
Bettors are highly ambitious people. There is nothing they want more than to rack in higher winnings with a relatively low stake. It however comes as no surprise that the Parlays are the most played bet type amongst bettors.
In this guide we will be looking at parlays/extensively, exposing all you need to know about this popular bet type.
What are Parlays/Accumulator Bets?
A parlay is simply a multi-bet that’s a combination of different individual wagers. For most kinds of parlays, each game has to win for the parlay to be counted as won. A loss from one wager in the parlays signifies an overall loss and no payout. With Parlays, you can select over 20 games on one bet slip. The more games included in the bet slip, the higher the winnings because each odd added multiplies to equate to a much larger cumulative.
Different Types of Accumulator Bets
The accumulator bet type has a lot of variations that we will discuss further in the subsequent paragraphs.
Acca
This is probably the commonest form of accumulator bet type played by bettors. If you have ever played a long game where there were like a combination of games and the possibility of winning depends on all the selection coming through, then you have played an Acca.
Double
As the name implies for this accumulator type, you only need two selections. Each selection is very crucial to the outcome of the bet slip.
Treble
The Treble doesn’t seem too different from the Double. The only major difference is that for you to have a treble accumulator, you need exactly three selections in the bet slip.
Trixie
A Trixie is a special accumulator where the bettor is expected to stake four times the initial amount you want to input because of the three doubles and one treble encompassed in the bet. In this case, all you need to win is at least two of the selection coming through.
Patent
This unique accumulator bet type is like the Trixie. The only difference is that singles are encompassed in the bet and not just doubles and a treble. It is still composed of three selections, but there are seven bets involved. In this case, you need one selection to get a return no matter how small and at least two selections for a profit to be achieved. You are expected to place seven times your initial stake to place a bet.
Yankee
This is another accumulator bet type that involves picking four selections that makeup 11 best overall. The bet in general covers doubles, trebles, and a 4-fold acca. In this case, you are expecting just two selections to come through out of the four to get a return regardless of how small. As expected. you will be needing 11 times your initial stake to make the bet.
Lucky 15
As the name implies this bet type comprises a total of 15 bets from four selections. The lucky 15 encompasses singles, doubles, trebles, and a 4-fold acca. You will require more take for this than the others. You need at least three of the selections to win to get a reasonable profit. To make this bet, you need to stake 15 times the initial amount.
Canadian
This accumulator bet type composes five selections and makes up a total of 26 bets. The bets here include doubles, trebles, 4-fold acca, and lastly, a 5-fold acca. As expected, the required stake is 26 times the initial stake amount.
Lucky 31
The lucky 31 accumulator bet still involves picking five selections. The peculiar thing here is that you will be having a total of 31 individual bets since singles are added to the doubles, trebles, 4-fold acca, and 5-fold acca. The expected stake amount in this case is 31 times your initial stake.
Heinz
The Heinz accumulator bet involves six selections that comprises 57 individual bets. In this type of accumulator bet, you get doubles, trebles, 4-folds Acca, 5-folds acca, and particularly, a 6-fold. In this case, with 2 wins out of the 6 selections, you can get a return regardless of how small. However, when you look at the number of bets involved here, you will need at least four to yield substantial profit.
Lucky 63
The Lucky 63 still involves six selections. However, it comprises 63 individual bets. In this accumulator bet, you get singles, doubles, trebles, 4-folds Acca, 5-folds Acca, and a 6-fold. As expected, you will be needed 63 times the initial stake to place this bet.
Super Heinz
This is a bulky accumulator bet type where seven selections are needed to make up a whopping amount of 150 bets. This accumulator bet type encompasses doubles, trebles, 4-folds, 5-folds, 6-folds, and a 7-fold acca. As expected, the stake amount for this type of accumulator bet is way higher than the ones already discussed so far.
Goliath
This type of bet is for the big money bettors because the stake amount is way higher than all the aforementioned accumulator bet types so far. This type of accumulator bet involves eight selections and makes up to 247 individual bets, which is like the highest you can find. The bet includes doubles, trebles, 4-folds, 5-folds, 6-folds, 7-folds, and an 8-fold acca.
Parlays and Combination bets in Soccer – How Do They Work?
Parlays, as we have discussed earlier, are multiple bets that allow a bettor to have a combination of bets in one bet slip and the caveat is that all outcomes should win to record a win. However, some Parlays like the ones we have already talked about, require at least 60% of the selections to win to get returns.
