payout, even with a small unit stake.