Profitable Parlays - Fact Or Fiction?
There are countless 'handicapping services' available of providing people who have parlays. They will tout win rates similar to one of the most impressive straight wager cappers. Needless to say, so as to they refer to money line parlays as 'safe' bets. On several sites you may have the privilege of dealing with some kind of royalty in neuro-scientific parlay wagering. Regrettably, thousands will be fooled by this fiction again this football season.
The fact is that exotic wagers keep sports books in business. Next time you are in Vegas check out the discarded tickets you see spread everywhere. It's safe to assume that might be nearly all these losers are made up of such bets positioned on both sports and racing. Of all the sucker bets available to sports bettors, the parlay is king. Bettors are lured in by the promise of an enormous payout while disregarding the fact that there is no reasonable expectation of any return on the investment.
The home edge on a typical straight wager at -110 is 4.5%. Compared with many table games this is actually a fairly high percentage. A lot of table games and slots offer a better value for the common bettor placing a random wager. However, we all know that betting on sports isn't anything like throwing a set of dice at the trunk wall.
Chance plays a role in everything the house has to offer. Additionally, there are steps that can be taken to decrease the edge in just about every game. Nowhere in the casino are elements such as for example skill and preparation more useful than the sports book. The edge on a straight wager could be reversed in the bettors favor through the use of statistics and expertise in a sport. However, a double digit house edge can't ever be overcome over time.
# of Teams | Actual Odds | Typical Payout | House Edge
2 | 3/1 | 2.6/1 | 10.00%
3 | 7/1 | 6/1 | 12.50%
4 | 15/1 | 10/1 | 31.25%
5 | 31/1 | 20/1 | 34.38%
6 | 63/1 | 40/1 | 35.94%
7 | 127/1 | 75/1 | 40.63%
8 | 255/1 | 150/1 | 41.02%
9 | 511/1 | 300/1 | 41.21%
10 | 1023/1 | 700/1 | 31.54%
As you can see every parlay you can possibly bet comes with a whopping 10% house edge or better. Such casino advantages tend to be more consistent with keno, plus they are equally impossible to overcome in the end. There is absolutely no mystery surrounding the planet of parlays. Bettors are attracted to risking a small amount of money for large payouts. The games that are most often played in the casino are slots that offer thousands and even millions in progressive jackpots. The mentality of the bettors is 'Go big, or go back home.' The casino is clearly happy to oblige as millions of bettors go home with nothing within their pockets every year.
It is fair to assume that the largest number of losing bets a book accepts are exotic wagers of equal to or double the home minimum. This is due to most bettors do not have a meaningful bankroll set aside for sports betting. Since they don't believe they are able to make any real cash by placing $25-50 on a few games weekly they continue taking parlays for $20 or less. Using this method they essentially ensure a significant loss by the finish of the growing season. Meanwhile, if they only placed straight wagers at that same level they might limit their potential losses to some units at most.
Many bettors assume that because they're keeping the size of their bets low they are not taking on a significant risk. This analysis is flawed since it ignores several factors. Most of all, it really is my experience that a lot of bettors do not place just one parlay weekly. In football this means at the least 34 parlays are placed through the regular season. In baseball that number can easily exceed 100. With MB66 bet this is still a dangerous number of wagers to put with such a high house edge. For instance, if you are placing only 5 team parlays your expectation should be to lose about $35 for each and every $100 you wager. As the amount of bets you place increases it is inevitable that you will hit that $100 mark many times over.
Using parlays as a side bet will most likely result in increasing your losses or erasing any profits you were able to make on straight wagers. In 2009 2009, I had a client who broke even with increasing his bankroll by 45% using my picks. He managed to do that by placing 'small' side bets including parlays, reverses, and teasers. This is an expensive lesson to learn especially when you take into account I issued a similar warning to him.
If you are going to follow his lead and continue using parlays I have a few pointers that will help in the long term. First of all, the very best value of most parlays is actually the three team parlay. The difference between your house edge on a 2 & 3 teamer is insignificant, but the payout is a lot more than twice as much. Invest the a glance at the graph you need to understand why I'd never bet a parlay of 4 teams or more. However, if you are going to make this investment listed below are two useful tips:
If you are going to bet a 4 or 5 5 team parlay, always ensure it is 6 or even 10. The difference between your house edge to include 1 or 2 2 more teams is at 5 percentage points and the payout is significantly higher for both options. The house edge on a 10 teamer is virtually exactly like a 4 team parlay, however the actual probability of hitting it are over 1,000 to 1 1.
If you are likely to throw your money away chasing huge payouts on 7, 8, and 9 team parlays then just bet the 10 teamer. The House edge is approximately 10 points lower than all three of these bets and it typically pays about 700/1.
Setting reasonable goals and being patient while working to achieve them may be the sign of a profitable professional bettor. Greed should be kept in check to become successful. In this regard, every bettor has two options. You can chase high returns while assuming a huge amount of unnecessary risk. Or it is possible to minimize your exposure to a few units while maintaining an acceptable expectation to increase your bankroll by 50%...The choice is yours.