9 Of The Biggest Accumulator Wins In History

Every so often, you see a report in the news of a lucky gambler who’s managed to win a truly astonishing sum of money, often from a surprisingly tiny stake.

Everybody loves that kind of story. The average newspaper reader loves to hear about someone as normal as them winning a life-changing sum, and to imagine that they might one day do the same. Newspapers love to write about it, because all those average readers will want to buy their paper to read the story. And bookies, though they might not be thrilled about having to pay out all that cash, love the opportunity to draw in new hopeful gamblers with tales of colossal riches.

We’ll cover some of the biggest wins in history here, but don’t forget that for every fantastically lucky winner there will have been hundreds or thousands of people who made no return at all on a similar bet. Bookies like to talk about the customers who make hundreds of thousands in winnings, but we know that bookies make millions a year in profit despite those winnings, and their profits have to come from somewhere!

What Is An Accumulator?

An accumulator bet, also known as an ‘acca’, is a series of bets all rolled into one. Technically, a bet can be considered an accumulator as long as it has more than one leg, however most bookies only consider a bet to be an acca if it has at least four legs.

For example, you might make the following bet:

• Horse A to win at the 14:15 race at Epsom

• Horse B to win at the 14:40 race at Newbury

• Horse C to win at the 15:00 race at Wolverhampton

• Horse D to win at the 17:15 race at Newmarket

On a standard acca bet, you won’t win your bet unless all of the horses win their races. This means that your overall odds will probably be very high - as all four horses winning is pretty unlikely - and therefore that if you were to win, you would make an extremely high return on your stake.

Punters can also place bets that are a combination of singles and accas, to increase their chances of a payout even if not all the horses win. For example, a Lucky 15 includes all the possible combinations of bets on four selections:

- 4 singles

- 6 doubles

- 4 trebles

- 1 four-fold accumulator

Accas don’t have to be limited to just four legs, either - there’s nothing to stop gamblers from placing accas with as many legs as they like, except the fact that the odds will become astronomical. The odds on acca bets are usually well into four figures, and occasionally five, six or even seven!

Some bookies will also have a limit on how much they will ever pay out, so there’d be no point in a punter placing an acca with odds so high that the bookie would simply refuse to pay out the full amount if it won.

History’s Biggest Accumulator Wins

So, how much have people managed to make from their betting? Let’s dive into some of the biggest acca wins in history, starting with the smaller end of things.

9. $471,000 on American horse racing

In 2015, one American punter placed a 50 cent bet on five horses to win the first five races, in what’s known as a ‘Pick Five’ wager in the USA. Gamblers place bets - often with very small stakes - on five horses to win five races, and any bettors who turn out to be correct share a pool of winnings from all the bettors’ combined stakes. The pool will grow if nobody wins, meaning that it can reach exceptionally high values.

The person who won in this case was lucky enough to be the only one to correctly predict the outcome of all five races, meaning that he had the entire pool all to himself - hence managing to win almost half a million dollars from a 50 cent stake.

8. €451,000 on Premier League football

In 2014, an Irish gambler successfully predicted the outcomes of thirteen separate matches, five of which were draws and notoriously tricky to anticipate.

Having staked €20 on the outcomes of all thirteen matches, the punter was able to watch as, one by one, they all went his way - including one match where the goal that secured his win came only twelve seconds before the final whistle!

The €451,000 win was over a 2 million percent return on his initial investment - not bad going!

7. £550,000 at Royal Ascot

In September 1996, the Italian jockey Frankie Dettori made history by riding all seven winners on Queen Elizabeth II stakes day, catapulting himself to stardom.

And it was a very good day for a lot of gamblers as well, many of whom had backed Dettori. One such gambler was Darren Yates, who, despite assuring his wife that he wouldn’t back Dettori any more, placed £67.58 (an oddly specific amount!) on all seven of Dettori’s horses to win their races, at odds of 25,000 to 1.

No doubt his wife forgave him when he brought home over half a million pounds in winnings, though it sounds as though their marriage has probably been tested again since. In 2019, Yates broke the record for the most expensive jumps horse ever bought at public auction, when he spent £620,000 on Interconnected, a recent winner.

6. £682,000 on horse racing

The Scottish record for the biggest ever horse racing accumulator win was broken in 2018 with this particular punter’s selections.

It was actually the birthday of the gambler in question, who spent £5 on an eight-fold acca at his local William Hill shop. Despite the staggeringly high odds, all eight horses came in as winners, and the bettor had an unexpectedly good birthday, with almost £700,000 to take home at the end of it.

5. £823,000 at Punchestown

After twenty years of unsuccessful accas, one punter achieved his life’s dream of winning big at Punchestown Champion Hurdles day in 2017.

