I was asked recently whether I had any tips or advice when it comes to placing accumulators. Well, I don’t consider myself to be a football betting expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think and feel that I have some good advice to offer, so here it is.
I’m going to start off with two or three pieces of advice that my Dad gave to me when I first started having a small flutter on the football:
Never, ever include extra teams such as a Manchester United at 1/8 or Celtic at 1/10 onto your initial accumulator to ‘add value.’ More often that not, it’ll be your shortest priced selection or your “banker” that’ll let you down. It’s not worth it.
Never, ever work out your potential winnings before placing your bet. Now, I know this is a little bit more difficult these days as most, if not all betting websites automatically inform you of your potential winnings before you place your bet. In that case, either before or after you’ve picked out your teams, I’d decide on your stake and stick to it. That way you won’t be tempted to stick a couple more quid on simply because it takes you past a certain amount, such as £300. Besides, I think calculating your winnings is tempting fate, so try and not do that if you can.
Also, I know the following piece of advice might be difficult to uphold, because I know I have difficulty sticking to it, being a Manchester United fan, but try and not place a bet involving your own team. If you do, you risk wearing those rose-tinted glasses and allowing biasness to come into play. If you’re a clear headed, realistic supporter, ignore this particular piece of advice. Just that I know there are fans out there, Manchester United fans in particular, who believe they’re going to win every single game and that they’re going to batter Liverpool 3-0.
Onto advice that I’ve picked up myself over the past couple of years:
Long gone, I think, are the days where you could take one quick look at the table, pick out six or seven teams and hope for the best. I think a little bit more homework and knowledge is the key to a successful accumulator. What am I talking about? Let me explain.
I’m going to take Ipswich Town for example. You’ve had a look at them, you’ve had a look at the table and you fancy their chances. Now, I don’t know about you, I don’t know whether my advice is going to be common sense to you, but I go a lot deeper than that. Once I’ve picked out a team, such as Ipswich Town in our example, I delve right down to the bottom of that team to uncover some knowledge, and it’s there where I do my homework. The fans are the ones who you’ll find at the bottom of any team, as they’re the ones who support them and keeps the team going. They’re also the ones with all of the knowledge.
I look around the Ipswich Town section of BBC’s 606 Forums where the place is quite obviously packed full of Ipswich Town fans. They know the club, the players and the team better than anyone else. They can tell you whether a player returning from injury will boost them massively, whether an injury to a player is going to be a massive loss or manageable and they can give you some history lessons concerning their opponents, such as their track record, whether it be good or bad. I could go on, but you get the idea.
Another good place to visit is The Football Forum – the Forum is split into Leagues, such as Premier League Forum, Championship Forum, etc. and each specific League Forum has a Match Forum at the very top of it. Every Thursday (sometimes a Friday), a thread will be created for every single game in the top four English Leagues and it’ll be posted in the relevant Match Forums. This gives a chance for the fans of the two competing teams to discuss their thoughts and feelings on the match, sometimes along with fans of other teams. It’s really good and very helpful, as the fans are the ones with the best and true knowledge, not some football reporter employed by the BBC. Most of the fans aren’t biased, either, so don’t be worried by that. Most of the members are genuine, realistic fans. They have over 17,000 members, covering most of Britain’s football teams, as far as I’ve seen. It’s most definitely worth checking out. Just by looking around The Football Forum and 606, you’ll come across pieces of information you won’t find anywhere else – and sometimes that information is very helpful and valuable.
Again, I’ll use my example of Ipswich Town. Last week, I found out by reading the match thread between Ipswich Town and Southampton that the Saints had a huge problem with their defence. Pretty much their only defender at that time, Christian Dailly, had to go back to West Ham as Southampton couldn’t afford his wages. This was a massive blow to Southampton and their fans were expecting a pasting from Ipswich. I looked to see what price you could get for Ipswich -1 and 13/5 was offered! 13/5! Given Ipswich’s home record at the time, this was exceptional value. I got on, Ipswich won 2-0 and I was a little richer – all due to knowledge I’d picked up by reading the opinions of the fans involved in my bet.
The BBC football website is absolutely perfect for us accumulator loving punters, as they give you all of the facts and figures, but in quite a simple format. Take a report for a Championship match, for example. They’ll tell you all you need to know regarding the result of a game, but they’ll never write more than three paragraphs. There’s a lot of information, but it’s condensed.
To start a better chance of having a winning accumulator, you need to use this information and take advantage of it. Don’t look at the league table as a whole, look at the home and away record seperately. Take a look at how many goals your particular team scores and concedes both at home and away. Have a gander at their record over the past five games or so. If they’re playing at home, take a look at their last five home results, and likewise if they’re playing away. If you can, read the reports of the last few games – it shouldn’t take long at all as they’re never more than three short paragraphs. I advise you to do this because as we all know, the scoreline doesn’t always tell the story of the game. Use their stats link, too. If Malcolm McDonald is missing for Hereford United, have a quick look at the stats link. He might be their top scorer, so they’ll miss him a lot. That’s where the football fans forum comes in handy, as well.
I know it might appear quite time consuming and daunting, looking around all of those fans websites, tables, results and reports, but you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can do it. And you obviously don’t have to do all of that for every single team. Just the ones that you’ve picked out. You also don’t have to read absolutely everything. Just the thread(s) that relate to the match you’re looking at. Believe me, it’s well worth it. It’s a helpful and powerful tool – a tool which we should use to our advantage to stay one step ahead of the devious Bookies, filling our pockets in the process.
Another piece of advice I have is don’t restrict yourself to one Bookmaker, or a small number of Bookmakers. By doing that, all you’re doing is limiting your choice and you could even be missing out on the best prices. These days there are review websites for everything. If you’re buying a camera, a TV, staying in a hotel, pretty much whatever, there’s a review site for you to visit to make sure that you’re making the right choice, that you’re getting the best value for your money. It’s the exact same thing with betting, whether it’s football, boxing, horse racing or golf. Go along to OddsChecker and before you place your bet(s), see what price(s) other Bookmakers are offering. You’ll be surprised how much of a difference there is between Bookmakers, especially when you’re placing an accumulator. It pays to check your odds.
My last piece of advice is to keep a record of the teams you’re backing, either on paper or on your PC. This will prove to be very helpful, as you may come across a team you like the look of, but that particular team has let you down three or four times that season already, so you’d be less inclined to back them if that’s the case. It works in the opposite way too, by giving you a record of which teams have done the business for you. It’s also good as it helps you to keep a track of how much you’ve won and how much you’ve loss over the course of the season, which is important as you might only be spending a couple of quid on an accumulator once a weekend but it all adds up.
I do hope you find the advice I’ve offered helpful and successful, but if only one person finds the advice useful, well it most definitely still would’ve been worth my time.
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