How to Bet Parlays in Sports

· 5 min read
How to Bet Parlays in Sports

The general rule regarding parlays is: DON'T.

Parlays generally carry a higher house edge than straight bets, which means you give the book a more impressive advantage over you when you play them. That, by itself, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed coupled with fear that often lead to betting parlays. People think they are risking less with parlays, but they are not. They believe they can win more with parlays, however they cannot. The higher win with parlays is far outweighed by the bigger probability of losing. Parlay bettors are in fact risking more, with less possibility of collecting.


A parlay is not a single bet. It really is two bets -- a one-unit bet using one team and a two-unit bet on the other. Which team gets the two-unit bet? In point-spread betting at constant money odds, if both teams win or both teams lose it doesn't matter which team gets the double bet. When one team wins and one team loses, however, the double bet is presumed to have been on the loser. How smart is that for the bettor? Just do it, create a parlay. We'll wait until both games are over, and in case there is a split we'll put the double bet on the loser. If your bookmaker sold you a parlay with that line, how many of you would still make the bet?

A parlay can be bad money management. In a parlay you either bet double on the second team, or nothing on that same team, depending upon if the first game won or lost. That adds an element of luck to your betting that doesn't should be there. The skilled handicapper is definitely wanting to make smart investments. He tries to eliminate the effect of luck to the best extent possible in order to make his results as predictable as you possibly can.

As with every rule, however, there are exceptions. The exception to the rule regarding parlays occurs when the two bets are co-dependent.

I knew one bookmaker who was simply taken for thousands because he didn't understand the co-dependency of certain bets. He allowed a new player to consistently parlay the initial half with the game. The ball player parlayed totals by combining the over in the initial half with the over in the game, and the under in the initial half with under in the game. Both parlays were manufactured in the same game. Each and every time the player won he would win 2.6 times his bet. Betting $100 on each parlay, if one of these won, the ball player would win $260 and lose $100 on another parlay for a net win of $160. He could never win both parlays. If he lost both parlays he'd lose $200.

Initially, this appeared to be a great opportunity for the book. The normal coin-flip probability of winning one parlay out of your two are 50-50. As far as the bookie was concerned the bettor should be winning $160 half enough time, and losing $200 half the time. The bettor, however, making $500 parlays, was ahead a lot more than $20,000 after six months, and the book began to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.

The issue for the bookmaker was that both halves of each parlay were co-dependent. By the end of the first half, the bettor was hardly ever in a 50-50 situation.

Take the Thursday night game between Utah and Air Force. The game total was 53 and the first half total was 27. By the end of the first half, the score was 31-21, for a complete of 52 first-half points. The first half of among the parlays, the "over" in the initial half was successful. For the parlay probability to be correct, there should now be a 50-50 possibility of winning the "over" for the overall game. Obviously the odds of winning the "over" in the game were not 50-50 but much better than 99% and only the "over." The player only had a need to win the first half of the parlay to be virtually assured that he would collect 2.6 times his money rather than just $10 for $11.

Before you rush out to use this, remember that most off-shore books are far too smart to enable you to parlay first half to game. Should they do allow you to do this, start fretting about collecting because that book will be taken to the cleaners.

You can find, however, some less obvious co-dependent parlays that may still be made at many books. One type of co-dependent parlay may be the parlay of the side and total in the same game.

Any game in which the total is significantly less than double the spread can provide you an edge in parlaying side to total in exactly the same game. We've already discussed, in a prior article, how exactly to use these anomalous side and total combinations to hedge each other and boost your win with hardly any increase in risk. This type of bet, however, needed that you have an opinion on the side or the full total. Parlaying is another method to boost your potential win on these games, or even to create a potential win for those who have no opinion.

You can find two games this Saturday that qualify. They're Virigina -25 over Duke with a complete of 48 �, and Kansas St. -24 � vs. North Texas with a complete 46 �).

In the Virginia game, if you were to think that Virginia will cover the 25 points, they must hold Duke to only 11 points or the game will go over the total. The more likely it becomes through the game that Virginia covers 25 points, the more likely it becomes that the game will review 48 �. The wider Virginia's winning margin, the more likely the game will review. If you like Virginia to cover the spread, and you also believe that Duke will not be shut out, in that case your possibility of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are greater than the normal 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it really is less likely that Virginia will cover the 25 points. Therefore, the probability that a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is higher than the normal 25%.

Assuming you have no opinion on the game, you can parlay the favorite with the "over" and the underdog with the "under" and collect sufficiently often to exceed the losses when both parlays lose. In the only other game meeting the qualifications this week -- Friday's game between California -30 against New Mexico State with a complete of 58 -- the under has recently won with the underdog for an absolute two-parlay spread.

Xổ số sv88  posted total is to the spread privately, the better win-rate will be on the parlay "spread" bet. The co-dependency in side to total parlays isn't as strong as parlaying first half and game totals (if it were, most books wouldn't normally allow such bets), but there exists a sufficient co-dependency in the games with low totals and high spreads to help make the strategy profitable long-term.

Not all bookmakers will help you to parlay the side to the full total in exactly the same game, because a growing number of are realizing that these bets are sometimes co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets that you can consider including such bets in your professional betting arsenal.

If your bookmaker provides "if/reverse" bets, you can replace the parlay bet with an "if/reverse" bet and achieve greater success.