He placed a combination of fourfold and fivefold bets on six horses at a cost of £19, at odds of 181,015 to 1, with five of those horses going on to win.

Interviewed after his astonishing win, he revealed that he’d been placing similar bets daily for the best part of twenty years, never with any success. Having finally enjoyed the win he’d been chasing all those years, he commented that he didn’t even know if he’d carry on betting now - though whether he continued to resist the pull of an acca we’ll never know, as he chose to remain anonymous.

4. £986,000 on Irish horse racing

In 2013, Paddy Power were obliged to make their single highest payout of the decade on horse racing, when one especially prescient bettor spent £10 on a six-fold acca.

The six horses were racing in Naas and Galway, and all managed to win within the space of what must have been an extremely exciting 90 minutes. The result was an incredible return on investment of almost 10 million percent.

3. £1,000,000 at the Cheltenham Festival

Between 2011 and 2012, stable lad Conor Murphy got to experience a modern day rags to riches story.

His employer, the National Hunt trainer Nicky Henderson, was entering the 2012 Cheltenham festival with his strongest ever squad and, in a fine example of professional loyalty, Murphy placed a £50 acca four months in advance on five of his boss’s horses to win their races, at odds of 64,000 to 1.

His total winnings ought to have been £3,000,000, but Bet365’s £1,000,000 payout cap took an entire two million off his return - not that Murphy was exactly complaining. He used his fortune to move to America and follow his dream of becoming a horse trainer himself; he now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where he runs his own successful yard.

2. £1,000,000 on horse racing

An even more tremendously lucky bettor was Yorkshireman Fred Craggs, who in 2008 was the first person to become a millionaire from a high street bet.

Just before his 60th birthday, he visited his local William Hill shop and placed a 50p eight-fold accumulator on a wide selection of races, including Nad Al Sheba in Dubai, at eye-wateringly high odds of 2,000,000 to 1.

Craggs didn’t realise he’d even won until he visited another betting shop the next day, where he was told that, against all odds, his bet had won.

In true Yorkshire fashion, he revealed after his win that he was still working as usual, and that his life hadn’t changed at all - he planned to use the £1,000,000 as his pension.

1. £1,450,000 on the Exeter racecourse

In 2011, a heating engineer from Devon, Steve Whitely, made history, winning almost £1.5 million from only a £2 wager. He’d placed a bet with the Tote Jackpot on six horses to win their respective races - and was the only person to correctly predict all six winners, ensuring that the entire jackpot went to him.

His winnings were the largest dividend in the history of the Tote Jackpot, and made him an overnight millionaire. He described himself as ‘not a horse racing man’, and was only there thanks to a promotion at the racecourse which gave him and six friends free tickets.

Like Fred Craggs, Whitely stated that he had no plans to retire, declaring, ‘I’ll work till I die.’ He did apparently consider upgrading his flights for the holiday he had planned the following week, however.

But Don’t Go And Gamble All Your Savings On An Acca!

Having read about all these extraordinarily lucky gamblers, you might well feel tempted to go and try your luck on an acca yourself. And while there’s nothing particularly wrong with spending a few pounds every so often on an accumulator you’ve got a good feeling about, so long as you can afford it, you’d be sorely unwise to rest your hopes on an acca making your fortune.

It’s worth keeping in mind the fifth winner on our list, who had been unsuccessfully placing accas for twenty years before finally winning. It might have paid off in the end for him, but even so he’s definitely the exception, not the rule - which is why bookies make such enormous profits each year.

If you’d like to make money from betting without the risk, why not consider Matched Betting? Your profits won’t quite make it to the heights of the lucky gamblers listed above but they are guaranteed, and offer you the chance to take a slice of the bookies’ millions in profit for yourself without any risk to your own cash. Outplayed’s free trial allows you to give it a go completely free of charge, and gives you access to over 40 different bookie offers worth over £850 in profit.

The Outplayed Acca Catcher

To allow you to make guaranteed profits from accumulator bets, Outplayed have a dedicated Acca Catcher. This software helps you take advantage of every kind of acca offer from bookies, from acca free bets to ‘acca insurance’ offers, so that you can lock in an immediate profit.

The Acca Catcher finds and builds accumulator betslips for you, depending on the bookie offer in question, allowing you to enjoy the excitement of an acca without the risk. So, while you might not see huge wins, if you’re fed up of losing on accas you can give this approach a try instead. If you follow the instructions correctly, you can be sure of a win on every single bet.

Summary

There have been some truly spectacular accumulator wins over the last few decades, and no doubt there will be more to come. It’s easy to be lured into spending years of your life placing unsuccessful acca bets in pursuit of the dream of winning big.

But, realistically, you’re far more likely to be one of the millions of people who never see any significant accumulator win than you are to be featured as a lucky winner on a future article like this one.