What is an accumulator (acca) bet?
An accumulator puts several picks on one ticket. All of them must win. One miss and the whole ticket is lost.
How an accumulator works
On a single bet you pick one outcome. On an acca you pick many, such as three or five or ten. The odds of each pick are multiplied, which is why the possible payout grows so quickly. That is also why accas are so popular, and why so many booking codes are accas.
The chances multiply too
The payout is not the only thing that multiplies. The chance of winning is multiplied as well, and that is where tickets go wrong. A chance is a number below 1, and when you multiply numbers below 1 the answer gets smaller each time.
A worked example
Take a ticket with three legs. Say the real chances are:
- Leg 1: 70%
- Leg 2: 65%
- Leg 3: 45%
Each leg on its own looks fair. But the ticket needs all three. So we multiply: 0.70 × 0.65 × 0.45 = 0.205. The real chance that the whole ticket wins is about 20%. That is roughly one ticket in five.
What one weak leg does
Now take away the 45% leg. The ticket has two legs left: 0.70 × 0.65 = 0.455. The chance is about 46%. By dropping one pick, the chance more than doubled, from about 20% to about 46%. The payout is lower, of course, because there is one less odds number to multiply. But you can see how much damage a single weak leg does.
This is why TicketCheck shows you the weakest leg. It is the first place to look if you want a ticket with a better chance.
Why the odds hide this
The odds you see already include the bookmaker's margin, so every leg looks a little likelier than it really is. On an acca the margin is applied on every leg and the effect adds up. Read about it in bookmaker margin explained.
Check your own acca
You do not have to do the maths by hand. Paste your booking code into TicketCheck and see your own acca's real chance, the bookmaker's cut and the weakest leg. If the code will not load, see why a code may not load.
A fair warning
Nobody can tell you which ticket will win. A higher chance is still not a promise. Only play with money you can afford to lose, and set limits first. See our play safe page.
Questions people ask
What is an accumulator?
An accumulator, or acca, is one bet that combines several picks. Every pick must come in for the bet to win. The odds are multiplied together, so the payout can be large.
Why do accumulators lose so often?
Because the chances multiply. Each extra pick makes the whole ticket less likely to win, even when every single pick looks safe.
What is the weakest leg?
It is the pick with the lowest chance on the ticket. It does the most damage, so it is the one to look at first.
Is a long accumulator ever a good idea?
It can be fun for a small stake. But the more legs you add, the lower the real chance gets. Never stake money you cannot afford to lose.
18+ Betting is for adults only and most tickets lose. Read how to play safe.