Place your bets!

Yesterday, inspired by a work colleague and dreams of riches beyond my wildest dreams (!) I placed an accumulator bet for the first time in my life.

For those unaccustomed to betting, as I was, the principle behind an acculumator is simple – you place a series of bets (minimum of 4, apparently) and put a single stake on all of them together.

If you win all of the bets, you win the combined return of all of the odds together (although the maths to work it out is something that eludes me at 9am in the morning.)

If even just one of the bets doesn’t win, you get nothing.

So, naturally, I jumped in at the deep end and put a £14.06 bet (the odd amount was just my available balance on the particular site I used) on a series of four football League Cup matches. Had they all won, my return would have been a whopping £1,655.

Had I then done the same thing with the full £1,655 return – and won – I’d be £221,000 richer. You can see how people get addicted to this.

Anyway, ultimately I lost. Two of the bets didn’t win, which wasn’t unexpected given that I know nothing about football other than that Manchester United play in blue and Manchester City play in red.

Still, it gave me an idea for an experiment.

Experiment, you say?

Indeed – over the course of the next few weeks or so, I’ll be putting on more accumulator bets. I’ve set myself a budget of £10 of my own money.

The idea is that I will put on a £1 accumulator bet on either 4 or 5 matches, each time picking the team that is (according to league position) most likely to win.

If the bet wins, I’ll bank half of the winnings, and put another accumulator on using the other half. Every time a bet loses, I’ll go back to the £10 pot and put another £1 bet on, until I’ve used up the initial £10.

At the end of the £10, I’ll then see a) how much money I’m left with (if any) and b) what the longest chain of winning bets was.

The first bet is…

I’ve already placed the first bet. It’s all for League Cup matches taking place tonight. The bets are:

1. Manchester United vs Liverpool – Liverpool to win
2. Newcastle United vs Leeds United – Newcastle United to win
3. Birmingham City vs Swansea City – Swansea City to win
4. Tranmere Rovers vs Stoke City – Stoke City to win
5. West Bromwich Albion vs Arsenal – Arsenal to win

If they all come off, the estimated return for my £1 stake is £35.88, which would give me £17.94 to play with on the next bet.

Should be interesting…