Most sports bettors who place wagers don’t do so primarily for the love of the game – even though that is without a doubt a big part of it for many punters. However, it’s essential to recall that a good portion of sports betting is done by people who have no real affinity for games. The one thing that all these people have in common is their objective – to turn a profit. A resource that many believe is good for this is accumulators. However, the use and efficacy of accumulators are highly controversial.
Finding value is vital for turning in profit as a bettor, and this is one place that many bettors feel that accumulators don’t work and touted. To determine just how accurate that statement is, it’s important to understand the concept of finding value as deeply as possible.
Finding value simply means getting the most reward for every wager that you place. This is only reasonable, as betting is just like any other business, and anyone would want to make as much as they can. However, the problem lies in the fact that bettors can never really know the true value of their bets. This is mainly due to the influence of bookmakers and their various edges.
Accumulators happen to be one solution you can employ to outsmart your bookmaker. Since it operates by combining multiple individual odds from several bets together and multiplying them, it gives you value, considerably boosting what you stand to win. However, this comes at a cost. With the increase in potential earnings comes a concurrent decrease in the probability that you’ll be able to accurately predict the outcome of so many events.
With the long odds and relatively small odds that accumulators offer, you stand to win huge. Take, for instance, you’re working with a bet with odds like 2.00. If the edge of the bet is only 2%, your expected Return-on-Investment will not exceed 4%. What accumulators do for you is help pick multiple selections, which means that if you make just five selections with the data just expressed, your odds and Return-on-Investment spike to 32 and 64%, respectively. The catch here, of course, is that you’re most likely only working with games with a negative expected value.
Statistically speaking, the longer you place bets with accumulators, the more likely the chance of scoring your win. But because this can be a considerable drain on your bankroll, treading with caution is important. So while betting with accumulators does provide value for your bets when done right, ensuring you have a winning combination of selections can prove challenging.
