Football is the world’s favourite sport. Millions of fans watch the beautiful game and every day sees dozens of matches taking place all over the world. For the football punter, this means plenty of chances to turn your football knowledge into profit, and one of the most popular methods of football betting is the multiple.
What is a multiple?
While most punters get into football betting by looking at the standard Match Result market, featuring the traditional three options of home win, away win and draw, the odds on these outcomes are often not particularly large, making it hard for those punters without huge betting banks to profit. That’s where the multiple comes in.
Accumulated profits
A multiple is a form of betting that involves more than one bet. In a standard football multiple, several single bets are combined, with profits rolling from one bet to the next. Since the profit accumulates in this manner, multiples are sometimes known as accumulators.
Small stakes to profit
The obvious disadvantage of the football multiple is that if one bet fails, the whole multiple also fails. The advantage is that it is possible to make significant profits from only a small stake. It can take a football punter a long time to profit by betting in the traditional Match Results market, but with a football multiple, a small stake can produce a big win, which is why this kind of bet is particularly popular with small-stakes punters.
How many bets make up a multiple?
When reading about football multiple bets, you may sometimes find them referred to as doubles, trebles or four-folds. This terminology simply references the number of bets involved in the multiple. For example, a football multiple made up of two bets is known as a double, while a five-bet football multiple is sometimes described as a five-fold.
There is no theoretical upper limit to the number of bets that can be combined in a football multiple and some of the larger football wins have come from multiples made up of ten or more bets.
Working out your winnings
It is relatively straightforward to calculate your potential winnings from a football multiple. All you have to do is to multiply the initially stake by the odds for each of the bets that make up the multiple. For example, let’s say you struck a £5 bet on a four-fold multiple which included the following Premier League games:
- Manchester United to beat Bournemouth at 1.5
- Arsenal to beat Brighton at 1.4
- Swansea City to draw with West Bromwich Albion at 3.0
- Chelsea to draw with Everton at 5.0
You would win the bet if all four results went your way, and you would be able to work out your winnings with the following calculation: £5 x 1.5 x 1.4 x 3 x 5 = £145. The principle is straightforward, though the maths can sometimes become a little trick to juggle, so if you are uncertain about the precise figure to put on your potential winnings, it’s a good idea to take advantage of the free multiple calculators available online.
Each Way Multiples
A useful way to manage the risk involved in football multiples is to put together an each-way multiple, which is an option when wagering on the longer-term football markets, including the Premier League or FA Cup Winners markets. Each-way football multiples are basically two multiples combined: one placed as a standard multiple and one as a second multiple in which all the teams are backed to be placed rather than to win the competition.
What constitutes a place in these markets will vary, but is typically treated as a top-two or top-three finish. With an each-way multiple, you can still make a profit if one of your selections doesn’t win, providing all of the teams involved in the multiple are placed.
Cover your Multiple Options
Another useful football multiple strategy is to compile more than one football multiple on the same number of selections. For example, your original multiple may be a seven-fold, but you could choose to place several four-folds or five-folds to cover different combinations of selections, so that you can still profit if one or two bets aren’t successful.