What is a Goliath bet and how does it work?

At least two of your eight selections must be successful to get any return in a Goliath bet. The trebles, four-folds, five-folds, six-folds and seven-folds mean that if you get more than two winners your returns begin to jump in big increments as more of the multiple bets win, but given the number of bets, you’ll usually need a few winners to see a profit. It’s most often used in horse racing betting.

How does a Goliath bet work?

The 247 bets in a Goliath can be visualised as follows:

Why should I place a Goliath bet?

If you have eight selections in different events, a Goliath is an accumulator alternative that offers you some return even if only two or those selections are successful. However, it’s likely you will need more winners to begin making a profit.

If you have eight selections on your betting slip it’s usually available as one of the multiple betting options and is far more convenient than backing all the 247 bets involved individually.

Drawbacks of a Goliath

There are two main drawbacks to a Goliath. The first is the lack of flexibility around staking. All 247 bets have to have the same stake so it’s not possible to stake more on the bets featuring your most confident selections and less on those featuring your most tentative pick, for example.

Secondly the sheer volume of bets in a Goliath means there is a trade-off between choosing a unit stake that is small enough to keep the Goliath affordable and one that is big enough to make the smaller multiples (e.g doubles, trebles) worth winning.

How to calculate Goliath bet winnings

The easiest way to work out how much you have or haven’t won is to use our Goliath bet calculator, but you can work it out yourself as follows:

If you’re using fractional odds convert them into decimal odds by dividing the top number by the bottom and then adding one. (For example, 2/1 becomes 3.0 and 9/4 becomes 3.25.)
For each of your various multiples, multiply the decimal odds for the relevant selections together and then multiply the result by your unit stake.

How does an each-way Goliath work?

An each-way Goliath is a type of Goliath in which all 247 bets are each-way. This makes the total stake for an each-way Goliath twice that applicable to standard Goliath.

The benefit of an each-way Goliath is that you will get a return not only for every horse that wins but every horse that places as well. But the number of bets means that placed horses alone are not going to bring in big profits unless the odds are good.

Bookies generally pay around 1/5 of the win odds for the place part of each-way bets.

As a result it makes sense to check the each-way terms on offer before striking the bet and include mainly selections for which the each-way place payout is more than your original stake.