Help extracting profit from Accumulator

Following on from Mark’s example on the 6-Jan I need some “baby steps” as I am struggling. Let me explain. The example given was 4 legs. All odds 1.5. and a £25 bet.
Leg 1: Lay £25. If it wins proceed to leg 2. If it loses, you have your £25 stake back and a 29.6% chance of getting the free bet.
Leg 2: Lay £37.50. If it wins proceed to leg 3. If it loses, you have your £25 stake back (37.50 = 25 + 12.50) and a 44.4% chance of getting the free bet.
Leg 3: Lay £56.25. If it wins proceed to final leg. If it loses, you have your £25 stake back (56.25 = 25 + 12.50 + 18.75) and a 66.7% chance of getting the free bet.
Leg 4: You’re now in a situation whereby if the leg loses you get the £25 free bet and if it wins you win £126.56 (25*1.5^4). Up to this point, you’ve invested 25 + 12.50 + 18.75 + 28.13 = £84.48.
Up to that point, I understand, however the example then goes onto explain this:
Let’s suppose you extract 80% of the free bet. Lay £71.04. This secures you £91.04 (£6.57 profit) in both cases: if it wins and if it loses.
I cannot see how the amount for £71.04 comes about?
Please can someone explain the method needed to do that?

Thank you in advance.

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JoeBloggs
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February 4, 2016 at 9:12 am

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MarkCorrigan 9 February 4, 2016 at 9:35 am

Everything up to the final leg has now become a sunk cost, so we can ignore it for simplicity. If the final leg wins you’d get £126.56. If it loses, you’d get the £25 free bet (or £20, let’s say).

You now want to work out how much to lay at 1.5 in order to equalise the return from both outcomes. You can solve this either algebraically or using something like solver in excel. It turns out that you would lay £71.04. If the bet wins, you would get 126.56 – 0.5*71.04 = £91.04. If it loses, you would get 20 + 71.04 = £91.04.

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Dave_Jones 7 February 4, 2016 at 9:44 am

Hopefully Mark will answer himself, but in the mean time I think its something like this.
Using Matts Risk Free Calculator put the following numbers in:-

Back Stake £84.48

Cash back £20 (This is 80% of our free bet if the final leg looses).

Back odds and Lay odds both 1.5

This gives the following results with the commission set to zero.

Lay Stake £71.15

Profit of £6.67 either way.

This is 10p difference to Marks I don’t know why this is the case.

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MarkCorrigan 9 February 4, 2016 at 9:50 am

Exactly! Forgot about the calculator as an option. I think the difference was from a rounding error I made initially.

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JoeBloggs 0 February 4, 2016 at 10:59 am

BOOOOM!!! Thanks guys! I have managed to get that working in my spreadsheet! 🙂 🙂

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Pickle 57 February 4, 2016 at 11:18 am

The problem with this is the lay odds aren’t gonna be the same as the place odds plus you haven’t factored in commission. Also are there any bookies that offer a refund on 4 legs. It’s all too complicated for me !!!

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MarkCorrigan 9 February 4, 2016 at 11:25 am

Some do 4 legs (not just on football). Obviously you need to account for commission, and for the spread between back and lay odds. It’s so easy to find profitable 6-folds for it to be honest. You know, if you had 1.01 for first 5 legs, which you could only lay at 1.10, and a final leg at evens which can be laid at evens, this is still profitable! Backing at 1.01 and laying at 1.10 for 5 of the 6 legs… and it’s still profitable – there is so much leeway.

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JoeBloggs 0 February 4, 2016 at 12:10 pm

Can the above solution also be used to lock in profit if all but your last legs have won at the bookmaker?

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JoeBloggs 0 February 4, 2016 at 2:28 pm

Found out my answer after a fresh look. Thanks again for your help.

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deezer53 0 February 5, 2016 at 3:40 pm

Complete newbie here trying to work out the free acca insurance offers. Hope someone can give me some advice. Re: Paul`s example at top of page I understand that if the first leg loses you would get your stake back ( albeit with a small loss due to price of lay being higher and commission ) but what happens after that? Do you just let the acca run and hope you get the free bet at the end or do you continue laying? Does the same apply if the first leg wins but the second leg loses? Sorry if the answer is obvious but as a complete beginner in this any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

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dekoder 1 February 5, 2016 at 4:21 pm

If the first leg loses and the odds are tight there’s still chance to lock in guaranteed profit based on the free bet you could receive (until 2 or more lose), but I can’t tell you how to calculate it (guess you should play with the spreadsheet).

What I do is if one loses early I don’t lay until the last leg (if all the rest wins obviously).

For example if 1st lose(lay), 2nd/3rd/4th/5th wins (no lay), lay the 6th so you get some profit no matter the outcome.
Same if one in between loses. Obviously if more than one loses along the way it’s game over but get my money back from the lay.

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JoeBloggs 0 February 5, 2016 at 4:33 pm

Thank you for answering that, I had not quite thought through these scinarios.

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Dave_Jones 7 February 5, 2016 at 4:35 pm

Here is the Algebraical solution (massive thanks for Mark for explaining how to do this in the other post).

Final leg odds are 1.5

If it wins you get £84.38 *1.5 = £126.57.
Note there is a slight error in the initial post that gave the £84.38 amount as £84.48 this was why using Matts risk free calculator came out a few pence difference from Marks calculations.

Let x be the amount you lay for the final leg and assume 80% extraction of the free bet if the final leg looses.

If it looses you get

0.8*25+x

This is simplified to
20+x
Call this equation 1

It if wins you get

126.57-(1.5-1)*x

This is simplified to
126.57-0.5x
Call this equation 2

We can now match equation 1 to equation 2 (ie we want the same financial outcome if either the last leg wins or looses)

equation 1 = equation 2

20+x = 126.57-0.5x

(Add 0.5x to both sides)

20+1.5x = 126.57

(Take 20 away from both sides)

1.5x = 106.57

(Divide both sides by 1.5)

x = £71.04

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deezer53 0 February 5, 2016 at 5:02 pm

Thanks for that Dekoder. So basically you stop laying as soon as one of your acca legs loses ( lay wins ) and only lay again on the last leg if the free bet insurance is still on. Can you tell me what spreadsheet you`re using?

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deezer53 0 February 5, 2016 at 5:17 pm

Thanks for replying Dave. Just to get my head round the figures what would I treat the last leg bet as? If I lost one leg of the acca going in to the last leg the most I could obtain would be the £25 stake returned , but as I`ve already got my £25 back do I just treat this last leg as a freebet snr? Again sorry if this is obvious but many thanks in advance.

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Dave_Jones 7 February 5, 2016 at 8:38 pm

Lets assume the third leg lost so going into the forth leg we have this situation.

If the last leg wins we will end up with £20 profit (this is 80% of the free bet).

If the last leg looses we end up at break even (we do not get the free bet because now we have lost two legs of our acca).

So we need to lay the last leg so that our profit will be equal no matter if the last leg wins or looses.

Lay stake = 20/1.5
Lay stake = £13.33

Check
If last leg wins we get
20 – (13.33*0.5)
The figures in brackets give us our liability at the exchange.

20 – 6.66 = £13.34

If last leg looses we get
£13.33

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