How To Run A Football Parlay
The Kansas City Chiefs' bid for the NFL's first back-to-back Super Bowl victories in 16 years ended with a thud Sunday night in Tampa, Fla. After the Chiefs took a 3-0 lead midway through the first quarter of Super Bowl LV, it was all QB Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense as the 'hosts' dominated the defending champs en route to a 31-9 victory - the second-most lopsided Super Bowl. For a single bet, 2 to 8 teams or totals can be selected. In order for the parlay bet to win, every one of the wagers must win or push (tie). If any of the selections lose, your wager loses, regardless of the outcome or cancellation of the other games.
Parlays (also known as Multiples or Combos)
gtbets.ag is proud to offer the most comprehensive Parlay selection available today. Parlays, also known as Multiples or Combos, are a very exciting way for the sports betting enthusiast to WIN VERY LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY WITH VERY LIMITED RISK!.
Simply put, a parlay is a bet of 2 or more teams (selections) or propositions in no particular order. All teams wagered on in a parlay must win. If there is a tie, it reverts down to the next lowest number for payoff. For 2 team parlays, a tie and win becomes a straight bet payout.
At gtbets.ag, you may include up to 12 Selections in your parlays, all sports included. This means that you can make one parlay card with a combination of all your favorite sports! These wagers can be placed very easily online at gtbets.ag.
Please Note: No parlay bets will be accepted where individual 'selections' are connected. For example, one leg of a parlay is for Sampras to beat Henman in the 4th round of Wimbledon and the second or additional part of the parlay is for Sampras to win the overall Wimbledon title. The match forms part of the overall tournament and is therefore 'connected'. In the same way, you cannot parlay the over of the first half of a football game with the over of the total game, because the two are 'connected'.
For NBA and NCAA, first half sides may not be parlayed with the full game side in the same game, and first half totals may not be parlayed with full game total in the same game.
Football and Basketball Parlay Payoffs
Selections | Payout Odds |
2 | 13 to 5 |
3 | 6 to 1 |
4 | 11.5 to 1 |
5 | 22 to 1 |
6 | 40 to 1 |
7 | 80 to 1 |
8 | 150 to 1 |
9 | 300 to 1 |
10 | 500 to 1 |
11 | 1000 to 1 |
12 | 2000 to 1 |
Baseball (moneyline) Parlay Payoffs
Because of the moneyline used in baseball, there are no set payoffs for tying a number of teams together in parlays. Payoffs are determined by a simple formula that changes the moneyline into a decimal number and combines it with the other lines in the parlay. The first step is to change the moneyline into a decimal value. Use the chart below for this purpose.
Values are equivalent to one dollar.
-1.05 | = | .95 | -1.85 | = | .54 |
-1.10 | = | .91 | -1.90 | = | .53 |
-1.15 | = | .87 | -1.95 | = | .51 |
-1.20 | = | .83 | -2.00 | = | .50 |
-1.25 | = | .80 | -2.10 | = | .48 |
-1.30 | = | .77 | -2.20 | = | .45 |
-1.35 | = | .74 | -2.30 | = | .43 |
-1.40 | = | .71 | -2.40 | = | .42 |
-1.45 | = | .69 | -2.50 | = | .40 |
-1.50 | = | .66 | -2.60 | = | .38 |
-1.55 | = | .64 | -2.70 | = | .37 |
-1.60 | = | .62 | -2.80 | = | .36 |
-1.65 | = | .61 | -3.00 | = | .33 |
-1.70 | = | .59 | -3.25 | = | .31 |
-1.75 | = | .57 | -3.50 | = | .29 |
-1.80 | = | .55 | -4.00 | = | .25 |
How to Figure Baseball Parlays
For each price or odds quote on your teams, look at their respective payoffs (to $1) and always add $1 to these payoffs.
Multiply your bet times the products of these payoffs (+$1) for your parlay return.
Example
A Player bet $50 on the Cardinals (-150) parlayed to the Tigers (-130)
Bet | Cardinals | Tigers | Return | |||
(-150) | (-130) | |||||
$50 | X | 1.67 | X | 1.77 | = | $147.80 |
The return includes the $50 bet.
Use the same method for any number of teams.
