Horse betting accumulators are horse racing bets that consist of several selections, all of which have to win (or place if you make an each-way accumulator bet) in order for the bet to be successful. Many online bookmakers allow you to place accumulator bets, so it’s well worth understanding how accumulators work so that you can decide whether or not you want to have a go at profiting from them when horse betting online.

Accumulators work by staking your entire outlay on the first selection in the bet. When that selection wins, the total return is effectively staked on the next selection, and so on. Because of this approach, if one of your selections lose, the whole accumulator bet loses. However, if all of your selections win, you can make a profit that is worth many times your initial outlay, and that’s because the odds of each winner have really been multiplied together.

For example, if you had a £10 bet on a four horse accumulator (meaning that you have selected one horse to win in each of four separate races) and all of them won at odds of 2/1, your total return from the bet would be £810. We arrived at this figure by converting the fractional odds to decimal and then adding 1 point for the returned stake (see our article on horse betting odds) and then multiplying the resulting figures together before multiplying by the stake. Four 2/1 winners therefore involves calculating 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 81 x £10 = £810.

The number of selections that you include in horse betting accumulators is up to you. Bet on two selections and you have a ‘double’. Three selections give you a ‘treble’, four selections give you a ‘four-fold’, and so on. Of course, you always need to bear in mind the fact that the more selections you include in your accumulator, the more chance there is of one or more of them losing.

The potential to make a profit that is many times the size of your outlay makes horse betting accumulators very popular. However, the downside is that accumulators are very difficult to succeed with. Picking a winner in a single race is challenging enough, so picking winners in several races is even more tricky. For this reason, many horse betting online enthusiasts who place accumulators choose to bet each way instead of to win only.

An each way accumulator costs twice as much as a win only accumulator (£20 instead of £10, for example) but your selections only have to get a place for you to get a return. The betting odds of placed horses are not the same as for those that win, but are generally calculated as a fraction (usually 1/5) of the win odds. A horse offered at 5/1 for the win would therefore be worth 1/1 (as far as calculating your return is concerned) if it only manages to get a place.

Whether or not you use accumulators when horse betting online will depend on what you are looking for. If you are looking to win as often as possible then straightforward win singles are vastly superior to accumulators. However, if you don’t mind taking a much bigger risk in the hope of landing a much bigger payout, accumulators offer plenty of potential.