How To Pick A Football Accumulator That Wins

Note: results are not guaranteed – this is just the strategy I use to pick football accumulators. It was used on the example bet displayed.

One of the biggest mistakes that I see day in, day out in the accumulator betting sector is people not following even the most basic of principles when it comes to picking their accumulator.

It’s a huge leak and one that you need to get to grips with if you’re looking to make money from these types of bets.

I’m going to show you some of the ways that I formulate bets that have been super successful over the last few years. The process does take time though, so you need to invest in this to get the most from your bets.

I’m fully aware, that some people have more time to put into their research than others. Putting an hour’s worth of research into each acca just isn’t plausible for some, and I get that.

As a result, I want to include the key stages that are going to quickly and efficiently get you finding well priced and high-value selections.

Step One – Statistical Research & Analysis

The majority of my initial research starts here, at Soccerstats.com. If you’ve not heard of it before, then Soccerstats is one of the biggest and most comprehensive football statistics sites out there right now and the best thing about it all is that it’s free.

The site has more data than you will ever need and with it, you can start to plan out how you will form your bet. You can take the information as far or as deep as you like, but honestly, I use it to get an initial overlay of which games might take my fancy.

The section is above is a typical example of the overview for the upcoming game week for each league. It may not look like much, but it holds a lot of info that I can initially take to create a rough outline for my accumulator.

For example…

From the above stats, I can see that Santos are a team are on fire.

• They’ve won their last 4 games (as signified by the 4 green towers on the right of the table)
• They’ve won 90% of their games at home
• They average over 3.14 total goals per game at home
• They have an over 2.5 goals percentage of 71% from home matches.

I know that from this I’d be happy to take either home win for Santos or the over 2.5 goals bet. The next step for me would then be to see the odds for each market and decide which I feel offered better value.

This is a pretty simplistic overview of how sites like Soccerstats can be used and as I mentioned previously, the data on offer is colossus. You can look at the data and apply it however you want, just as long as it fits in with the trends that you are seeing from previous games.

Key Point: Use statistics and data sites to your advantage to pick your acca.

Step Two – Deeper Analysis On Target Fixtures

Statistics don’t always tell the full story and often you need to dive deeper into a fixture to see what’s really going on and adjust your accumulator selections accordingly.

After I’ve identified my target games I move on to a deeper look at the situation and really analyse recent team form (which I consider one of the most important stats on offer).

The obvious thing to do is to just see the results that occurred in the game and then take it from there. In reality, you need to be working harder than this with your games, as the result doesn’t always tell the whole story.

Above we have the form of Flamengo in the Brazilian league and as you can see in their last 4 games they have won, drawn, lost and then won their most recent game. This would indicate they are in decent form, but not great for a team that is challenging to win the league.

As we dive a little deeper into the fixtures, we can see that their loss was away from home was to Internacional who were top of the league at the time. There’s not too much of an issue here and this is not something that I would take too much consideration in given the quality of the opposition.

The draw with Sao Paulo, however, is a game that they should be winning. Flamengo were 3rd in the league at the time and whilst Sao Paulo are a decent team, they were 9th and in poor form.

But… when I dive into the stats further still, I see that Flamengo had a man sent off after just 25 minutes, playing 65 minutes with just 10 men. In the end, a draw was a pretty good result!

Key Point: Look into previous matches to determine why results occurred and if it was a fair reflection of the match.

Step Three – Limit Your Markets

As soon as you jump on the likes of BetVictor or Bet365 you are greeted with hundreds of markets to choose from for each game.

I’ll be honest, I think that most of them are overdoing it!

If you’re new to acca betting, then I would suggest it’s best to forget the vast majority and hone in on just a couple of markets.

People will (and have) argued that you’d be missing out on value from other markets, but realistically, I don’t have the time to search through 200 markets across 200 games for a Saturday accumulator. Even on the days where there are fewer games, it’s still not a realistic ask.

I like to use just 2 or 3 markets at most and if you are new to all, then just the 1. My top three markets for accumulators are:

• Match result
• Over 2.5 goals
• Asian handicap

The match result selection is a pretty obvious one and as I can get so much data for this specific market, it means that I can make really informed picks for this.

The over 2.5 goals bet falls in the same category for me as what I like to do is formulate possible scores for each match. This works well as not only does it allow me to create a match result bet, but it also means I can tackle the over 2.5 goals bet when everything links up.

The Asian Handicap is one that often throws people a little, but I love it and think it offers huge value for short-priced favourites. I use this a lot for the “Big Six” in the Premier League when they are playing at home to the smaller teams. By applying a handicap I’m taking bets that are priced at 1.40 and getting them nearer even money in games that they should be winning by 2 or more goals.

These 3 markets are all fairly well linked and the same sort of research plan will mean that I can usually come up with a bet for most games that are reflected in this. The next step would be to check the bookies and see which offer the best value.

Key Point: Limit your markets to just 2 or 3 and get to know them better than your parents.

Stage Four – Formulate Your Own Odds

One of my biggest strengths with choosing a football acca is being able to form my own odds for each game that I look at before I place my acca bet.

This is something that takes time to do and it’s an area that you are going to need to practice in. If you can master it though, this is how you find that illusive value.

The key to this is not looking at odds before you look through the matches. Stay away from your bookie to start with and use a site like Soccerstats.com that will show you the games and the data, but not the odds.

Let’s run through a quick example.

I’ve taken a game between Fulham and Nottingham Forest here. As you can see, it’s early in the season, but Fulham have won both their early games and Forest have drawn theirs.

I like to work out the percentage chance (implied probability) of each result happening and then convert this into odds. You can do that here – just put your percentage in the implied probability box.

Even though we need to look further than this into the games as mentioned above, let’s just assume the following chances of each from this market based on these facts:

• Fulham to win = 65%
• Draw = 25%
• Nottingham Forest = 10%

The odds would then be converted to this:

• Fulham to win = 1.54
• Draw = 4.00
• Nottingham Forest = 10.00

Note: You can use this calculator to turn percentages into odds – just enter your estimated percentages the implied probability section.

Next thing to do is check this off with the odds from a bookmaker. I’m using BetVictor for this example:

From this we can see that we agree with the draw result, but the price for Nottingham Forest to win is way lower than our 10.00, priced at just 5.5.

The value from this is Fulham to win, with our odds being at 1.54 but BetVictor is actually offering up higher odds at 1.667. This would be what I call a value bet and one that I would be keen to include in my acca – if I had identified them earlier as having potential.

Key Point: Construct your own odds before looking at the bookmakers to identify value and confirm your selections.