How to Bet Parlays in Sports

The general rule regarding parlays is: DON'T.

Parlays generally carry an increased house edge than straight bets, therefore 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, but they are not. They believe they can win more with parlays, however they cannot. The bigger win with parlays is far outweighed by the bigger possibility of losing. Parlay bettors are in fact risking more, with less possibility of collecting.

A parlay is not a single bet. It 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 something team loses, however, the double bet is presumed to possess 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, how many of you would still make the bet?

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

As with  Look at this website , 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 first half with the 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 manufactured in the same game. 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 the other parlay for a net win of $160. He could never win both parlays. If he lost both parlays he would 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 ought to be winning $160 half enough time, and losing $200 half enough time. The bettor, however, making $500 parlays, was ahead a lot more than $20,000 after 6 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. At the end of the initial half, the bettor was hardly ever in a 50-50 situation.

Take the Thursday night game between Utah and Air Force. The overall 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 first half of among the parlays, the "over" in the initial half was a winner. For the parlay probability to be correct, there should now be a 50-50 possibility of winning the "over" for the overall game. Obviously the chances of winning the "over" in the game were not 50-50 but 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 instead of just $10 for $11.

Before you rush out to try this, be aware that most off-shore books are far too smart to enable you to parlay first half to game. Should they do enable you to do this, start worrying about collecting because that book will be taken to the cleaners.

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

Any game in which the total is significantly less than double the spread can provide 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 one another and increase your win with hardly any increase in risk. This type of bet, however, required that you have an impression on the side or the full total. Parlaying is another solution to boost your potential win on these games, or even to develop a potential win when you have no opinion.

You can find two games this Saturday that qualify. They are Virigina -25 over Duke with a complete of 48 �, and Kansas St. -24 � vs. North Texas with a complete 46 �).

In the Virginia game, if you were to think that Virginia covers the 25 points, then 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 during 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 also believe that Duke will never be shut out, in that case your probability of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are greater than the standard 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it is less likely that Virginia will cover the 25 points. Due to this fact, the probability that a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is higher than the normal 25%.

When you have no opinion on the overall 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 total of 58 -- the under has already won with the underdog for a winning 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 wouldn't normally allow such bets), but there is 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 allow you to parlay the side to the total in exactly the same game, because increasingly 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, you can replace the parlay bet with an "if/reverse" bet and achieve greater success.