What Is an Acca Bet?
An acca bet is a bet made up of two or more selections where all the selections need to win for the bet to win.
The acca’s odds are the selections’ odds all multiplied by one another. Though accas were originally always made up of selections from separate events, the invention of the Bet Builder means they can now also apply to selections within the same event, meaning Bet Builders are a form of acca.
Special bets like Trixies or Lucky 15s are also made up of numerous selections but work differently in that not all selections need to win for different parts of them to win; so, they’re not accas as such, but system bets.
How Do Accumulator Bonuses Work?
An accumulator bonus therefore is a bonus awarded by a bookmaker relating to accas placed by players. It either increases the payout if the acca goes on to win, or gives the player some or all of their stake back (as cash or a free bet), if it comes close to winning.
The most popular accumulator bonus and the one that you will most likely encounter is an acca boost bonus. All other acca promotions work in a similar way
Different Types of Accumulator Bonuses
Extra payouts on acca wins are probably the most common type of bonus involving accas but not the only one. Here are some examples of the best accumulator bonuses out there.
Acca Boost
The most common type of accumulator bonus is the acca boost bonus. Acca boost is designed to boost the potential winning of your accumulator bet by a certain percentage, set by the bonus terms and conditions. Typically, the percentage increases with the number of legs you add to your acca bet.
Sometimes, you can only bet on a certain sport (for example, a football/soccer acca boost offer), but that’s not always the case. You can include various markets, like match markets, goals markets, and others, depending on the terms set by the sportsbook.
Acca of the Day
Here the sportsbook will select an acca of their own with a certain number of selections from popular events that day and display the selections and the ‘normal’ total odds of the acca.
They will then tell you what odds they were boosted to. For example, “Acca of the day odds of 4.0 boosted to 6.0.” The main difference between this one and the usual boosted acca is that you don’t get to choose the selections in it - they’ve already been selected by the sportsbook.
Boost Your Own Acca
Rather than placing an acca with a minimum number of selections knowing that it will be boosted by a particular percentage or betting on a pre-selected acca at boosted odds, some sportsbooks allow you to boost your own acca.
They will allow you to boost one acca a day by a certain amount - for example, 20% - or may give you a number of chances to boost your acca whenever you want during a month.
In both cases, there will be certain conditions that need to be met, such as a minimum number of selections and minimum odds.
How Much Can You Boost Your Profit With Acca Boost Bonuses?
This relates to the first type of bonus for accumulators: the one where the sportsbook will increase your payout on a winning acca.
Sportsbooks love it when customers place accas. Why? Three main reasons:
- Bets placed at big odds, which accas typically are, rarely go on to win, so the bookies don’t have to pay out on most of them.
- With accas made up of 4-5 selections or more, you need a lot to go your way as a punter, with just one mistake across 4-5 selections costing you the whole bet.
- Rather than inserting a house edge on one bet, the sportsbook is doing so on numerous bets so has a higher house edge on accas than on singles.
That’s why betting sites not only want you to place accas but bet with as many selections in them as possible.
They’re prepared to offer an acca bonus whereby the more selections you have, the more of a boost they give, as a percentage, to your winnings.
With each extra selection you have, there will be a greater percentage added to your payout, if the acca goes on to win.
Though the exact percentages vary from one bookie to another, this would be a typical example of a bonus on an accumulator coupon:
- Trebles: 5% boost
- 4-folds: 10% boost
- 5-folds: 15% boost
- 6-folds: 20% boost and so on.
There's often a limit to how much your accas can get boosted, typically sitting at around 70%, but it all depends on the bookie.
Example of An Acca Boost Bonus
Ok, so on a Saturday afternoon, you decide to place an acca made up of:
- Everton to win at 3.0
- Liverpool to win at 2.0
- Real Madrid to win at 1.6
- Over 2.5 goals in Arsenal v Chelsea at 2.0
- Barcelona -1.5 as a handicap bet at 2.0
- Under 2.5 goals in Benfica v Porto at 1.8
The total odds of the acca are 69.12 and you decide to put €1 on it. It wins, so you’d normally be paid out €69.12, including your stake. However, as per the example above, winning accas made up of 6 selections have a 20% boost added to them so adding 20% to that, your winnings would be €82,94, a considerable difference.
Rules & Terms for Acca Boost Bonuses
Remember that all sportsbooks will have slightly different terms for their acca boost offers, but here are some of the ones you’ll see most frequently:
- Only pre-match selections are allowed.
- The acca must have a minimum number of selections.
- There’s a limit as to how much you can receive in terms of the ‘extra’ payout.
- The bonus amount is dependent on the number of legs.
- Some bet types are excluded.
- Selections (as singles) which have already been boosted can’t be included in the acca.
- Sometimes, only bets on a specific sport (for example football) or market (e.g. match odds, both teams to score, over/under 2.5 goals) are allowed to be included in your acca, rather than selections from any sport, or any market.
- You can’t use bonus money or free bets to place accas eligible for boosts.
- The Acca Boost offer is sometimes only available on specific days rather than all days.
- Extra payouts are normally paid in cash rather than in free bets or bonus money with wagering requirements.
What Makes a Good Acca Bonus
Here are some of the positives to look out for in the terms & conditions that suggest the particular acca insurance offer is a bonus accumulator offer that’s worth it.
- The extra payout is paid in cash, rather than in bonus money (with wagering requirements) or in free bets that have to be used in a particular way.
- The bonus on 15-fold accas is very close to 100% rather than closer to just 70%.
- There are no minimum odds requirements on each selection or the acca as a whole.
- There’s no bonus accumulator code that needs to be entered meaning all accas are eligible for the boost rather than only ones you opt into.
- The sports and betting markets that can be included in the acca aren’t limited at all or only have a few limits to what you can’t do. The more freedom you have to include selections from whatever sport and whatever market within that sport, the better.
- The Acca Insurance offer is available all the time rather than just on specific days.
Compatible Promotions That Work With Bonus Accumulators
Occasionally, you can get the best of both worlds by combining other bonuses at fixed odds betting sites with accumulator bonuses. Here are two examples.
Edit Accas
Edit Accas allows you to remove the legs of your acca if you change your mind about one or more legs after you’ve already made the bet. So if Arsenal to beat Everton was one of your selections, and you decided you didn’t like it after all, you can remove it from the acca, which is a bonus of sorts.
Even after you’ve edited your acca, it will often still be eligible for an acca boost (as long as it meets the requirement for a minimum number of legs) or acca insurance.
Using Free Bets
Free bets can be awarded in a number of ways. For example, when your stake is returned in an Acca Insurance offer or in a Buy One Get One Free offer, where placing an Acca will see you rewarded with a free one in the future.
The vast majority of the time, free bets can be used to place accumulator bets, and these will often be eligible for any acca bonuses. But always read the terms to see if they definitely are.
Are Accumulator Bonuses Worth It?
The answer is both yes and no.
If a sportsbook decides to boost an acca you were going to place anyway by 30% when it wins simply because you met the requirements of having a minimum number of legs in it, then there’s obviously no downside to that.
Similarly, if you get your stake back on an acca you’d already decided to strike because only one leg lost, then that can only be good news, too.
What you do want to avoid, though, is adding legs you didn’t originally want in your acca just to meet the requirements of the acca offer.
So, maybe you added an extra selection to your 50.0 (which became odds of 100.0 because you added an extra selection) acca to make sure you’d meet the insurance acca requirements. And maybe doing so resulted in getting your stake back when only one section let you down.
But the £10 you got refunded could easily have been a winner at 50.0 (which would have been much better), and it may well have been that last extra leg that spoiled the whole acca.
