How to improve your ACCA betting performance

Accumulators (or parlays in American English) are among the most popular bet types for punters. The chance to win relatively large sums of money by investing a small stake is just too tempting for most bettors. However, it’s also a fact that bookmakers love it when bettors place accumulators. The reason should be obvious: they make a lot of money on these multi bets since bettors consistently make tge same mistakes. In this article we will explore how to gain the winning edge on your ACCA betting.

1. Don’t be greedy – if you are trying to get rich by winning next week’s ACCA with odds of 20x, you are doomed to fail. A more realistic goal might be a double, treble or four-fold. Don’t be overambitious about the number of selections in your ACCA. The more games you add, the less likely it is to succeed. My rule? 10 games max, and that’s pushing it. At Betlookr, we currently have a maximum of 4 folds. As our predicted games come with odds of around 1.5 – 2, that’s a reasonable number. 
2. Don’t bet on underdogs. Unless you have insider knowledge, then accumulators are consistently won by building an ACCA comprised of overwhelming favourites of 1.5 or less. Use the power of compounding to build profits, not wildly overambitious odds. Consider the following hypothetical fivefold sets of odds: 1.4 x 1.4 x 1.4 x 1.4 x 1.4 produces a return of 5.37x. Not bad at all, and these odds have chances of actually happening.
3. Consider (very strongly) running singles using the same games that you put in the ACCA. That way, assuming average odds of 1.25, you will only need to have an 80% hit rate to break even overall – depending of course how conservative you are with how much bankroll you assign to the ACCA.
4. Focus on European leagues. South American and Asian leagues are less consistent than those in Europe. We believe that this is due to the high turnover in players. It’s hard for South American teams to build the kind of dynasties that we see with Manchester City, Bayern or Real Madrid. 
5. For most consistent results, wait until 5 rounds oc league games have passed until placing ACCA bets. That way you can gauge which teams have made the best start. You can make some exceptions to this rule, using a list of leagues and teams which are dominated by the same familiar names year after year. Scotland, Portugal and Turkey are good choices here. 
6. Don’t focus only on the top 5 European leagues. These leagues are exciting and entertaining. But that’s not ideal for ACCAs. You want to focus on leagues that are seen as boring. Again, Scotland and Portugal are good choices.
7. Stay away from cup competitions. It’s a fact of modern soccer that clubs are overloaded with games and have to prioritise certain competitions over others. And domestic cups sadly come bottom of the list. For example, Aston Villa are currently riding high in the Premier and Champions League. Yet just 2 years ago, they were losing at home to Stevenage in the FA Cup. If the choice is between winning a relegation fight or winning a cup, managers will choose the relegation fight every time. So avoid those David and Goliath struggles in cups. 
8. Beware betting on teams who are also involved in European competitions. Another aspect of the overloaded football calendar and the need to prioritise is that teams in the Champions, Europa and Conference leagues often are tired on weekends following European games. Moreover, a recent trend seen in season 2024-25 suggests that teams perform worse on weekends before a round of European games. Is this due to the money-spinning expansion of European tournaments? Perhaps, but one thing is clear – teams involved in Europe are too distracted/tired to fully focus on domestic league games. Beware!

Simon

Sports bettor with 20+ years experience. Focuses on football (soccer) as well as financial trading (crypto, FX and commodities).