Acca Insurance: No Lay 'Value'?

Don’t be daft. Everything else you said was spot on, so was a little surprised you change your mind!

Keep posting.

Wow, some lively discussion on “to lay or not to lay”

I’ve been doing accas for nearly a year now, thought I’d offer up the alternative that I’ve settled on;
On a typical 5fold acca, i won’t lay the first 3-4, if they all win then I lock in profit by laying the last 1 or 2.

For me, this balances the pro’s and cons of the two methods;
– less variance than not laying all (significantly less)
– less sequential laying (takes time, and can easily lead to costly mistakes)
– can have some fixtures at the same time on there (eg sat 3pm)

Yep, that’s correct.

I wish I read this thread yesterday it just makes me more frustrated that this post has been made and i didn’t notice it. I’ve often thought to myself the ev theoretically should be equal if not better with no lay. I hit 2 out of 3 accumulators yesterday with 4 out 5 on the other, best iv done in ages and was the first time i heavily layed the bets. I should been up £130-£160 with my normal strategy of only laying the final leg; depending on wether I underlayed or not. Instead it worked out i was up just £30 . £30 is £30 I guess I could get over that but thats where it gets horrible wrong. Not only had spent alot of time with these extra lay bets (pen and paper calculations) , I got distracted and forgot to lay a £50 price boost on a horse on betfred. Only at the end day did I remember about the boost. Well as you can guess the horse lost and I finished the day down £20 on a day i hit strong on the accas :(. I even saw the 4 or more goal offer late and was thinking if there was one game on the list it could come in it would be chelsea, sure enough it came in. This could easily been my most profitable day mb and instead im down. Meanwhile i was on high 5’s not landing anything. Sorry for vent just a horrible day. On a more relevant note how did you work out the percentages of hitting 4 out of 5 and the Ev, how much does the ev fall on a 5/1 bet as alot my bets are in this range. Thanks

Yet another option is to lay sequentially until one team loses and then stop laying. Works best if all low odds (around 1.2). So for example, if I had a five team acca and the second leg lost I’d be £1 or so down with a 50%+ chance of gaining a £25 fb. Some laying but eliminates a lot of the heavy losses with not laying at all. Can then optionally lay the final leg to guarantee a profit. Doesn’t really work if the final leg has high odds though.

Jamie it’s very volatile. I’m not laying any Accas. It allows to do more accas as you don’t have to pick sequential. A lot more freedom, less commission, and no loss in exchange.

Yes down £300 since the start of the month but that’s okay because I probably got a bit of luck at the end of last month which saw me making a little more than usual.

Anyway just watching juve at the moment and should they hold on then I’ll be 3 from 4 Accas today on sportingbet which will regain most of the £300 loss.

It’s very very up and down. No win in 12 and then 3 from 4.

Well I loaded up £300 on sportingbet and did no lay accas. Would focus on acca with total odds 3/1 or there abouts. There was no min odds on sporting bet so was easy and could do 4 per day. £25 per acca would need to lose 12 in a row to go bust. And that’s not counting the free bets. On 3/1’s 12 loses in a row are unlikely. I’m not saying it never happened but lucky for me it didn’t happen straight away. I had built enough profits that it wasn’t a big deal when it happened and I could just load up again.

I would say it is worth doing for EV of a fiver a pop if your efficient enough to do one in 15 mins and if you can keep the variance down.

Tips for minimizing variance

1. Low odds
2. Lay last leg of acca if it I s still alive
3. If the odds are right on one bookie you have man city on your acca, the other you have their opposition so either way one acca survives.
4. If you have a few spare bets lying around, cover the opposition. Again if the odds are right. I’m not saying take West Bromwich vs Man city at 10/1 if they are laying at 15.0. That would still be a waste of a free bet, but if they are laying 11.5 or something then great use of free bet. So you have acca lives or you win your free bet. Win win.
5. Don’t have a single point of failure. If Real are a key leg on 10 accas over the weekend then they lose and take down 10 accas with you.

I am always thinking what the worst that can happen and try to cover that with some free bets or value bets. Like the golf I was a bit too much loaded up on Spieth which was great for a time but was scouting fairly seriously looking for some ew value on his rivals or boosts just to cover in case he starts with double bogey bogey! If you’re not laying your bets your always thinking that way.

It was worth it for me.

Looking back now though. It seems fool hardy or ballsy! I’m so restricted at bookies now I hardly ever have more than small stakes. And ew arbs I’m laying for safe risk free profits. So to think back about potentially having 10 no lay accas on for the weekend so £250 or so on the line. It’s hard to imagine.

I think it was because it was the golden days and if I lost 250 it was like I’ll make it back in a week. Now a 250 dent would set me back a bit longer and is harder work to scratch back.