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Accumulators allow you to combine multiple bets, and potentially win big when all your selections win. Accumulators may seem great news to casual gut instinct bettors. After all, they offer the chance to win a lot of money for a small amount gambled. However, for the value bettor who is looking to potentially make a long term profit from betting, accumulators pose a great problem! We have already discussed the notion of overround – bookmakers will want to build in a profit margin on the markets they offer. However, when overrounds are multiplied it can be a big problem for the bettor! Hence, we are posting this Mitigating accumulator overround disaster article.

Let’s say you place a double (2 selection accumulator), with both bets having an overround of 12%. To calculate the combined overround:

[(1.12 x 1.12) multiplied by 100] minus 100 = 25.44% overround

Bookmakers would love you to place this accumulator, rather than 2 single bets. As an accumulator the total overround is more than double the individual overrounds.

Let’s say you place a 4 selection accumulator, and all four bets have a 12% overround. To calculate the combined overround:

[(1.12 x 1.12 x 1.12 x 1.12) multiplied by 100] minus 100 = 57.35% overround

As an accumulator the total overround is a lot more than quadruple the individual overrounds.… Read the rest

Accumulators Explained: If you place a double or a treble, you have placed 2 or 3 bets respectively. ALL your bets need to win, for you to make a profit (and get your stake back). If all your bets don’t win, you lose your stake and don’t get any profit. If your first bet wins, BOTH the winnings and the stake are combined to become the stake for the second bet etc. 4 bets can be called a fourfold. 5 bets can be called a fivefold. 6 bets can be called a sixfold. Although, all the above work in the same way (all the bets have to win, for you to make a return and get your original stake back), technically only 4 bets and above are called accumulators (although some people still decide to call doubles and trebles accumulators). Accumulators suffer from overround multiplication issue.

• Let’s say you have £60 to bet in total, on 4 bets at odds of 3/1, 4/1, 5/1, and 6/1.
  If you bet £15 on each of this outcomes separately, you stand to make the following profit on each bet (and get your £15 stake back):
  • 3/1 : £45
    4/1: £60
    5/1: £75
    6/1: £90
    If all the selections won you would get £270 in profit (and get your £60 of stakes back).

Overround Explained: The odds offered by bookmakers are unlikely to correspond exactly to the actual probabilities of the outcomes in any market happening, as no bookmaker is likely to operate without trying to offset its costs (and trying to make a little something on top)! Bookmakers are likely to be taking money from lots of customers over the possible outcomes – they may try to guarantee themselves a profit regardless of the result. Bookmakers may start a market by working out the actual probabilities of the outcomes in a market occurring and then incorporating a profit margin into the odds, but as money comes in on the market they will often adjust prices to attract less or more money to particular outcomes – e.g. they may want to limit their liability on an outcome they already face a big payout on if it comes through, or they may want to attract more money to different outcome(s) to one(s) they already have taken a lot of money on to guarantee a profit or minimise potential losses. How do bookmakers use overround to try and make profits?

As an example, here are the odds a bookmaker was offering, at the time of writing, on an upcoming Rugby Union match.… Read the rest

There are many variations of this scam. Hopefully you will fully understand this betting tip scam explanation, and so will be able to avoid such scams. If you didn’t spot this betting tip scam, you were a victim of survival bias (you were only thinking of the people who made it through a selection process, and ignored those that didn’t). Don’t worry, here’s the betting tip scam explanation:

• What has happened here is the ‘tipster’ sent say 10,000s of e-mails – some of which backed all the possible outcomes in the first event. You just happened to be in the group that the correct tip was sent to the first time.
• The second time, the ‘tipster’ e-mails only the group that he had previously sent the 1st winning tip to, and divides them into new groups backing each of the outcomes in the 2nd event.
• Again and again, this process is repeated.
• Provided the ‘tipster’ started out with a sufficiently large number of recipients to begin with, to a certain number of people it will look like the ‘tipster’ got a large number of tips in a row correct from the start.
• The people who received a wrong tip at any time were no longer e-mailed, and they probably didn’t think much of it.

Although there are many tipsters who attempt to provide genuine tips, there are some scams out there you need to avoid! Can you spot this well known betting tip scam – variations of which still catch people out?

• Let’s say you are sent an e-mail purporting to contain a betting tip that’s certain to come in on an event tonight? You don’t pay much attention to the e-mail, as it seems like a piece of spam. Later when you are watching TV you catch the end of the event the tipster predicted. In the back of your head you seem to remember the outcome might have been the same as the tip. You go back and check your e-mail, and the tipster got it right, but you don’t think much of it.
• The same day the following week, again you get an e-mail from the same sender with another betting tip. You still don’t think much of it, but this time decide to remember the tip to check it later. You check the result later, and the tip came in. He just got lucky, you say!
• The following week, another e-mail with another betting tip drops in your inbox – this time you are intrigued, and decide to tune in to the event the tipster bet on, and it wins!

Numerous websites and software tools have popped up which claim to allow you to spot guaranteed profitable betting opportunities, by taking advantage of the differing prices on outcomes in the same market between different bookmakers. We explained how you could start to find the best value markets at your favourite bookmaker. This involves working out the overround on a particular market. The lower the overround the better. However, these websites and tools take this a step further, and claim to be able to find opportunities (by placing bets at multiple bookmakers, on different outcomes in the same market) when there will effectively be no overround, and in fact the book will be less than 100%. This is called arbitrage betting. We strongly recommend you avoid arbitrage betting. Although, the opportunities they spot will be real (if you are using a reputable service), we still recommend you avoid this form of betting. There is usually a fee involved to use these services, and even though the opportunities to make a profit might be there in theory, in practice they are difficult to profit from.

Why avoid arbitrage betting? Your account may be closed, or bets revoked.

• Bookmakers generally hate arbitrage betting.

If you keep placing bets on outcomes of events, just because you fancy teams/players to win (Gut Instinct), without considering the odds fully then you will likely be losing money in the long run. Value betting involves independently considering if the odds offered are better than the true probability of the outcome happening, and only placing bets if that is the case. Let’s start our Why is Value Betting superior to using Gut Instinct? article off with an example:

Let’s say you are considering placing a bet in an event in which there are two outcomes only, e.g. the final of a competition where either team/player A wins, or team/player B wins (no draws possible). You need to calculate the true probabilities of the outcomes. This requires taking into account a lot of factors (prior results, injuries, officials, form etc. – variables will depend on what event you are betting on), and coming up with a statistical model (which may require, amongst other things weighting the factors).

Let’s say you calculate A wins two-thirds of the time, and B wins one-third of the time:
Two-thirds of the time is the same as odds of 1/2*, i.e. for every 1 time they don’t win, they will win 2 times.… Read the rest

Diligent sports betting bankroll management can be the difference between winning sports bettors, and those who are destined to lose all their money.

Here’s an example:

• Let’s say that you have £1,000 to gamble with in total in your sports betting account with a bookmaker, but cannot replenish this money if you lose.
• Let’s say you were betting on an event with only two possible outcomes, and the bookmaker was offering 6/5 on outcome 1, and 1/2 on outcome 2 (this is a made up example).
• Let’s say according to your value bet calculations, you thought the true odds of each outcome was 1/1 – i.e. there is a 50% chance of outcome 1, and a 50% chance of outcome 2.
• Of course you would want to bet on outcome 1, as you are getting better odds than required. You would never bet on outcome 2, as you are getting worse odds than required.
• If you bet £1,000 on outcome 1, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the bet in terms of value. After all, you will be making £1,200 profit if outcome 1 happens!
• However, what if outcome 2 happens? 50% of the time it will, and you will lose your stake of £1,000.