With the FIFA World Cup now in full swing, football betting opportunities are appearing thick and fast. While these opportunities allow punters the chance to combine a number of selections together in one bet and the biggest combined offering is none other than the goliath.
If you have ever asked the question, what is a goliath bet? Thankfully you have come across the perfect article to answer it. Not only will we provide the answer, but we will also offer ideal advice for when to place it.
When placing a bet with multiple combinations, most punters will be aware of such offerings as the double (two bets combined) or treble (three). While a large majority of football fans will also be aware of the accumulator bet (or ACCA as most people call them) four or more bets.
A LONG LIST
However, the goliath trumps all of these miniscule combinations by comparison and the reason for this is because eight selections on your betting slip, can then be combined to make 247 individual bets.
Yes, you are reading that right, 247. Now you may be wondering just how eight selections can generate 247 separate tests of your football betting acumen. While such alchemy is created as follows:
A Goalith Bet Offers Plenty Of Opportunities To Beat The Bookmakers
A huge amount of betting options but with more choice it also means more of an outlay to start with. Even if you were place 10p per line, it is still a total outlay of £24.70 and this certainly something you should be cautious of.
While to bring the goliath bet definition to life, we can use build an example with eight World Cup fixtures:
Tunisia to beat Australia – 2.10
Poland to beat Saudi Arabia – 1.70
France to beat Denmark – 1.75
Argentina to beat Mexico – 1.53
Japan to beat Costa Rica – 1.44
Belgium to beat Morocco – 1.95
Croatia to beat Canada – 2.10
Spain to beat Germany – 2.30
An Accumulator May Offer High Odds, But It Also Comes With High Risk
In this example the odds are 130/1. If you were to place that same £24.70 as a single stake, the total winnings would be a gigantic £3,218.90. However, you would need all eight selections to get over the line. Failure in just one and you are handing your stake over to the bookmakers to keep.
Which is why a goliath bet may be of more use to prospective punters. Should less than eight selections be correct you are still in the game and the game offers plenty of opportunities to recoup some form of winnings.
A NUMBERS GAME
If we look at the eight selections and their numbering, they are all combined as follows:
If we listed every single one of the 247 permutations it would only lead to an incredibly long list of numbers and the last thing that we want to do is confuse any readers of this article. However, the examples offered should offer you enough of a steer as to how it works.
With eight selections being made and all the combinations above, there is certain sweet spot when it comes to earning some form of profit. If we go back to our 10p stake for all 247 lines, the target will be to earn at least £25 at the end.
Which means if only Tunisia and Poland win their games, a double with a stake of 10p is going to get nowhere near that £25 target. The same can be said for France and Argentina solely doing the business or even the pairing of Croatia and Spain.
While a treble of Japan, Croatia and Belgium is going to do little difference. Although it would pay out three winning double combinations and one treble offering, £1.47 in overall winnings is still going to be a considerable loss.
When it comes to the number of teams that are required to make a goliath worthwhile, six teams is usually the ideal marker. Because you are not only getting paid for a winning six-fold but all the double, treble, four and five-fold combo’s that have been mopped up before it.
COUNT YOUR WINNINGS
If fixtures 1 through to 6 all got over the line, this would mean all the winning combinations including those numbers would be worth £40.77 and with a stake of £24.70. this would mean a total profit of £16.07.
If fixtures 1 through to 7 all got over the line, this would mean all the winning combinations including those numbers would be worth £128.59 and with a stake of £24.70, this would mean a total of £103.59.
The Amount Of Celebrating Depends On How Many Selections Get Over The Line
As you can see the returns are now beginning to become rather maximised. If all eight selections got over the line, it would mean all 247 individual bets have been declared winners. A total return of £427.22 and a profit of £420.52.
Of course, there could be different combinations of the six and seven folds – but this is just to highlight how it works exactly. A winning six-fold could include matches 123457 for example and a seven-fold may be made from 2345678.
Which means if six is the golden number in terms of a profit, everything from five or less will only return winnings that are less than your total stake. In this instance the sliding scale could look as follows:
Fixtures 12345 winners only – £13.26 return, £11,44 loss
Fixtures 1234 winners only – £5.02 return, £19.68 loss
Fixtures 123 winners only – £1.65 return, £23.05 loss
Fixtures 12 winners only – £0.36 return, £24,34 loss
Of course, there are different combinations of the five-fold, four-fold, treble and double winners. Again, this just highlights the level of loss that would be involved and the potential pitfalls of placing a goliath.
While it is these pitfalls that punters should certainly be wary of. Ultimately this should be a bet for more experienced bettors, if only because of the additional outlay involved. However, for those who have been gambling for a number of years now, a goliath could be the perfect step up in activity.
