Accumulators

[clotty]

Basically, I've created a system that bases the bets all on accies. However, everything I read on accies is negative. Will they really end me up in almost certain losses?

Take last weekend for example, I made a killing with it.

I had 7 football matches I thought were pretty much bankers and all 7 games won. (I know bankers are a myth and I know I should look at probability of outcome and noy go for the 'who will win?' thought-process, but it's worked for me, so far, so I still do it :mover )

Anyway I found 7 one sided games and made three different accie bets with them.

Bet 1.

Team 1, 2 and 3 had odds of 1.8, 1.36 and 1.3 respectively. These were all Premier League teams, the league I know the most about and so I put 5% (of my account) on that treble to win at a combined price of 3.18.


Bet 2.

Team 4 (1.6), 5 (1.6), 6 (1.56) and 7 (1.8) were all from foreign leagues I know a little less about. Anyway, on this bet I combined all the seven games together in an accie, which priced at 22.88.

2.5% of my bank was put on this accie.

Bet 3.

The final bet was a 7-fold of all teams in draw no bet conditions. The games combined to make a price of 3/1.

5% of my bank was put on this accie.

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So we can see this week, I made a killing from accies. Surely they can't be that bad? Or are they?

I know all I need is a loss and I've lost 12.5% of my bank, but I only put teams playing at home in the accie. I accept, most weeks all three accies won't win, but as long as none of the teams lose I almost guarantee profit, or at least cover most of the losses and the successful weeks, like the week I just had would cover the losing weeks.

What's more, when I win I progress my staking and put 50% of the profits from each bet onto the next bet so when I hit a winning streak of 2 or 3 successful weeks in a row my bank will double. Two succesful wins on the the bet 2. type of bet (which therefore means success on bet 1 and 3) would easily cover losses for a season.

Am I right, that this can work for me, or was last weekend just very lucky and am I bound to lose?

[mathare]

Am I right, that this can work for me, or was last weekend just very lucky and am I bound to lose?Accas can work but in my experience generally don't.

The more selections you add into the one bet the greater the chance for it to go wrong, obviously. And if you keeping getting accas where 1 or 2 selections lets you down you get tempted to start perming them and it gets messy from there.

Say you are doing 7-team accas and you regularly get 5 or 6 of them correct. You may then be tempted to do 5-folds and 6-folds from the group of 7 teams. Now you get a return if you get 5 or 6 of them right but you also lose a number of times your stake if you don't get them all right. Perming 6 from 7 is 7 bets. If you get 1 match wrong you lose 6 bets instantly so your remaining 6-fold needs to come in at at least 6/1 to break even.

I also dislike accas for a couple of other reasons:
1) You can't do them on concurrent Betfair events where the odds are better than the high street bookies. You might be able to on Betdaq but no guarantee of this
2) With a high street bookie their margin increases greatly with multiple bets. If they are betting to standard Premiership margins (107% books) you can expect a 60% margin on the 7-team acca (1.07^7) which to me is unacceptable.

If I were you I would paper trade this acca selection for several months. Record the selections and the odds and then after a period of several months compare returns on singles, doubles, trebles etc right up to the acca on the full number of selections each week.

[MattR]

Mat, i've often thought of testing the dreaded martingale system on something like trebles. Starting with one unit stake. Might try a paper test on it next season.

[clotty]

Thanks for the replies. But what is meant by the term perming?

[vegyjones]

Perming = To look like Kevin Keegan from the 70's, 80's, 90's or 00's :yikes:

[mathare]

Thanks for the replies. But what is meant by the term perming?Perm is short for permutations. So if you were perming 6 from 7 you'd combine your 7 selections in all possible groups of 6. Perming 5 from 7 you'd have all the various 5-fold combinations from your seven teams.

Most bookies give you these options when you have multiple selections anyway, up to a point anyway. If you add 5 selections to a betting slip on someone like Will Hills site they offer you singles, doubles, trebles, 4-folds and the acca. That's the same as perming 1 from 5, 2 from 5, 3 from 5, 4 from 5 and 5 from 5 respectively

[Roberto]

I know all I need is a loss and I've lost 12.5% of my bank
And I think, on that note, you've just answered your own original question. :)


Am I right, that this can work for me, or was last weekend just very lucky and am I bound to lose?
Well, I'm certainly not trying to "flame" or criticise you, and I wish you very good luck with it. But think about this: if you can safely make consistent profits doing this, you'll be just about the only person, ever, who has managed to do that out of tens of thousands (maybe even hundreds of thousands) who have tried. Not impossible, I'm sure, but very heavy odds to overturn. Ooo

[mathare]

Mat, i've often thought of testing the dreaded martingale system on something like trebles. Starting with one unit stake. Might try a paper test on it next season.I would never discourage anyone from paper testing anything. After all - what have you got to lose? You invest time and effort in your learning this way. You learn to spot for yourself what makes a good/bad system and this experience helps you later down the line

[clotty]

Roberto (or anyone else), do you have staking plan you'd suggest instead then, so if all three bets lose I don't lose 12.5% of my bank? I know 12.5% sounds high, but when you consider that I am only testing this with small money at the moment (my actual bank for this test is only about £25) I'm not risking hundreds.

This is slightly off subject, but on the topic of consistently making profits, how much do you think people can realistically make in a year with less than 1% chance of bankruptcy?

Clotty.