Cheltenham Festival 2026: What are the best multiple bets to place?

The Cheltenham Festival takes place next week and racing fans couldn’t be more excited!

It’s a good opportunity to bring in new potential followers as the quality equine action is the pinnacle of the sport and provides an excellent shop window.

Betting at Cheltenham can be a little daunting for those with less experience as there’s so much going on and so many possibilities. All sorts of bet types are thrown around and the jargon can be a little confusing for the uninitiated.

Fear not, however, as we have you covered!

Here are some of the most suitable multiple bets to place at the Festival and some tips on how to go about placing them.

Accumulators

We’ll start with the simplest, and one of the most common, as almost anyone who regularly bets on any sport will be aware of accumulators.

Simply put, they are bets consisting of multiple legs combined into one price and all of the selections need to win in order to land the bet. Be careful with the number of selections you put into accumulators, however, as the more selections you have, the chances of the bet landing get slimmer.

Willie Mullins accumulators are some of the most commonly used at Cheltenham as the dominant force in National Hunt racing always brings over a very strong team.

It would be no surprise to see him reach double-figures again this year so four or five of his best chances could be combined to form an accumulator with a significant chance of landing. The likes of Dinoblue, Fact To File and Proactif could prove hard to beat.

Lucky 15

Another of the more popular bet types across all sports is the Lucky 15. This involves combining four selections into one big bet which is formed of 15 smaller bets.

This includes four singles for each pick, six doubles, four trebles and one four-fold accumulator.

The upside to this type of bet is that you only need one winner in order to start making some money back, but your chances of making a profit increase with every winner.

The dream is that all four legs win because that means all 15 of the constituent bets land.

Small risk for a potentially large reward make this a very popular bet type and an each-way variant is a good option when betting at bigger prices.

It’s also worth noting that when you choose a stake, you pay that for each small bet, so a £1 Lucky 15 costs £15 to place.

Reverse Forecast

This is a good option when you think it might be a two-horse race but you’re not entirely sure which of the two is going to win.

A Reverse Forecast is similar to a forecast but there’s extra insurance, as your bet lands if the two horses finish first and second in either order.

A good example would be this year’s Arkle where many believe it’s a showdown between Lulamba and Kopek Des Bordes

You could place a forecast bet on Lulamba to win and Kopek Des Bordes to finish second but the reverse option means if Kopek Des Bordes wins and Lulamba is second, the bet still lands.