What is a parlay bet?
If even one of your games in your parlay bet is a loss or does not cover the point spread, your entire parlay ticket loses. You can make NFL game parlays or combine different bets from various sports on the sports book board with a $5 dollar minimum in Las Vegas NV casinos. Parlay pre-printed cards are made on the tuesday of the betting week combining college and NFL football games on the parlay card these are a $2 dollar minimum. These are fill in the numbers like a test in schools for scanning and ticket printing at the sportsbook purchase counter. For example, off the board odds lines, you could make a straight-up bet on a college football game, coupled with an NFL Football over/under point spread, this is a 2 leg parlay ticket. Now, you would decide which side of each bet to take.
A parlay is a type of sports betting in which you combine multiple individual bets typically 2-10 game bets combined into one bet or “parlay card bet.” Combining the bets gives you harder odds to win, but a larger reward for winning. The larger the amount of wagers included in your parlay card, the larger the payout.
In order for a parlay bet to win, you must win all individual games bet on the same parlay card. For instance, let’s say I bet the Patriots, the Ravens and the Texans all to win their games on any given NFL Sunday. If all three win, you will get a much larger payout than if you just bet on each game individually. However, if any of those teams lose their games bet on, the entire card is lost.
The only exception is in the case of a “push,” which is the gambling term for a tie. If one of the games on the card pushes, that wager is removed from the parlay. So, in the case of our three teams bet above, if the Ravens tied their game, it becomes a two game bet parlay card. If the Patriots and Texans then win their games, the bet pays out as a 2 team parlay. The payout will be smaller than if they all three won, but hey, you still win some money!
While the odds of winning large parlays 5-10 team wagers combined are relatively low odds, the parlay cards allow you to risk a small amount of money for a potentially large reward. For instance, a 10 team parlay bet purchased for $25 would pay out over $16,000 if you won every game.
Now that you understand the basics, let’s look at what kinds of bets you’ll be pairing together to make your fortune! I know the secret way to help you make better picks by asking all the sportsbook managers in Las Vegas. The secret of winning parlays and NfL football bets is to follow the Bookies Battle Against The Point Spread published each week in Gaming Today newspaper. On Gaming Today website you will need to scroll down the page and locate this each week. As shown below the middle of the page you must click on the link that says. Click Here to View Bookies Battle the Point Spreads and once you click this link a PDF Document will open and you will see the contest listing there. Next to figure out the winners you go to the consensus at the bottom of the listed NFL Picks. The contest now does all the work for you by figuring out the percentage of sportsbook managers who are picking the winners of the games. Now if you see an 80 % percent or better you can almost guarantee the outcome will be the chosen team. Then down the right side there is the best bets opinions of all the sports book managers for that week there you can count the most recommended team for that week. These sportsbook managers know who is injured and who is facing who for that week their opinions are worth listening to any given sunday.
Bookies Battle the Point Spreads Week 7 | America’s Biggest Bookmaker Contest gives you all the best free NFL expert picks of every pro football regular-season game.
Click Here to View Bookies Battle the Point Spreads
Bookies Battle the Point Spreads Week 7 | America’s Biggest Bookmaker Contest gives you all the best free NFL expert picks of every pro football regular-season game.
Click Here to View Bookies Battle the Point Spreads
Then to go to Youtube and search for college football picks and parlays you will get expert opinions from professionals who sell their picks each week and you can add those picks to your parlay card picks to get more teams on your bet. As shown on this printed ticket $25.00 dollars paid out $62,500 dollars. That is the best $25.00 dollars ever spent i think. This winner combined NFL and College football games and cashed out for a huge winner all this off of $25 bucks.
Types of Parlay card options
Over / Under
Over/Under bets or bets on the combined total are wagers made on the total amount of points that will be scored during any given game by both teams. The sports book sets the “over or under total score’s lines,” which is the number you will be basing your decision on. You bet on whether you think the total amount of points scored will be over or under that all points combined total number.
Over/Under, or Totals, bets are very common in betting parlays because they allow you to make multiple bets on the same game. A common betting strategy is to bet which team you think will win, and then parlay that bet with whether you think the game will go “under” or “over.”
So, let’s say your Uncle Tony got a tip that Aaron Rogers has a secret shoulder injury, and it will be difficult for Green Bay to throw the ball. The line is set a 53.5. Plus, they are playing the Browns, so you still think they will still win. You may want to bet Green Bay and the under. So you are betting that Green Bay will win the game, but it may be lower scoring due to the injury, and thus the total points scored by both teams will be less than 53.5. That is a two leg parlay of the board.
You may have noticed the half a point I included in the example above. In sports betting these half points are called “the hook.” The sportsbooks use half points for most bets, especially over/unders, which limit the opportunities for a push. They “hook” bettors into one side of the bet or the other.
