How to Bet Parlays in Sports

The general rule regarding parlays is: DON'T.

Parlays generally carry an increased house edge than straight bets, which means you give the book a more impressive advantage over you when you play them. That, alone, 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, however they are not. They believe they are able to win more with parlays, but they cannot. The higher win with parlays is far outweighed by the higher possibility 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? Go ahead, 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, just how many of you'll still make the bet?

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

As with every rule, however, you can find exceptions. The exception to the rule regarding parlays occurs once the two bets are co-dependent.

I knew one bookmaker who was taken for thousands because he didn't understand the co-dependency of certain bets. He allowed a player to consistently parlay the initial half with the game. The ball player parlayed totals by combining the over in the first 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'd win 2.6 times his bet. Betting $100 on each parlay, if one of them 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 chance for the book. The standard coin-flip probability of winning one parlay out of the two are 50-50. So far as the bookie was concerned the bettor should be winning $160 half the time, and losing $200 half enough time. The bettor, however, making $500 parlays, was ahead 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 the two halves of every parlay were co-dependent. By the end of the initial half, the bettor was almost never 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 initial half, the score was 31-21, for a complete of 52 first-half points. The initial half of one of many parlays, the "over" in the initial half was a winner. For the parlay probability to be correct, there should now be considered a 50-50 probability of winning the "over" for the game. Obviously the odds of winning the "over" in the overall game were not 50-50 but much better than 99% and only the "over." The ball player only needed to win the first half of the parlay to be virtually assured 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 much too smart to enable you to parlay first half to game. Should they do allow you to do this, start worrying about collecting because that book will soon be taken to the cleaners.

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

Any game in which the total is less than double the spread can provide you an advantage in parlaying side to total in the same game. We've already discussed, in a prior article, how exactly to use these anomalous side and total combinations to hedge one another and boost your win with hardly any increase in risk. This type of bet, however, required that you have an opinion on the side or the total. Parlaying is another solution to boost your potential win on these games, or even to develop a potential win in case you have no opinion.

There are two games this Saturday that qualify. They're Virigina -25 over Duke with a total of 48 �, and Kansas St. -24 � vs.  https://five88.team/  with a total 46 �).

In the Virginia game, if you were to think that Virginia covers the 25 points, they must hold Duke to no more than 11 points or the game will go over the total. The more likely it becomes through the game that Virginia will cover 25 points, the much more likely it becomes that the overall game will go over 48 �. The wider Virginia's winning margin, the more likely the game will go over. If you like Virginia to cover the spread, and you believe that Duke will never be shut out, in that case your possibility of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are higher than the standard 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it really is not as likely that Virginia covers the 25 points. Subsequently, the probability a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is greater than the normal 25%.

For those who 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 real 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 already won with the underdog for an absolute two-parlay spread.

The closer the posted total is to the spread on the side, the better win-rate will undoubtedly be on the parlay "spread" bet. The co-dependency in side to total parlays is not as strong as parlaying first half and game totals (if it were, most books would not allow such bets), but you will find 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 the same game, because a lot more are realizing these bets are sometimes co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets so that you can consider including such bets in your professional betting arsenal.

If your bookmaker provides "if/reverse" bets, it is possible to replace the parlay bet having an "if/reverse" bet and achieve greater success.