On this page I’ll tell you all about the various Acca Insurance offers that different online bookmakers have available. However that might not make much sense to you if you don’t know what an Acca is, what use insurance on said Acca will be or how to make use of it.
Here, then, I’ll break it all down for you so it’s a little bit clearer. I’ll then point you in the direction of the best Acca Insurance deals on the market and the bookies that do decent deals on them. I’ll also give you a little bit of information on variations of the Acca world, with links to pages where you can learn about them in more detail.
Click here if you are looking for Accumulator Bonuses.
Best Accumulator Insurance Offers
What Is An Accumulator?
Let’s start with the basics: Acca is short for accumulator. Accumulator bets are ones where you bet on numerous outcomes all happening at the same time. Obviously the more outcomes you bet on the more unlikely it is that that they will happen, in excahnge for this higher risk you can get longer odds and bigger payouts.
Each event that you choose to add to your accumulator is referred to as a ‘fold’ or ‘leg’. Let’s take an easy example like the football. Say there are five matches taking place at the weekend, you might want to bet on Liverpool to beat Manchester United, Spurs to win against Everton, West Ham to draw with Chelsea, Stoke to beat West Brom and Manchester City to draw with Middlesbrough. That would mean that you’ve placed a five-fold accumulator.
If you placed the bets individually the odds of Liverpool beating Manchester United might be 2/1, Spurs to draw with Everton 5/2 and so on. However the odds of ALL of those matches turning out the way you’ve predicted would be significantly higher, say 25/1.
What Is Acca Insurance?
Bookies know that accumulators are popular with sports fans because you can win more money with a smaller stake by betting on a series of events all happening at the same time. Because of that one clever person came up with the idea of offering insurance against your accumulator going wrong.
Normally a bookmaker will offer to give you your stake money back as a free bet if one leg of your accumulator lets you down. Returning to the above example, imagine that all of those results came off as you predicted with the exception of Spurs beating Everton rather than the match ending in a draw as you thought it would. You’d bet £5 on that Acca so the bookie you placed the bet with would give you a £5 free bet token to use in the future.
Major Terms To Consider
As much as we wish it wasn’t the case, bookmakers aren’t there to just give you free money. There are therefore a few things worth checking in the Acca Insurance small print. One of the most obvious of these is how big does your accumulator need to be for the insurance to kick in?
It is common practice for bookies to say something like, ‘Money back as a free bet if one leg of a five-fold acca lets you down’, for example. That means that if you bet on the outcome of three events then you won’t be protected by the insurance offer on your accumulator.
Another one is the minimum odds required. Bookmakers aren’t likely to be keen to help you out if you bet on an absolutely certainty, but if you’re going for something with long odds then that suits them perfectly. Have a look to see whether it says something along the lines of ‘minimum odds of 1/2’. Also check whether each leg has to have those minimum odds or just the overall accumulator.
Is the refund a free bet token or real cash? Obviously real cash is better for your as you don’t need to worry about using it within a set period of time, whilst free bet tokens sometimes need to be rolled over a number of times before you can withdraw them and also have a time limit attached before they expire.
The final thing worth mentioning is whether the Acca Insurance applies to a mixed accumulator or only one sport. That is to say, can you bet on a horse race, a football match, a tennis game, a golf round and a rugby match? Or do all of your legs need to be from just the football, just the golf, just the tennis etc. You also need to consider what markets are apllicable. Is it just match result or can you bet on other lines like both teams to score?
Is Acca Insurance Good Value?
This is a tricky one to answer. Bookmakers aren’t stupid and the reason they like punters to bet on accumulators is that the odds are longer and that means there’s less chance of the bet coming off. That said, if you’re the sort of person that likes to place accumulators then you’ll know the pain of missing out on a big pay-off simply because Everton don’t know how to keep a clean sheet.
One reason betting sites have so many have acca insurance offers is also down to accumulators being profitable. Bookmaker margins are compounded in multiple bets, e.g. if a single bet has a 5% margin and you combine 5 together into a 5-fold you’ve got a 25% margin. This does not mean you shouldn’t place accumulators, they are great fun and they pay off handsomely when you do win, however bearing in mind the higher margins on these bets you really should be taking good value acca insurance or an accumulator bonus.
Taking a bookie up on their offer of Acca Insurance means that you’re protected from just missing out on a big pay day. Getting your stake back as a free bet isn’t as good as winning £250, but it takes the sting out of it at least and is better than having no insurance at all.
How To Best Use Accumulator Money back Offers
The other reason that bookies love accumulators is that things very rarely work out as you expect them to. If you bet on the clear favourites to win every single weekend of the Premier League season, for example, you might only win your accumulator a handful of times. But what does that mean for you when it comes to figuring out how to take advantage of an Acca Insurance offer?
I often use it if there’s a weekend where I’m confident on the result of the majority of fixtures but unsure which way one game is going to go. Liverpool at home to Stoke, Manchester City hosting Bournemouth, Chelsea against West Brom and Spurs playing Watford are matches where I would bet on the home side, for example. If Everton versus Manchester United was the other game I might not be too sure which way that was going to go, so Acca Insurance comes in handy.
