Nowadays, so-called all-weather racing – that is, horse racing on synthetic surfaces – is an everyday occurrence in Britain. However, younger more online geered readers clambering to play best online slots, may not realise that just over three decades ago racecourses such as Kempton, Lingfield, Newcastle, Southwell, and Wolverhampton raced exclusively on turf and Chelmsford City did not even exist.

All-weather racing in Britain was first mooted following the very cold, snowy winter of 1984/85, which led to the abandonment of dozens of National Hunt fixtures. However, it was not until four or five years later that first Lingfield, and then Southwell, were granted permission to install synthetic surfaces. Lingfield opted for Equitrack – graded sand particles encapsulated in a mixture of oil and polymers – on the inside of the existing turf track, while Southwell opted for Fibresand – a deeper, slower surface, composed of sand particles and polypropylene fibres – on the outside.

Lingfield staged its first all-weather fixture on October 30, 1989 and was followed by Southwell, just nine days later. Four years later, in 1993, Wolverhampton went a stage further by completely replacing its turf course with Fibresand. Two years later still, in 1995, Dunstall Park was also the venue for the first Listed race run on a synthetic surface in Britain, the Wulfrun Stakes.

The twenty-first century brought many changes to the all-weather landscape, much in the same way that kiwicasinos casino online changed the casino landscape. In 2001, Lingfield switched to Polytrack – a more advanced, wax-coated mixture of sand, recycled synthetic fibres and recycled rubber – and, in 2004, Wolverhampton followed suit. The first Pattern race run on the all-weather, the Group Three Silver Trophy Stakes, was staged at Lingfield in the summer of 2005. The following spring, Kempton joined the all-weather roster and would be joined, albeit briefly, by the ill-fated Great Leighs – which would be resurrected, as Chelmsford City, seven years later – in 2008.

The inaugural All-Weather Championships, culminating in All-Weather Championships Finals Day, worth £1 million in prize money, at Lingfield on Good Friday commenced in October, 2013, and continues to go from strength to strength. In 2014, Wolverhampton switched again, to Tapeta – effectively an advanced, more forgiving version of Polytrack – and, in 2016, Newcastle also hosted its first fixture on a new Tapeta track.

Every week, millions of football accumulator bets are placed across various bookmaker websites, with customers picking out their selections and combining them in a multiple before waiting to see if each leg is settled as a winner.

While a lot of punters like to choose different football teams for their accumulator, our acca tips don’t just focus on the Full-Time Result betting market where you simply choose the home team, draw or away team when making a selection.

We might alternatively choose a football betting market such as Over/Under 2.5 Goals, especially if we have a stronger view on the number of goals that will be scored in the match rather than the actual outcome at the full-time whistle.

Our football acca tips often focus on the Both Teams to Score market and that’s particularly because this is a simple two-way betting market which simply involves choosing either “Yes” or “No” for a particular match.

BTTS is great because you’re not even worried about the number of goals being scored in the match, let alone whether a particular team is going to win or not. You either choose “Yes” and want both teams to score or “No” and cheer on at least one team drawing a blank.

Don’t Pick Too Many Football Acca Selections

Many betting customers fall into the trap of getting greedy with their football accumulator picks. Ideally, your accumulator should have between 4-6 selections depending on the odds for each leg. If you’re picking four even money shots, then you might not want to boost your acca any further, although going for big odds-on favourites might mean you need more legs to get a satisfactory price.

Our acca tips would normally go for five picks and it’s sometimes the case that we might mix and match the different football markets. For example, we might choose Liverpool to win but also Over 2.5 Goals in the Manchester derby. There’s also the opportunity to combine selections from different football leagues.

Indeed, a popular European football accumulator might feature leading teams such as Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Juventus. However, some punters prefer to do an accumulator which focuses on games happening the same day. That means that you will have your bet settled as a winner or a loser.