No matter how careful planning you do or how much knowledge you have, anything can happen once a sports bet is placed, and you are at the mercy of luck equally as much as skill. It may seem weird to bring up banking terminology in such an environment, but bankers are no strangers to taking risks, either.
Banker bets are something different, however, and increase your odds by giving you more room to fail than a standard accumulator bet. However, there are no solid guarantees with bankers, as betting is always a gamble, after all. The key to success is understanding how this type of betting works, so you can make the most of it.
The Banker Game
A banker is a bet where you can select one or more results on a betting slip you are sure will happen. These event selections must all be correct for the total bet to be valid. Besides banker selections, you can place standard selections on the same slip.
Banker and accumulator bets share similarities as both have multiple choices available on the slip. Odds are also longer on banker bets, as with the ACCA bets. However, wherein with accumulators you have to win with all slip choices to have a winning bet, bankers allow you to miss one or two events and still have a winning slip.
Once you select three or more events on a slip online, you’ll have an option to choose a banker among them. These choices must win to win your bet. You can pick one banker and several other events on a slip or choose to mark them all as bankers in the betting bankers bet.
The maximum number of events you can select depends on the online casino. For example, let’s say that you have made these choices on the betting slip.
- Brentford vs Watford
- Manchester City vs Wolves
- Arsenal vs Southampton
You are sure about one match in this grouping: Manchester City has good chances of winning against the Wolves. However, you are not confident about the outcome of the other two games.
Once you pick Manchester City as your banker, the type of wager you are placing will change, and you’ll have to make two more selections. When you choose Manchester City as your banker bet, they must win the game for you to have a winning bet, but that’s not all.
Bankers and Stakes
The stake is an integral part of why punters go for bankers, as they place stakes on multiple parallel bets. It might sound complicated, but it is pretty straightforward. When you pick one banker, you’ll have to predict at least one more winner in the remaining two selections.
Banker + any choice equals one stake, but you’ll only get 2x if all the bets go through. You can be sure about the banker, and perhaps another team winning, but you’ll still bet that all three (or however many are on your slip) will be victorious.
You’ll get the one stake back if your banker selection and at least one other selection wins. If all three picks win, you’ll win your bet with both stakes and get the best payout. It’s a more forgiving form of accumulator bets, where If one of your picks loses, you will lose the entire bet. With a banker, you only need to focus on how many of your bets will be winners.
- Brentford vs Watford
- Manchester City vs Wolves
- Chelsea vs Leeds
- Liverpool vs Aston Villa
- Arsenal vs Southampton
Since banker bets in football are very popular, let’s use the expanded example from before. We’ve placed these choices in the slip but selected Chelsea to be the banker as a definite winner against Leeds. Depending on the rest of your picks, stake-wise, your bet would look like this:
- One banker +1/4: There are four Doubles (bets) here, or banker plus team one, banker plus team two, banker plus team three, and banker plus team four. It equals four bets or a 4x unit stake.
- One banker + 2/4: This banker sports selection has six Treble bets. Combinations are banker plus team one and team two, banker plus team two and team three, banker plus team three and team four, banker plus team one and team three, etc. There are six bets in total or a 6x unit stake.
- One banker + 3/4: You’ll find four quadruple bets here, which is a 4x unit stake. It involves betting on the banker and three of the other four teams winning.
- One banker + 4/4: Since you’re betting on all four correct picks in the remaining games, this is effectively an accumulator bet with a banker as an insurance policy.
With banker bets, you don’t have to guess the winners: only the number of winners and, of course, the team that is your banker. The more picks you have, the higher the payout if you get them all right. In general, you’ll have more choices to improvise with this kind of bet than with accumulators. It is the main reason you’ll find many horse racing banker bets and football banker bets on gambling sites.
Pros and Cons of Banker Betting
So far, we’ve pointed out how much flexibility you gain by using a banker for multiple bets. It is one of the most significant benefits of this type of bet, with scalability being another, as you can decide on how many events you will bet on from any sports event or period. Put fewer selections in, and you’ll have to pay less for the bet but put more to win more.
On the other hand, since you are placing a series of various parallel bets, you’ll have to pay more than you would for a standard accumulator bet. You’re also paying an awful lot on a “sure” bet that is by no means guaranteed.
A banker, by definition, means a sure-fire bet, but as we’ve said, there is no such thing in sports. Place one banker and three selections, and a banker failure won’t cost you that much. However, imagine putting a banker or two along with ten more choices. Losing just one banker forfeits all the other results that go your way, much like an accumulator bet would fail if just one selection did.
The Banker Bet Cost
Bankers can be a dual-edge sword cost-wise. In a betting slip with ten selections, say you choose three bankers and two other teams you expect to win. The bankers are one part of the bet that consists of three teams who have to win and two more winning bets from the other ten selections. However, to put one of these banker bets today with the choices we’ve just outlined would make for a total of 21 bets and a 21x stake, which will cost a lot of money.
Conclusion
Betting by using teams you can bank on is another spin on the popular accumulator or Acca bets. They offer a safety net for inexperienced punters but can end up costing a lot of money, depending on the number of selections you pair the team you are banking on with. It’s up to you to decide whether the risk mitigation outweighs the bonus costs.
FAQ
What are banker bets?
These bets have one or more bankers, event selections that must go through as predicted to have a winning bet. They come with other standard selections that raise the total payout if they go through.
When should you use a banker?
It would be best if you used it when the odds are working in your favour, and you have a clear idea about some outcomes but are unsure about the others.
What is a banker in horse racing?
It is a name for a horse selected to win the race, i.e. the clear favourite with the most chance of finishing first.
