What is a Goliath Bet? – Get Goliath Betting Explained

Dan Fitch

Dan Fitch

Pro punter

A writer and editor for some of the top names in the gambling industry for nearly 20 years, Dan also works as a freelance sports journalist for publications and websites such as ESPN, FourFourTwo and LiveScore.

All posts by Dan Fitch

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A Goliath bet is a type of combination multiple wager that contains a total of 247 bets based on eight selections with all permutations of those from doubles up to an Eight-fold accumulator. We’re going to explain what is a Goliath bet in detail, showing you exactly how they work, how to calculate your results and even give you some tips on when this type of bet is best used.

How Does A Goliath Bet Work?

If you’ve found this article, it’s likely that you’re looking for the Goliath betting meaning answered. As we said in our introduction, it’s a type of multiple bet offered by betting sites that contains no less than 247 different wagers.

So it’s fair to say that a Goliath is aptly named for its massive size referring to the biblical story and the giant slain by King David in the Old Testament. To recap, this bet contains eight selections from different events, which are combined in every possible permutation from double bets upwards. Here’s the breakdown of the 247 different wagers to help you understand:

That’s a lot of bets. It means two things. Firstly, you have to be sensible with the stake you put on your Goliath bet. The unit amount is going to be multiplied by 247, so even if that’s £1, that comes to a £247 total outlay on the bet. Depending on your finances, you might want to keep the stakes to just a few pence, which most quality bookies allow.

The other thing to watch out for is the prices in the Goliath. With this amount of selections, if the betting odds are too short you’ll struggle to break even, let alone make a profit. In the next section, we’ll run through a couple of examples to give you an idea of the sort of odds and success rate needed, to make Goliath betting work for you.

Goliath Bet Example

Having seen a Goliath bet explained, you now know that it’s a big investment, in which you have to be careful with the odds of your selections. Let’s delve into a couple of examples, which will show you how to balance staking and prices.

Let’s imagine that all eight of your selections are priced at Evens, which is 1/1 in fractional prices or 2.00 in decimal odds. To make things simple, we’ll use a £1 unit stake. So the Goliath would cost you £247.

You might think that getting four out of your eight selections right would see you break even, but you’d be wrong. Your total return would only be £72, resulting in a £175 loss. Here’s how it works out.

Of course, the five-folds, six-folds, seven-folds and eight-fold acca bets, would return nothing at all. So how many winners at Evens would you need to turn a profit?

Five winners at 1/1 would result in a £15 loss. You’d need six of your eight selections to come in, before a profit was made and it would be a relatively big one of £469, having returned a total of £716.

So you can see that you have to be extremely accurate with your selections, if the odds are relatively small. You can have one or two short-priced favourites in a Goliath, but you need to mix things up with bigger priced selections.

Another Goliath Betting Example Explained

Let’s give you another example. Our eight selections are priced at 1/1, 2/1, 3/1, 4/1, 5/1, 6/1, 7/1 and 8/1.

Imagine that the first four of those selections won and the other four lost. With winners priced at 1/1, 2/1, 3/1 and 4/1, you’d see a £345 return based on a £1 unit stake. With your Goliath costing £247, you’d win £98.

If the 5/1 selection came in as well, you’d see a total return of £2,499, with a profit of £2,252. So now you can see how a Goliath is potentially very lucrative, if you’re lucky enough to pick winners at relatively big odds.

It’s all about getting the balance right. If you do so, a Goliath can be a fun bet in which you can potentially reap huge rewards. Get things wrong and you’ve go an expensive mistake on your hands.

What is a Goliath Bet in Football?

From the examples that we’ve just displayed, you can see that you need to be careful when placing a Goliath football bet. Popular markets such as the match result in the 1X2 betting or over/under 2.5 goals can have pretty short odds. Markets such as correct score or first goalscorer, are perhaps better suited to being included in a Goliath, as they have larger prices but with greater risk attached due to the smaller implied probability.

As we said, it’s ok to have some selections that are around the Evens mark, but they will need to be balanced with bigger priced picks. Fortunately, football betting is covered in great detail by the bookies, so there are plenty of betting markets available that contain suitable odds. This is very much the number one sport punters wager on in the UK these days.

Picking out eight bets on a Saturday afternoon or on a midweek evening with lots of European games on for a football accumulator, can make for a fun experience, giving you a reason to care about multiple results. The Goliath is just a greater extension of such a wager.

What is a Goliath Bet in Horse Racing?

It’s the sport of horse racing and its link with betting that is most associated with Goliaths and with good reason. With some races having large numbers of runners, even the favourites can have the sort of odds, that makes placing a Goliath bet viable.

You only have to look at today’s racecards and see there are also some meetings that have eight races. This means that you can include a selection from each contest at a particular track throughout the day. They call this betting through the card.

Even when that’s not the case and there are fewer than eight races at a course, there’s always enough meetings taking place each day, to make a Goliath horse bet possible. What’s more, you can even place an each way Goliath, which will contain 494 bets.

If you take this option, make sure that the odds are big enough with the respective place terms, to make this sort of wager worthwhile. There are gambling industry standard practices that bookmakers must follow with these. According to the Tattersalls Committee Rules on Betting, no each way wagers are available if there are four or fewer runners in a race.

Pros & Cons of Goliath Betting Explained

Now that you know what is a Goliath bet, you may have noticed that there are some pros and cons to this combination wager. Here are the strengths and weaknesses of a Goliath, as we see them:

Goliath Bet Calculator

With 247 bets to be settled, working out the returns of a Goliath in your head, is not a realistic option. Thankfully there is an easy solution, that can quickly show you how much you can win.

A free and easy to use Goliath betting calculator allows you to add the odds of all eight selections and whether they have won or lost. We have just the thing for you there. It’s an accumulator bet calculator that can simulate a number of different scenarios, to determine whether your Goliath is cost-effective.

Alternatives to Goliath Betting

With the question of what does Goliath mean in betting answered, you may be wondering about similar types of combination wagers. There are alternatives, featuring different types of selections. Here are some of the different types of bets you can place.

Best Goliath Bet Strategy

Here are some Goliath betting tips which will help your profitability.

Do All Bookies Offer Goliath Betting?

By now you should definitely know what is a Goliath bet, how they work and some strategies for using them. At this stage, you might be ready to place such a wager. The good news is that such a bet is available at all the leading UK betting sites.

FAQs

Dan Fitch

Pro punter

Dan Fitch

Pro punter

A writer and editor for some of the top names in the gambling industry for nearly 20 years, Dan also works as a freelance sports journalist for publications and websites such as ESPN, FourFourTwo and LiveScore.

All posts by Dan Fitch