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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 Accumultor Bonuses.
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.