Progressive Parlays
These are a unique kind of Parlays where you are not expected to be extremely accurate with your selections to get returns. In essence, all your selections don’t have to come through for your bet to still win. So it gives punters some level of cushion for betting inconsistencies. In a Progressive Parlay, the minimum amount of selections accepted is four and could go as high as 20. The higher the number of teams selected in the parlays, the higher the margin of error allowed in the parlays. In essence, a 20 team bet will have a higher margin for error than a 4-team bet. As expected, the payout for Progressive Parlays is relatively smaller when compared to regular Parlays and I am sure you understand why.
Creating a Football Accumulator Bets
Accumulator bets are highly favored among bettors because of the mouthwatering winnings they promise. If you are playing a football accumulator bet, you need to devise a strategy. Most people who play parlay bets just do that randomly without doing due diligence to look out for possible loopholes that could ruin the bet. You don’t have to play a regular parlay where in your, say 15 selection, 14 comes through and you still end up losing because of that single game that lost. Instead of leaving things all to fate, you could cover the spread for some games and add more options. While the payout may be lower, it is a safer way to go about it. For example, if you have a bet slip containing 10 over 1.5 selections, for the sake of cushioning the betslip, you could cover some of the teams selected by adding another outcome. That way, if the over one option doesn’t play out for that team, the bet slip could still stand if the other option plays out.
Parlays and Combination Bets Examples
Having come this far in this guide, let’s now look at an example of an Accumulator bet.

This is a regular parlay. As you can see here, the total odds arrived at is 32, which is gotten after multiplying all the individual odds together. In this case, the stake is multiplied by the total number of odds to get the winnings. The bettor is only entitled to the winnings if all the selections in this betslip win.
Tips and Strategies
Every prudent bettor has a plan. As a bettor you should too. Despite how risky accumulator bets have been proven to be, there are tips that you can apply to cushion the effect and place a leash on the possibility of losing. Here, we will look at some of those helpful tips that you can apply to make you a smarter bettor when placing accumulator bets.
The lower the selections the better
It is harder to control when you have over 20 selections than when you have just 10 selections. So it is always safer to keep the selections as low as possible and possibly increase your stake to guarantee a higher chance of winning.
Bet on leagues you are familiar with
The fact that you are betting an accumulator doesn’t mean you should go puck randomly from leagues you have never studied before. You want to bet on familiar turf. If you do so, you know what’s highly likely to be expected. For example, it is common to find most Bundesliga league matches playing GG or even Over 2.5 because the teams here are highly goal-scoring teams. If you play the over 1.5 option here too, you are still on track.
Compare bookmakers
It is a smart thing to do when you keep your options open and not be reliant on one bookmaker. You will be surprised at the difference in odds between bookmakers when you compare. Take your time to look at the odds offered by a wide range of bookmakers and set your camp in the one that offers relatively the highest.
Add more options per team selected for a long bet slip
If you are betting on a very long bet slip that contains say about 20 teams, you could stack some teams with different options so that if one of the options comes through, the bet slip will still come through, especially when the other teams selected do as expected. This way, you end up curtailing the risks that are peculiar to long bet slips and your winning chances are relatively higher. The only downside is the fact that your stake will end up being higher, but it is worth it.
Summary
If you are a bettor that romanticizes the idea of winning enormously with sports betting, then accumulator bets are for you. However you should have in mind that with greater returns comes even greater risks. In this guide, we have already discussed the risks you are found to face as a result of betting on accumulator bets.
FAQ
Acca boost is a special type of bonus offered on accumulator bets. Most sportsbooks devise this strategy to encourage their bettors to consider betting more on accumulators. It can be very rewarding especially when your bet slip is a long one. Sometimes the bettor could get like 100% on their winnings. The amount of bonus added in an accumulator bet is dependent on the length of the bet slip.
Acca Insurance is a new feature that’s fast becoming popular amongst a lot of sportsbooks. In this case, the bookmaker gives the bettor the chance to win if one game loses. This offer was created by sportsbooks considering the increasing number of losses incurred on accumulator bets as a result of one game losing. The winnings after one game loses will be lower than the expected winnings. This offer has caused a boost in the inflow of bettors on specific sportsbooks. Nairabet in Nigeria grew very popular simply because of this. Bettors are always eager to patronize a sportsbook that has their best interest at heart.
Virtually all sportsbooks offer accumulator bets. The peculiarity is that they sometimes use different terms to represent accumulator bets. Some term their combination bets as “accumulator” while there are a select number that represents theirs as “Acca”. If that isn’t enough, there are also some that represent it as “combo bet.” Whenever you see any of those three terms, don’t get confused in any way. All you should know is that they are practically referring to the same thing.

Football analyst! Biggest fan of local and international football. Mostly, loves keeping an eye on the upcoming players, always trying to bring debate on youngsters’ potential of becoming the next big thing in the world of football and of, course writing some pieces about them.