Singles vs. Combos

Wagering on single events is the professional and profitable approach to sportsbetting. However, sometimes you may want to bet more events on the same betting slips, thus making a combo bet, also called accumulator.

Many punters believe that betting an accumulator of three or four events with low odds gives a better chance of winning then wagering on an event with odds 2.00 (just an example). This is dead-wrong. In fact, combo bets are the bookmakers dream. The thing is that when you are going with this type of bet, you need multiple bets to be successful all at once for you to win. No matter how good your analysis is and no matter how solid the bets look individually, it`s extremely hard for something not to happen wrong in those games. In an accumulator of 4 games you need all 4 to win. Think about how many outcomes are possible for those 4 events together . Only one of those outcomes will bring you profit!

Besides this, if you are betting multiple events you are giving away value. Bookies apply their 'juice' for every odd. With a single bet, that`s not so bad, but with a combo, the 'juice' multiplies by 2,3,4 and so on, depending on the number of events. For example, you can end up having odds 2.10 for an accumulator that ideally should have odds 2.50. That doesn't sound too good, does it? And the discrepancies can be sensibly bigger than showed in this example.

Nobody can say you musn`t bet combos at all, but it`s not a good idea to rely on these kind of bets. They can be profitable sometimes, but money in sportsbetting is earned betting singles.