Point Spreads
Point Spreads, commonly referred to as “the spread,” are what makes sports betting interesting. Without them, we could all just bet on the favored team every week, make a lot of money and break Las Vegas sportsbooks within a month.
A point spread evens the playing field between teams by taking points from the favored team and giving them to the underdog. Then they automatically give the home team advantage team a 3 point lead. This turns out to help you when figuring out the spread on any given game. So, for instance, the Chiefs are playing the Colts in what is expected to be a tightly contested game. The Colts are favored to win by a field goal.
On the sportsbook board, or the betting site, this would look like “Colts -3” or “Chiefs +3,” depending on which side you wanted to bet. So, if you bet the Colts -3, but the Colts win by 1, you actually lost that bet by 2 points. If you bet the Chiefs +3, congratulations, you won!
How many points the underdog gets, or the size of “the spread,” depends on how mismatched the teams are. In the NFL, the spread rarely goes about 13.5 or so, but in sports like college football, you routinely have teams cover 60 point spreads.
While the point spreads themselves add a degree of complication to the bets, there are additional options that can really add to the fun. They’re called Teasers and Pleasers—my heart rate picks up a little just typing those words out for you!
Teasers
These days it seems every sport betting forum on the net is buzzing about “Wong Teasers” and “Teaser Betting Strategy”. I’ll be honest, as someone who’s made a steady profit each year since 1999 betting teasers, I wasn’t thrilled when “teaser strategy” became the betting forum topic. Rewinding to almost a decade ago, soon after Stanford Wong released the book Sharp Sports Betting, Las Vegas sportsbooks started losing money on teasers. Today its nearly impossible to find a +EV bet in Las Vegas as far as teasers are concerned. Thankfully, online there are still plenty of options, but how long will that last?
As far as I’m concerned, Teaser parlays are the greatest thing to happen to sports betting since the invention of the online casino. A teaser bet allows you to move that point spread that we discussed above in a way that’s favorable to you, the bettor (typically between 6 and 7.5 points). You get less of a payout if you win a teaser parlay, but it does improve your odds of winning.
So, in the example of the Colts and the Chiefs above, we had the Colts favored by 3 points. If you “teased the line” 6 points, then you’d move that Colts spread from -3 to +3.
You add 6 points to the spread that’s already given. Now you have a bet on the team that’s already favored, and now you win your bet whether they win outright as is predicted, or if they lose by less than 3. I like your chances!
What’s even better is that you don’t have to just tease the point spread, you can tease the total or over/under as well! So, if the point spread was 53.5 as it was in our example earlier, you could tease that line all the way down to 46.5 (7 point teaser), and then bet the over. Or, you could bet the under by moving the over/under up to 60.5. Like taking candy from a baby.
Pleasers
make a pleaser bet that moves the Colts from -3 all the way to -10.5. You then bet that the Colts will beat the Chiefs by at least 11 points. Since Pleasers are only done on parlay cards, you’ll need at least 1 more wager. In this example, let’s use our pleaser bet to move that over/under up to 61 and bet the over. So now, you have a Pleaser Parlay with the Colts -10.5 and the Over, which is now 61. As a sports bettor I wish you luck; as a Texans fan I hope you lose.
Moneyline
Moneyline bets are the last little wrinkle to parlay betting that we will discuss here. These bets remove the point spread from the equation. It’s a bet based straight up on the winner and loser of the event. It’s you saying “I don’t care about all those numbers and that other stats; I think my team is going to win and that’s that!”
Moneyline bets can be very profitable if you can predict an upset. However, if you bet on the favored team moneyline, the payout will be less. How much less depends on how largely favored the team you bet on is.
You are able to mix moneyline bets with point spread bets on a single parlay, however you cannot mix them with either teaser/pleaser bets. On those cards, if one wager is teased/pleased, you must tease/please them all.
Parlay Strategy
A parlay bet is a popular form of sports wagering most gamblers are familiar with. In case you’re not, this bet is rather easy to understand. A parlay is simply a combo bet where, rather than betting several teams individually, you group them into a single wager. Using this option, the payout is greater and the risk is less, but you need all teams selected to win.
To give an example, say you’re interested this week in betting Jets -4, Patriots +3, Dolphins +2.5 and Colts -7. If your bankroll is limited to just $100, using straight wagers you’d make four separate bets of $25 to win $22.73. If you we’re feeling both lucky and in the mood to gamble, you might instead bet them all together as a four team parlay. Under the parlay option, the stakes would be $100 to win at least $1,000. To win, you’ll need to go 4-0; if one or more games push while all others win, the payout is reduced, and with any other outcome, the bet is a loss.
