How exactly to Bet Parlays in Sports

How exactly 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 once you play them. That, by itself, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed coupled with fear that often result in betting parlays. People think they are risking less with parlays, however they are not. They believe they can win more with parlays, but they cannot. The bigger 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 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 one team loses, however, the double bet is presumed to possess 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, just how many of you'll 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 if the first game won or lost. That adds an element of luck to your betting it doesn't have to be there. The skilled handicapper is always wanting to make smart investments. He tries to get rid of 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, 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 tens of thousands because he didn't understand the co-dependency of certain bets. He allowed a player to consistently parlay the first half with the overall game. The 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 overall game. Both parlays were made 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.

At first glance, this appeared to be a great chance of 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 ought to be winning $160 half enough time, and losing $200 half enough time. The bettor, however, making $500 parlays, was ahead more than $20,000 after 6 months, and the book begun to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.

The issue for the bookmaker was that both halves of every parlay were co-dependent. At the end of the first half, the bettor was almost never in a 50-50 situation.

Take the Thursday night game between Utah and Air Force. The overall 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 first half of one of the parlays, the "over" in the initial half was successful. 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 weren't 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 try 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.

There are, however, some less obvious co-dependent parlays that can still 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 advantage in parlaying side to total in exactly the same game. We've already discussed, in a prior article, how to use these anomalous side and total combinations to hedge each other and boost your win with very little increase in risk. Such a bet, however, required that you have an opinion privately or the total. Parlaying is another solution to increase your potential win on these games, or even to create a potential win assuming you have no opinion.

There are 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 total 46 �).


In  https://new88.studio/ , if you believe that Virginia will cover the 25 points, then they must hold Duke to only 11 points or the overall game will go over the full total. The more likely it becomes through the game that Virginia will cover 25 points, the much more likely it becomes that the game will go over 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, then your possibility of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are higher than the normal 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it really is not as likely that Virginia covers the 25 points. Because of this, the probability that a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is greater than the normal 25%.

Should 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 already won with the underdog for a winning 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 isn't as strong as parlaying first half and game totals (if it were, most books would not allow such bets), but there is a sufficient co-dependency in the games with low totals and high spreads to 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 a growing number of are realizing these bets are sometimes co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets for you to 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.