Example
Bet $75 on the Cubs (+120) to the Reds (-135) to the Mets (Even) for a 3 team parlay
Bet | Cubs | Reds | Mets | Return | ||||
(+120) | (-135) | (Even) | ||||||
$75 | X | 2.20 | X | 1.74 | X | 2.00 | = | $574.20 |
(1.00 + 1.20) | (1.00 + .74) | (1.00 + 1.00) |
The return includes the $75 bet.
Remember to always add $1 to the payoff price to figure all parlays.
Please Note: All Baseball Side Parlays are 'action.' Run Line & Total selections within your parlay will be voided should there be a pitching change. Round Robin Parlays
gtbets.ag is proud to offer Round Robin parlays. A Round Robin is simply a nickname for parlay wagering on a group of selections (at least three or more) that are to be included in a combination of individual parlays. These wagers can be placed very easily online at gtbets.ag.
For instance, if a player asked for a $100, three-team Round Robin with teams A, B, and C, he/she is simply requesting a two-team parlay with teams A and B, another parlay with teams A and C, and another with teams B and C, for a total of 3 individual parlays, each for $100. The total amount risked would be $300.
Round Robins get more complex as the number of teams increases. A four-team Round Robin 'by twos' for $100 would mean that the bettor wants four teams to be included in a combination of two-team parlays. This would be a total of six individual two-team parlays, for a total risk of $600. If the request is for a Round Robin 'by threes', it would include a total of four possible combinations, for a risk of $400.
Example
A player requests a $100 four team Round Robin 'by twos', with teams A, B, C and D. The possible combinations would be as follows:
Teams AB $100 to win $260
Teams AC $100 to win $260
Teams AD $100 to win $260
Teams BC $100 to win $260
Teams BD $100 to win $260
Teams CD $100 to win $260
If all four teams win, the player wins $1240, while risking only $600! If one game loses, there is still a profit, even though three of the parlays would lose. The three winners get back $780, plus the $100 laid for each parlay, for a total of $1080. After subtracting $300 for the 3 losers, the player profits $480!
Just like in our standard parlays, selections from every league and sport can be included!
Please Note: The maximum parley payoff for any one parlay wager shall be $50,000, whatever the stake, or theoretical payout displayed elsewhere on the gtbets.ag system.
A parlay is a wager on multiple games all placed into a single bet. In theory the payout for a 2-team parlay is the same as if you bet one game, collected your winnings plus stake, and then bet the winnings plus stake on a second game. A three 3-team parlay in theory pays the same as if you repeated this process of rolling forward an additional time and a 4-team if you repeated it yet another time… so on and so forth. Some online betting sites allow players to bet up to 25-teams in the same parlay, while most allow a lesser amount such as 10-team max or 8-team max. Now I stated “in theory” because when it comes to football parlays the payouts are often less.
What’s important to note for football betting is many online sportsbooks short-pay point spread selections when adding them to a parlay. In their defense, they get away with this because built deep into their betting rules are terms such as “fixed parlay odds” for football point spreads. Although this might seem unethical, bettors always see the payouts prior to confirming their bet. So, this is more a matter of betting sites taking advantage of recreational bettors who don’t know any better, than it is cheating.
Beware of Fixed Odds Parlays
The image to the right shows the fixed parlay odds for football point spreads offered by popular US betting site BetOnline (review). Now to make sure we’re clear you can wager any number of selections as you’d like in the same football parlay. If each selection wins you’ll get the payouts shown to the left. If any one or more selections lose your entire stake is a lost. Now let me take some time to show what the payout would be if you wagered these individually and then rolled your profit forward each time.
You start with a $100 bet and wager it at -110, this is $100 to win $90.91 so if it wins you end up with $190.91. You then wager that all on the next game at -110, and this is $190.91 to win $173.55 so if it wins you now have $364.46. $100 was your stake, so your profit is $264.46. At BetOnline $100 pays $260. I calculated this by noticing their odds are listed as 13/5 and $100 has 20 parts of 5 so 5*13=$260. As you can see by offering “fixed odds” BetOnline is able to short the payout by $4.64. I’ll save showing the work behind the math, but if you were to keep rolling your $100 initial stake plus winnings forward 6 consecutive times without a loss you’d end up with $4841.27, of which $100 was your stake, and $4741.27 profit. Notice BetOnline only offers 45 to 1 on a 6-team parlay, when the actual odds are over 47.4 to 1. If you think this is small, it’s not; it adds up in a hurry.