What happens if there’s a push in a parlay? That bet will be taken out of the parlay and the payout will be reduced as if there were one fewer team in the parlay. So if you had a 4 team parlay and you got three picks correct and the other was a push, you would be paid out the odds of a 3 team parlay.
Parlay bets can be very tempting as they can offer some big payouts.
Are Parlays Sucker Bets?
There is a general misconception in sports betting that all parlays are sucker bets. This is simply because most sports bettors are not familiar with how they work, or how to bet them properly. In this article, I’ll address parlay betting strategies, but first let’s look at parlay odds and how they are calculated.
The parlay odds at most Las Vegas sportsbooks are:
2 teams 2.6 to 1
3 teams 6-1
4 teams 10-1
5 teams 20-1
6 teams 40-1
7 teams 80-1
8 teams 150-1
Online the odds are similar, though some sites such as BetNow and MyBookie offer better odds starting with three teams and up. What’s important to note is that these are fixed odds based on a 50/50 wagering proposition. If a spread is listed at Home Team -7 / Road Team +7 this is 50/50 proposition. If, instead, the spread was Home Team -7 -105 / Road Team +7 -115, this is no longer a 50/50 proposition, and the payout will be calculated using a method bookmakers refer to as “true odds”. I’ll cover that later in this article, but first let’s take a moment to understand where fixed parlay odds are derived from.
Let’s say you decide for the next eight weeks you’re going to bet the Monday night football game, starting with a $1.00 bankroll and betting your entire bankroll each week until you go 8-0 or bust. The potential win is as follows:
Week 1: $1.00 to win $0.91: If win total profit = $0.91 (Bankroll =$1.91)
Week 2: $1.91 to win $1.74: If win total profit = $2.65 (Bankroll =$3.65)
Week 3: $3.65 to win $3.32: If win total profit = $5.97 (Bankroll =$6.97)
Week 4: $6.97 to win $6.34: If win total profit = $12.31 (Bankroll =$13.31)
Week 5: $13.31 to win $12.10: If win total profit = $24.41 (Bankroll =$25.41)
Week 6: $25.41 to win $23.10: If win total profit = $46.51 (Bankroll =$47.51)
Week 7: $47.51 to win $43.19: If win total profit = $89.70 (Bankroll =$90.70)
Week 8: $90.70 to win $82.45: If win total profit = $172.15 (Bankroll =$173.15)
The reason parlays are often sucker bets shows up in this middle column. Had you bet these in an 8 team parlay, you’d only get paid 150 to one. Essentially, a parlay is no different than betting all in each time, only parlays generally pay much worse. However, you’ll notice the odds are not poor until you get to four teams, where the sportsbook has a whopping 31.25% advantage. Two teams pay a smidgen worse than the manual parlay all in each time option, where three team parlays pay a smidgen better. Rarely ever is a 2 or 3 team parlay a true suckers bet.
What Does a Parlay Pay?
As I mentioned earlier, fixed parlay odds vary greatly between online sportsbooks. Here is some info on which sites offer the best fixed parlay odds:
2 TEAM PARLAYS:
In general two team parlays pay +260, or $260 for every $100 bet. BetNow offers +264.5, and 5Dimes.eu offers +264, which is better than the +260 most betting sites offer.
3 TEAM PARLAY:
3 team parlays pay 6/1 or $600 for every $100 bet. BetOnline.ag is the leader in the industry in 3 team parlay payouts.
4 TEAM PARLAY:
This is the area where betting sites generally hurt the sports bettor, paying only 10 to 1, which gives them a 31.25% advantage. This can be avoided when betting at BetNow where the payout is +1228.3, or at 5Dimes where it is +1228.
Generally speaking, parlaying 5 teams or more teams is not a good idea; however, for sports gamblers looking for a lotto ticket, 5dimes.eu and Bookmaker.eu each offer up to 15 team parlays and have by far the best odds in the business on these.
How much does a 15 team parlay pay? A 15 team parlay will pay out over +16,000. I just tested this out and a $1 15 team NFL parlay at -110 odds will payout $16,306. Good luck hitting on that!
True Odds Parlays
1 Earlier, I mentioned fixed odds are only given when all selections are 50/50 propositions. If one side of a line requires a greater stake than the other to yield the same payout, this is not a 50/50 proposition, and the bookmaker will now use “true odds”. What’s important to note is that true odds doesn’t actually mean the “true odds” of winning. Rather, true odds pays the same as if you bet each team individually and rolled the profit forward each time, which is what I showed in the example of 8 all in bets starting with a $1.00 stake.
