Getting Value From Doubles, Trebles & Accumulators

In today’s blog I am going to talk about unpermed win doubles, trebles and accumulators. The focus will be on horse racing. 

Multiples are a naturally tempting prospect for the enthusiastic horse player. Small stakes can offer large returns. Many people dream of one day hitting the big one.  

My first manager at Ladbrokes was an incredibly shrewd individual. I questioned him about the matter one sunny afternoon in the early noughties. His opinion was that most of this type of bet were to the bookies benefit and that he would happily sit and take them all day. Sitting that side of the counter it was easy to see that most people’s plays were either too ambitious or fundamentally flawed in some regard. The people who won multiples tended to use doubles and trebles. It was rare to pay a 4-fold plus. 

Let’s do some maths! I promise I will do all the hard work and that I will explain everything fully so please don’t be alarmed. 

We will look at the combined odds of a few different bets all of which will have selections placed at 1/1. 

Double £1 @ 1/1 x 1/1 = £4 = 3/1 

Treble £1 @ 1/1 x 1/1 x 1/1 = £8 = 7/1 

4-fold £1 @ 1/1 x 1/1 x 1/1 x 1/1 = £16 = 15/1 

We can see the double looks easy but two horses have to win for little reward. By backing the 4–fold we can get 15/1 but is that really enough of a reward for picking 4 horses? The answer is subjective to both your opinion and the relative merits of the horses concerned. 

One of the most common losers I used to see was the following type of bet. The customer had usually selected three short ones and added a longshot. This is usually the betting equivalent of buying an ice cream in a cone on a hot day and slamming it in to your own forehead. 

4-Fold £1 @ 6/4 x 1/1 x 2/1 x 8/1 = £135 = 134/1 

The experienced betting enthusiast will see I am obviously painting in broad strokes so could we make this pay? 

The first step is to immediately lose a selection. By its very nature a 4-fold increases the risk factor and we want an achievable bet. I would normally suggest losing the biggest liability - the 8/1 horse. After reviewing the selections, we decide the 8/1 shot is massively overpriced and should be somewhere around 4/1 at the most. We decide to drop the 2/1 as we are not sure if he will get the trip. 

We now have:  

Treble £1 @ 6/4 x 1/1 x 8/1 = £45 = 44/1 

44/1 still looks hard to achieve but the odds would suggest it’s just about possible. If our view on the overpriced 8/1 shot is correct the chances of achieving the bet change as I will now show you: 

Treble @ 6/4 x 1/1 x 4/1 = 24/1 

We would hope to get this bet up at least once in 25 attempts so the reward of £44 begins to look quite tasty. It’s certainly a better return than the £15 we would have received had we dropped the 8/1 and kept the 2/1. 

I hope I have given the reader some food for thought and I will be talking about this subject as well as many others in future blogs.