What is an Accumulator Bet?

An accumulator bet is simply a series of bets that are combined into one. For accumulator bets to be paid out, all of the different legs of the bet need to come good.

Sports betting sites sometimes call accumulators by different names. Acca is common in the UK, while parlay is used mostly in the US, some sites also call them combo bets. 

The difference between a betting accumulator and other multiple bets is that accumulators usually have four or more selections, while multiples are usually doubles (2 bets) or trebles (3 bets).

So, now you know what an accumulator bet is, it’s time to move on to how they work.   

You can think of an accumulator in betting as a series of small bets, all combined into one. If one leg of your bet loses, then the whole bet loses. However, if all of your bets win, then the payout is big.

The Selection

Let’s take a look at a real-life example:

You were at the 2024 Cheltenham festival and thought the following horses had a good chance of winning. Their start prices (in fractional and decimal odds) are in brackets next to them.

• Absurde in the County Handicap Hurdle (12/1 or 13)
• Majborough in the Triumph Hurdle (6/1 or 7)
• Galopin Des Champs in the Cheltenham Gold Cup (10/11 or 1.9)
• Limerick Lace in the Mare’s Chase (3/1 or 4)

It turns out, you’re great at picking winners, all of the above selections won. Let’s take a look at what that would mean if you’d placed a series of straight bets, vs an accumulator bet.

Calculating Single Bets

For your straight bets, let’s say you have $5 on each horse, for a total of $20. If you’d had these as individual bets, you’d have won:

5 x 13 = $65
5 x 7 = $35
5 x 1.9 = $9.5
5 x 4 = $20

Total = $129.50 minus your $20 stake, for $109.50

As you can see the returns from an accumulator are much larger than from a series of singles bets, but if just one of these horses hadn’t won, you’d have received nothing.

As you might have noticed from the example above, there are benefits and drawbacks to placing accumulator bets. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Pros

• Big Payouts: The single biggest allure of placing accumulator bets is being able to win large amounts of money with a very small stake.
• Variety: If you’re a sports enthusiast then you’ll likely have picks for all kinds of different events each day. An accumulator lets you consolidate these picks into one wager.
• Excitement: Watching the final leg of an accumulator come in offers unparalleled excitement.

Cons

• Risk: The biggest drawback of accumulator betting is risk. If just one of your selections loses then the whole bet loses.
• Difficulty: We all know the work that goes into choosing one winning bet, having to predict multiple winners is difficult.