When betting sites offer fixed parlay odds on point spreads generally the more teams you bet the worse the odds become. If you were to roll all bets forward 8-times, staking your full return each time, you’d get paid 175.45 to 1 and notice BetOnline only pays 165 to 1 on 8-team parlays. I cover some of this math in my article on football teasers in case you’re interested in how it is calculated, but for now let me state at BetOnline 6-team fixed odds parlays for football give you odds of -111.92 per team and BetOnline 8-team fixed odds parlays for football give you odds of -111.67 per team. For BetOnline parlays it’s fairly consistent and just a matter of rounding. However at sites such as Sportsbook.com and BetUs.com the payouts are even worse on higher number of teams.
How to Get Around Fixed Odds Parlays
There’s a trick you should know about. In Las Vegas, and with many online sportsbooks, fixed odds only apply to point spreads priced -110. If you were to add an alternative selection you can force the sportsbook to give you the true odds. For example an 8 team point spread parlay at BetOnline where 7 teams are -110 and one team is -115 you’ll end up with a payout of 171.8 to 1 instead of the 165 to 1 they offer if all teams were -110. You’re also more likely to win because teams priced -115 win more often than teams priced -110. The golden rule is to never select only teams priced -110 at betting sites that use fixed odds for football parlays.
Another option for parlay bettors is to just turn to sites which don’t short the payouts. Sites I know of that use true odds as opposed to fixed odds include www.bovada.lv and www.bookmaker.eu. Of course there’s another challenge parlays present. The best way to beat sports betting is to line shop for the best price. Forcing yourself to only bet in parlays, instead of straight point spread bets, limits you to using just a single betting site. Truth be told, more times than not parlays are an enemy of football bettors than they are a blessing. There are however times betting parlays does make sense.
Correlated Parlays Are Great
If a betting site allowed you to parlay yes or no for two propositions listed as “will it be rainy today?” and “willing it be cloudy today?” obviously you’d have a huge edge betting parlays instead of straight wagers. Unfortunately online betting sites block parlays for anything too heavily correlated. For example, a college football line from late last season was LSU –49 / NWST +49 with an over/under of 56. Obviously the betting sites did not allow parlays on this game because the results were too heavily correlated. However, there are times where correlations that do make sense are allowed. I recall the opening round of the January 2012 NFL playoffs had a very injured Pittsburgh Steelers team visiting the struggling offense and strong defense of the Denver Broncos. The line was Broncos +7.5 and over/under 33.5. The betting sites did allow me to parlay Denver and the under, which in my opinion was correlated for the reason I thought if Denver did cover the point spread it would most likely be by a low total. This wager didn’t work out as the game turned into a shoot out (go figure eh?) but I’m sure you see the point that betting parlays when there is a correlation does make sense.
Using Parlays for Bonuses
Football Betting Cards Parlay
Bookmaker.eu offers a decent free play sign up bonus and then also offers 20% reload bonuses for deposits made on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. These bonuses are issued as free play credits, and it makes great sense to always use these on parlays. The reason is when you bet say $100 cash at +$100 and win you get back $200 (your stake + win). When you bet using free plays you only get back $100. This is because your $100 staked was a free play; it’s now used up and all you get is your return because win or lose that free play is gone. When you instead use Bookmaker free plays as parlays you’re getting to recycle this stake multiple times.
How To Run A Football Parlay Betting
Circumventing Betting Limits
The final good use for parlays is to circumvent betting limits. For example, if you’re wagering with www.bovada.lv and they have a $1000 max bet on a football point spreads (the same they often do) but this bet has such large expected value you want to get a lot of action down on it. You could then bet more by adding this selection to various 2-team parlays. Perhaps you make one bet straight, and also make a $1000 parlay on the moneyline of the largest favorite on the board plus this team.
Final Thoughts
Parlays are mostly lottery type gambles for recreational bettors, but when used on correlated outcomes, or to increase free play value, or to circumvent betting limits they can be smart plays. In most all other cases you’re far better off betting straight using a football betting system over adding the selection to the parlay. However, if you’re just looking to gamble, be reminded to avoid fixed odds by either adding a team priced something other than -110 to your betting ticket, or by using betting websites with favorable parlay odds. Popular US friendly betting site www.bovada.lv is a great choice for casual gamblers looking to wager football parlays.
How To Run A Football Parlay Odds
Editor’s note: This article provided a decent introduction on “what is a parlay bet” and some basic strategy. If you’re interested in taking your game to the next level, read our page on football betting strategy where many articles to advanced topics are linked.