Getting your head around the idea of a banker bet can put you in a situation where you can make a little bit more money on your accumulator wagers for a bet that you’re convinced will be a winner. In years gone by, the idea of a bet being a ‘banker’ was because a friend of a friend’s hairdresser knew the nice of a trainer of a horse who said that it would definitely win the race it was running at the weekend, so you’d be mad not to put some money on it.
That’s not the sort of thing that we’re talking about here, though. Instead, we’re thinking about a selection in a multiple bet that you think will definitely win. If the rest of your selections win and your banker bet doesn’t then your entire bet will be a losing one. You can select how many non-banker bets you think will be correct, then if all or some of your selections win including the bank bet then your wager will be a winning one. The importance of that one selection means that bettors usually opt for a wager that is as close to a ‘sure thing’ as possible.
Banker Bets Explained
Imagine, for a second, that you’re a big football fan. You’ve decided to place bets on three Premier League matches and two Championship games. In normal circumstances you’d be able to bet on these matches either individually or as an accumulator, which groups them together. Instead of opting for a standard bet, however, you change it to a Banker, which changes the look of the betting slip and sees each of the teams that you’ve selected to win altered slightly.
Now they have a ‘B’ or something similar next to them, with the ‘B’ standing for ‘Banker’. You can now choose which of these matches you think will definitely end up with your chosen team winning the match in hand. That will be the one that you are most convinced will end in victory for your chosen team, so it will be your banker bet. You’ll now click the ‘B’ or whichever symbol next to the team you think will definitely win, like Liverpool.
The banker bet means that you need Liverpool to win their match, but you can choose how many of the other games you think will definitely result in wins for the teams you’ve predicted. As we’ve chosen five matches in total, you’ll be able to choose whether you think 1/4, 2/4, 3/4 or 4/4 of them will definitely come home for you. If Liverpool lose then your entire bet is a loser, because they were your banker team. If they win, though, then it’s all to play for.
In order to collect your winnings, the chosen number of teams will need to win their matches in order for your bet to be a winning one. The key thing with a banker bet, and the thing that makes it different from an accumulator wager, is that it doesn’t matter which of your other bets come home. In other words, if you said that you thought two out of your four bets would definitely win then as long as two of the four are winners you’re golden, irrespective of which ones they are.
Obviously the more bets you think will win, the higher the odds will be for your bet. The problem is, the more you say will win, the higher the chance of the wager being a losing one. Your chosen selections don’t need to be happening on the same say, nor do they even need to be selections in the same sport. The minimum number of selections that you can have in a banker bet is 3 and the maximum is 14.
Because of the manner in which banker bets can be mixed and matched, you could choose five football matches, two rugby games, four tennis matches and three snooker games to bet on. You could choose three of them to be bankers and six of the remaining eleven to win. As long as your three bankers come home and six or more of the remaining selections end up being winners, you’ll have selected a winning bet.
Why Bother With Bankers
Given that straight bets and accumulators both exist, a natural question about banker bets might well be, ‘why bother?’ The answer comes in the fact that you have a lot more room to manoeuvre when it comes to seeing your results come home. Imagine for a second that you’ve chosen to bet on all ten Premier League matches taking place across the weekend. What do you think the chances are that you’ll be able to correctly predict the outcome of all of them?
With a banker bet, you don’t need to worry about correctly predicting every single match. Instead, you could choose one match that you’re feeling supremely confident about and then guess that at least half of your remaining predictions will come true. You might be convinced that Manchester City will be able to beat Brighton & Hove Albion and that Manchester United will beat Everton, but if only one of those results goes your way then your bet is still alive.
If only one of the selections is a winner in an accumulator bet then your wager is either dead or else you’ll be depending on Acca Insurance to keep it alive. One bad result can’t ruin a banker bet in the same way that it can an accumulator, unless, of course, the bad result is with the banker bet you selected. The odds of a banker bet won’t be as good as a straight accumulator, but if you stand more chance of winning the wager than that doesn’t really matter.
When To Opt For A Banker Bet
Given that accumulators will present you with better odds than a banker bet, it stands to reason that you might wonder when, exactly, the desire to place a banker bet will be overwhelming. Obviously this is a subjective matter and will depend entirely on your own personal betting style. That being said, the most obvious time to turn to the banker is when the fixtures look as though they’re tricky to predict the outcome of.
Sometimes you can look at a series of fixtures in any sport and be confident that you know exactly which team or player will win. This is when the accumulator bet is the natural one to select, especially if you’re placing it with a bookmaker that offers insurance on such wagers. When you’re looking at a series of fixtures that are tough to call, the banker bet might be a more sensible option to call upon.
There’s no point in opting for a banker bet unless you are convinced that the team or player in question is going to get the result that you want them to. After all, any doubt means that there’s no point in choosing that selection as your banker. Instead, you’ll want to be feeling supremely confident about at least one leg of an accumulator and relatively sure on a few more in order to know how much legs to select as winning ones.