Other Accumulator Offers
Acca Insurance isn’t the only off you’ll be presented with when betting on the accumulators. Different bookies try to find other ways to please the punters, so you might find one offering acca Bonuses. This is where you’ll get enhanced payouts on your accumulator, with the more legs you add resulting in more bonus money paid out. You can read more about that here.
Acca Edge is a different example that Betfair came up with to steal a march on their competitors. It is essentially the same as Acca Insurance but they offer it on three-fold accas and above, don’t have a maximum amount refunded, don’t ask for minimum odds requirement and so on. In effect you can choose to take a lower payout in exchange for insurance at the time you place the bet.
Edit My Acca was is a Ladbrokes invention, that is quite self-explanatory. Most bookies say that once you’ve placed your accumulator it is locked in, whilst Ladbokes let you go in and change the bet around to make it more suitable after you’ve placed it.
Getting The Most Out Of Acca Insurance
You can read a more in-depth piece on accumulator bonuses elsewhere on this site, but it’s interesting to note that there are some crossovers between the two offer types. As you’ll know from reading the rest of this page, there isn’t necessarily great value in accumulator bets, but if you know that and still want to place one then it is largely irrelevant and not worth getting too caught up in.
Acca bonus offers are great if you’re really confident on the outcome of all of the legs that you’ve added to your wager, but sometimes you’re not. That’s when acca insurance comes into its own, providing you with the chance to have at least a modicum of protection against a team letting you down. Clearly you’d rather have won your accumulator and the riches associated, but when that ship has sailed you need to find the positives where you can.
Think About Your Bets
It is one of the most basic principles of betting and the thing that professional bettors do with each and every wager that they place, but non-professionals often don’t even think about it. The very nature of accumulators is such that they seem a bit risky, but that doesn’t mean that you need to increase the risk that you’re taking with your selections. Yes, adding more legs increases the payout but also makes it less likely your bet will win.
Do you really need to add that tenth leg to your accumulator? Is the possible payout it has helped to create worth it if you end up winning nothing? The nature of acca insurance is such that many punters will feel as though it gives them room to be that little bit more risky, but think about whether or not that actually makes sense. Here’s a look at a genuine accumulator to give you a sense of what I’m talking about:
- Shakhtar Donetsk to beat Sheriff Tiraspol @ 19/20
- Atletico Madrid to beat Porto @ 8/13
- Paris Saint-Germain to beat Club Brugge @ 1/4
- Inter Milan and Real Madrid to draw @ 12/5
- Manchester City to beat RB Leipzig @ 2/7
- Liverpool to beat AC Milan @2/5
This entire accumulator has odds of 23.72/1. By adding Sporting Lisbon to draw with Ajax at odds of 5/2, you can send that up to 85.5/1, which is almost four times the payout. The problem is, you’ve also increased the difficulty of winning your bet and therefore the likelihood of walking away with nothing. Does acca insurance make that a better bet to place, when you really think about?
On the one hand, you could simply remove the riskier bet and keep the odds down, making it more likely you’ll win £23.72 for every £1 that you bet. On the other, you could add the riskier wager and hope that the acca insurance pays out, meaning that you get your stake back. £1 returned versus a possible £23.72 for a £1 bet? That seems a bit like a no-brainer, so don’t let acca insurance make you take risks you don’t need to.
Make Good Use Of Any Returned Stakes
There are numerous things that have to go your way in order for you to get your stake returned to you, up to and including all but one of your selections losing. That is actually almost as hard to have happen as all of them coming home, so don’t expect to be able to cash in on your acca insurance all that often, truth be told. Even so, it does happen from time to time and it’s important to think about what you’re going to do when it does.
For most people, the stake will be small enough to mean that it isn’t worth withdrawing them back to their bank account, should they be paid in cash. Only you will know whether that is the case for you, however, so think about it and reach the decision that you think is right, not the decision that someone else is trying to push you towards. In most cases, the choice will be taken out of your hands and you’ll get it as a free bet anyway.
When that is the case, there are two school of thought as to what to do next: treat it as an unexpected chunk of money and be a bit risky with it, or treat is just as you would if it was your own cash and bet accordingly. I’d always advise you to treat it like real winnings, doing the associated research into every single bet that you place. If you don’t do that, you’re essentially playing into the bookie’s hands and giving them their money back.
Any professional bettor will treat each and every bet that they place as though it is coming directly out of their own account, irrespective of whether they’ve been given the money as a free bet by their bookmaker of choice of they’ve deposited into their account from their bank. The question you should ask yourself is, if a professional bettor is doing that, why on earth would you do something when it comes to placing your own wagers?
Make Sure You Use It In Time
The frustration of losing your acca bet, especially if it’s only because of one leg, can cause some people to want to walk away from their betting account for a bit. That makes sense, such is the extent to which it is really quite annoying to see a decent chunk of money slip through your grasp before you get a chance to use it. What is important, though, is to remember that bookmakers often put a time limit on how long free bets last for.
As a result of this, you can easily find yourself in a position whereby you go to use your free bet only to discover that the time limit has ran out and it’s no longer available. There’s no point in doing all your research on your initial accumulator, dealing with the sorrow of just missing out on a big payout, doing a heap more research only to find out that you’ve left it all too late. Use the reward of an acca insurance whilst you can or it’s a waste of time.
