Accumulators are the second most popular bet type after the win single and they are particularly popular with those in the UK. Brits also love their racing, which is the second most bet on sport after football. It is surprising, therefore, that many bookies actually restrict acca insurance, accumulator bonuses and multiples free bet clubs from horse racing. This means most of the time punters are placing racing accas without added value insurance, money back and free bet offers to accompany them.
Still, there are a few stand out bookies that do have deals for multiples that do allow racing selections. To save you some time searching around for them we have collated some of the better, more reliable and higher value promotions open to horse racing accumulators here.
As always you should never be led to place a bet simply because there is an offer. If, however, you place accas on racing as part of your regular betting then there is no reason why you shouldn’t also be getting added value as with other sports like football. Accas in particular are bad value bets because bookmaker margins are additive on each selection you put in. If you are going to place a bet with a high bookmaker profit margin then you might as well be using an offer to at least get some value back.
Accumulator Offers For Horse Racing
Bonus, Insurance Or Free Bet?
There are three main types of acca offer. The first is acca insurance that give you your stake back (usually as a free bet) if one selection lets you down. It generally starts with 5+ selections although you can sometimes find it with 4+. Usually covers stakes up to between £10-£25.
Acca bonuses don’t give you any money back if one fails but will give you an enhanced payout if your acca wins. The level of bonus is relative to the number of selections you have. You can find bonuses up to 100% for large accas (e.g. 15+ selections).
Free bets are given by some bookies if you place a certain number of acca bets, e.g. place 5 x £5 accas in a week and get a £5 free bet to use on another accumulator (or sometimes any sportsbook market). These are generally the offers most restricted for horse racing and are hard to find. Some general loyalty free bet clubs can, however, often allow racing singles and multiples to contribute.
There is no ‘best’ offer, it depends how you bet and what you want to get out of it. Generally though, if you are particularly unsure on one selection in a multiple think about acca insurance. If, however, you are confident in all your picks perhaps go for a bonus. If you place several accas a week consider a free bet club.
Some betting brands now offer these in combination too so you can choose between insurance or bonuses and still get a free bet if you place X number of multiples.
Why Do Bookies Restrict Racing In Acca Offers?
Part of the reason that racing are not included in many acca offers is because the horse racing feed and odds are provided third party. This is what you will find at many white label sites and sites where the platform is provided by another company. Often they can’t provide the offers for horse racing because it is part of a different system that they don’t run.
Another reason why the offers are no so forthcoming is that generally horses have higher odds and that can add up in an acca. Unlike say a football acca a horse racing acca with 5 selections could have significantly higher odds. Any bonus offered on an acca like this would also really add up too.
Many people place horse racing accas ante-post too when odds are generally higher and the market is uncertain, bookies are in effect trying to protect themselves from paying out extra bonuses to people in the know.
For example, a term for on popular acca bonus available for horse racing still has a restriction for only horse racing selections placed on the day of the race:
“The promotion applies to selections on all sports, leagues, and competitions, under the condition that horse racing selections must be fixed odds on the day of the race.”
Why Are Accumulators Bad Value
Value is of course relative. Accas are certainly good entertainment value and many people place low stakes accas for this reason, hoping they might win but accepting that most of the time they will lose.
As with all bets you place with bookies the odds are rarely in your favour and you are more likely to lose than win over time. What makes accas especially bad in this regard is margins are additive. Let’s say on average a bookie has a margin of 5% on a given horse race then by adding five selections together the margin becomes additive, i.e. 5+5+5+5+5 = 25%.
It is this heightened profit margin that is the reason bookies push accas so much with various offers and features. Naturally they want you to place bets on things that can make them the most money.
This doesn’t mean you should place multiples but you should be aware of it. You should mostly stick to low stakes and see them as high margin bets that are unlikely to win but at the same time they can be entertaining.
Other Multiple Options
While acca offers for horse racing are not too common what you will find is bookies push certain enhanced accas during a days racing. If you have certain selections in mind that you want to back then have a scan around several betting sites and see who is offering a enhanced line on those selections. These can often be much better value than doing the same acca even with an offer.
Another alternative is to look at other multiples, such as full cover bets. The Lucky 15 is the most well known, covering four selections, but there are bet packages available for 3-8+ selections too.
Full cover bets do what they say, they cover all possible outcomes (i.e. all singles, doubles, trebles 4-folds, etc.) that can be made with your selections. This means you are placing several bets. A Lucky 15 f0r example is a package of 15 bets.
These multiples can keep you in the game longer as if one selection loses not all the bets are downed. At the same time you need to stake more and if only one or two selections win you may not even win your stake back, but you will at least get a return.
Bookies don’t push full cover bets as much, though, and that should tell you something, i.e. they are worse value for them than accas. Worse value for bookies means better value for punters. You can even get offers for full cover bets, which you can read about on our Lucky Offers page. Similar to accas these offer insurance if all the selections lose or added payouts if they all win.
Finally consider general loyalty free bet clubs. These are more open and often cover both singles and multiples on all sports, e.g. place 5 x £5 bets at evens+ get a £5 free bet weekly. Horse racing accas will often count in these promotions and they are ultimately more flexible than dedicated acca offers.
Bankers
Banker bets are not that well known but bigger bookies, such as bet365, will offer them. It basically changes the way your acca works.
Let’s say you’ve got three horses you want to back in a multiple. One of those horses you think is a nailed on winner, the other two you fancy but you are not too sure.
You can set the likely winner, let’s call it Horse A, as your banker. You can then choose to place the following bet, which is actually 3 bets so 3x stake:
- Horse A (banker) + Horse B = 1x Stake
- Horse A (banker) + Horse C = 1x Stake
- Horse A (banker) + Horse B&C = 1x Stake
This way as long as Horse A wins then only one of the following two horses needs to win for you to win at least one of those bets. If all three horses wins then all three bets will pay out.
You don’t have to place all three bets either, you could just place the first two and not the third one, 2x the stake.
That is a simplified example, the more selections you add in the more complex the market gets and the more potential stakes needed. You can even select more than one banker.
Remember BOG
The beauty of placing accas on horse racing is it is less important to shop around for odds if betting on the day due to best odds guarantee. Where available this will run in parallel to any acca offer, which means if you back the horse and its starting price is higher you will get that price. If you have the choice you should use acca offers with bookies that also have BOG.
If betting ante-post then mostly BOG will not be available (although it is months in advance of the Cheltenham Festival) and in that case it is worth shopping around for the best odds. Just because someone has an acca offer doesn’t mean that you will necessarily win more overall than betting with a bookie with higher odds in general but no offer. Therefore always shop around and look at the absolute totals with and without offers to find the right bets for you.