At the time of writing, Bet365 have an offer on tennis bets when placed in an accumulator or parlay.
For two players, you will receive a 5% bonus on your winnings, for three players it’s 10% and if you can hit a 14-player winner, that’s an extra 70% returned to your bankroll. This also applies to exotic bets, for example lucky 15s.
The singles would not receive a bonus, the doubles would receive 5%, the trebles 10% and the accumulator would get the full 15%.
Let’s have a look at some ways to visualise these gains under different scenarios and find some answers to the following questions:
- How many selections is most profitable in the Bet365 Tennis Accumulator Strategy?
- What odds are the most profitable in the Bet365 Tennis Accumulator Strategy?
- How much should I bet on the Bet365 Tennis Accumulator Strategy?
What odds are the most profitable in the Bet365 Tennis Accumulator Strategy?
We can look at the table below to determine which odds are the most profitable in this sports betting strategy. In this scenario, I have shown various odds grouped by their price on bet365, and what the fair odds are. It is extremely unlikely in practice that all selections will have equal odds and equal chances of occurring, but it’s the best way to explain the strategy for now.
As you can see, it varies massively depending on the fair odds, which isn’t surprising of course. Clearly, if there is an arbitrage opportunity it will make money in the long term, however we want to steer clear in order to avoid restrictions on our bet365 account.
Conversely, we must also avoid betting on heavy favourites that aren’t fair value.
Similarly, even with just four selections in the parlay, at odds of 2.500 you’re only expected to win once in every 40 bets – and even then you might not. So it’s best to follow a defined staking plan and to bet within your means. It’s still profitable in the very long term, but imagine losing 30 in a row and then bet365 pull the offer!
How many selections is most profitable in the Bet365 Tennis Accumulator Strategy
Here’s a graph showing Bet365 odds of 1.100 and different fair odds, ranging from 100% expected value (that is, betting 1.10 where the fair odds are also 1.10) down to 95.65% expected value (betting 1.10, fair odds 1.15):
As you can see, this offer will lose you money under all scenarios if you’re betting on a tennis player at 1.10 when she should be valued at 1.15. In fact, this is the case when the fair odds are also 1.13 – we only break even with 13 selections!
In fact, let’s strip out all scenarios with a negative EV, and it becomes clear that at fair odds of 1.12 we need to be routinely placing 7-player parlays to break even and at 1.11 it’s three players each time.
Does this mean we avoid these players entirely? Absolutely not!
Imagine a scenario where you have Alex De Minaur available to back at 1.57, Casper Ruud at 1.28 and Alex Zverev at 1.44, and Novak Djokovic at 1.01.
Placing a 3-player tennis accumulator on the first three of De Minaur, Ruud and Zverev could expect an ROI of 2.87%
Adding Djokovic, despite being the lowest odds and the worst EV will increase that ROI to 3.10%. Small, but worthwhile over time. It might also go some way to protecting your account!
What sort of stakes should you be betting on the bet365 tennis accumulators?
A phrase you’ll be quite familiar with… it depends!
If you would like to go ahead and place a tennis accumulator on 14 longshots, that’s absolutely fine. It can still be positive EV but I won’t be joining you!
I have demonstrated how we can:
- Find out the likelihood of several events occurring (to an extent)
- Turn several negative expected value bets into one positive expected value bet
Once we have those two things we can run it through the Kelly Criteria Staking Calculator for a suggested bet size, or alternatively employ a flat staking method.
The best thing about this strategy is that once you’ve done it enough times you will get a feeling for the numbers and if your fair odds are exactly the same as the bet365 odds, your edge is the bonus and therefore extremely easy to calculate!
Can bet365 ban you for winning on their tennis accumulator bonuses?
Depending on certain factors, yes, but it’s more likely that they restrict your stakes or the bonuses and concessions they provide.
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