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 once you play them. That, by itself, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed combined with fear that often result in betting parlays. People think they're risking less with parlays, but they are not. They believe they can win more with parlays, but they cannot. The higher win with parlays is far outweighed by the higher probability of losing. Parlay bettors are in fact risking more, with less probability of collecting.

A parlay is not an individual bet. It is two bets -- a one-unit bet on one team and a two-unit bet on another. 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 something 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 of 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 would still make the bet?

A parlay can be bad money management. In a parlay you either bet double on the next team, or nothing on that same team, dependant on whether the first game won or lost. That adds an element of luck to your betting it doesn't need 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 possible.

Much like every rule, however, you can find exceptions. The exception to the rule regarding parlays occurs when 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 overall game. The ball player parlayed totals by combining the over in the first half with the over in the overall game, and the under in the first half with under in the game. Both parlays were made 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 them won, the ball player would win $260 and lose $100 on the other parlay for a net win of $160. He could never win both parlays. If he lost both parlays he would lose $200.

At first glance, this appeared to be a great chance for the book. The standard coin-flip probability of winning one parlay from the two are 50-50. So 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 6 months, and the book begun to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.

The problem for the bookmaker was that the two halves of every 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 initial half total was 27. At the end of the initial half, the score was 31-21, for a total of 52 first-half points. The initial half of among the parlays, the "over" in the first half was a winner. For the parlay probability to be correct, there should now be 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 better than 99% in favor of the "over." The player only had a need 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 far too smart to allow you to parlay first half to game. Should they do enable you to do this, start fretting about collecting because that book will soon be taken up to the cleaners.

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

Any game where the total is significantly less than double the spread can give you an edge in parlaying side to total in exactly the same game.  sv88net.com 've already discussed, in a prior article, how to use these anomalous side and total combinations to hedge one another and increase your win with very little increase in risk. Such a bet, however, required that you have an opinion on the side or the full total. Parlaying is another solution to increase your potential win on these games, or to develop a potential win when 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. North Texas with a total 46 �).

In the Virginia game, if you believe that Virginia covers the 25 points, they must hold Duke to no more than 11 points or the game will go over the full total. The much 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 much 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, then your probability of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are greater than the normal 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it really is not as likely that Virginia covers the 25 points. As a result, the probability a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is greater than the normal 25%.

If you have no opinion on the game, you can parlay the favourite 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.

The closer the posted total would be to the spread privately, the better win-rate will 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 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 medial side to the full total in the same game, because progressively more are realizing that these bets are sometimes co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets that you should consider including such bets in your professional betting arsenal.

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