To calculate true odd parlays, each bet first needs to be converted into a multiplier. To do this, take what a winning ticket would return and divide it by the amount risked. For example, at -110 a $110 stake returns $210 ($110 stake + $100 win). Calculating the multiplier as return/risk here, we plug in 210/110, which means the multiplier is 1.91. If we did the same on -115, the multiplier is 215/115=1.87.
Let’s say you’re in the mood to gamble on an 8 team parlay, but the only available to you is a bookmaker paying 150-1 fixed odds. A trick of the trade here is to include one bet that is priced differently than -110 in order to force the bookmaker to use true odds. So, let’s say you make 7 selections priced at the standard -110 pricing and one at -115. A true parlay calculated by multiplying each modifier together. The math is 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.87, which equals 173.41. This bet returns 173.41 times the stake, which includes the risk amount, so the bet is 1 to win 172.41. Notice this is significantly better than the fixed odds payout of 1 to win 150 on an 8 team parlay. In short, the trick of the trade when dealing with poor fixed odds is to simply add one team to the parlay that is priced differently than the standard -110.
As you can now see, if you know how to bet parlays properly, they are not always sucker bets. There are, however, a few reasons that parlays are generally not a good move. I’ll cover these, and then cover the times it does make sense.
Top Reasons to Avoid Parlays
1) Progressive betting systems are generally regarded as poor strategy for both bankroll management and bankroll growth. Professional bettors make wagers based on their quantified edge per game. While the math can work out, doing the math for proper bet sizing on a parlay is a lot of added work with little to no upside for most sports bettors.
2) Parlay bets have higher variance than straight bets. Here you’re getting the same odds, but your chance of hitting a dry spell is greatly increased. When the odds are the same it is most often better to go with the lower variance option, which in this case is straight wagers.
3) Line Shopping – Sports bettors maximize their profit by always shopping for the best price. For example, finding -4 when other sites are -4.5, and finding reduced vig options such as -104 instead of -110. When betting parlays, you’ll need to find the most favorable odds for each team at a single betting site. This scenario is rare, so generally you’ll end up with better odds by making straight wagers at multiple betting sites.
Parlays That Make the Most Sense:
Reduced Juice – BetOnline.ag offers 6.5 to one on three team parlays. This comes out better than betting sides at the -105 price standards reduced juice sportsbooks offer. In sports such as NFL football where 50/50 wagering propositions are common, a sports bettor gets far superior odds by betting 3 team parlays at BetOnline.ag
Correlated Parlays
If a bookmaker was offering betting lines on both “will it be cloudy today?” and “will it rain today?”, if allowed, you’d be much better off betting either both as no, or both as yes, in a parlay bet as opposed to straight wagers. While this is a simplified example, there are plenty of times when outcomes are correlated in sports betting. For example, a handicapper might determine that if one team covers the spread, the game is more likely to go over or under the posted total. Also, during the final week of the NFL season, a certain team winning or losing the day game might result in a previously important night game now having no meaning in the playoff race.
Free Play Bonuses
Several online betting sites, for example BetNow, offer players free bets based on the size of their initial deposit. Free play bonuses are not the same as cash. The difference is that a bet made with cash returns both stake and win, where a bet made with a free play returns only win. Parlays allow you the chance to use the same free play more than once, because a parlay really is only a wager that continues to place stake+win on the next selection. Remember, fixed odd three team parlays pay a little better than true odds. So when using free plays to bet 3 team parlays, you’re getting slightly better odds, and also a chance to apply that free play stake to three different bets. This is common knowledge that 3 team parlays are a great use of free play bonuses.
Circumventing Betting Limits
I’ll warn you upfront that betting sites do not take kindly to this, and it might get you banned. The basic idea here is, say you find a parlay with monster value in a small market with low betting limits. Let’s say a woman’s field hockey line opens at +150 when it should be +100. Here making ten unique two-team parlays, using the +150 bet with a random -110 each time might be advantageous, as on average you’ll get down 5 times the max bet. At -110 juice the expected ROI is less, but to get the maximum amount down on line of significant value, it might make sense. While personally I rarely use this strategy online, I do attempt to get away with it in Las Vegas from time to time. This takes a little bit of acting, such as starting to walk away from the cage and then saying wait, also give me… Know this: It is a trick of the trade advantage players use that is not for novice bettors.
This concludes our article on parlay betting. As a final tip: if you enjoy using parlays as a lottery ticket, http://www.Bovada.lv runs a $10,000 weekly parlay jackpot during football season, which is an added bonus on top of what a $5 stake pays on a 10 team parlay win. To learn more, see the promo section at http://www.Bovada.lv. If nothing else, this article gives you some great conversation material next time someone in the sports bar says, parlays are for suckers. Hopefully, it ends up being much more than that, adding extra winnings to your bankroll. Either way, we wish you the best of luck.
Sports Football Betting Winners 