17.01.2022 - Parlays are attractive bets you can find among any sportsbook because of their incredibly high payoff. Rather than making most punters rich, parlays are the biggest revenue source of the house or operator. In this article, we will tackle the fundamentals of parlay bets and see why players are willing to take the risk.
Parlays combine two or more bets into a single wager. These are also known as accumulators, Acca, or multi-bets for teams to win specific games. To give you a clear picture of what punters love about parlay betting, let us set two baseball teams with odds of -120 each. If you are to wager $100 for those teams and they win (quite easily since both of them are the favorites for the season), you get a $183 payout for each of your bets or a total of $366.
Instead of making single bets, let us parlay those two bets of -120 with a stake of only $100 instead of $200. Your payout will be $236.11 should those two win their game. Wagers with small returns can provide you with much higher payouts than before thanks to parlays. These are also bets with a higher chance of winning since you are betting on favorites.
What makes parlays attractive is its massive payout for just a small stake. When you add more bets to your parlay wager, the higher the payout for winning all bets. As an average punter would think of doing, let us find more low-risk bets to add to our parlay. Imagine the start of a season where the top teams are against low-ranking ones. We add two -110 on top of two -120 bets into one parlay with a $100 stake. Should all four of those favorites win their games, your parlay wager will have a payout of $1,125.
Why Few Players Win Their Parlay Bets
Given the massive average payouts of parlay bets, why are numerous seasoned punters refusing to take them? For a much interesting question, why are sports betting sites promoting parlay bets on their platform? These questions can be answered by knowing how to win a parlay bet, which is to win “all” of your wagers. If one of the wagers loses, the entire parlay bet is already a loss. Adding more wagers to the parlay increases the chance of losing the bet, which is why the payout is higher for large parlays.
In the real world, there are no guaranteed outcomes to any sports matches, from basketball to NFL or even cricket – we all just make educated guesses! In fact, even if a team is marked at -150, there is always a chance that they can lose the match. Sportsbook is never an exact science and bookmakers may under or overprice their market. Even the best handicappers in the market may fail to account for a player going through a health problem or a dispute among the team’s manager.
A -150 bet is likely to close to -110 or is a +120 if the opposing team happens to have an edge that no one accounted for. Parlay bets that have several -120 bets or lower still have a realistic chance of losing the entire wager. Parlays are the equivalent of playing progressive slots. Your chances of winning the highest possible payout of a progressive game are extremely low.
Winning Parlay Bets
There is still value in parlay bets since it can boost the payout of favored picks. You can increase your edge over the house by knowing the true odds or closer to the actual odds of specific markets you plan on parlaying.
One method is to go through sports news and recent reports for both teams. Take note of possible injury reports or specific events that affect certain players. The wagers you want for your parlay should consist of favorable picks against a team with players that are in their best condition.
It pays to know which picks have the better team management throughout the season or the previous one. Favored picks usually have just one or more outstanding players while the rest are just fillers to get the top athletes on the court. If you can zero in on management who place importance on team dynamic instead of just providing more chances for a few of their members to score, you have a solid pick for your parlay bet.
Another method is to increase your odds of winning your parlay bet by limiting the wagers to only three teams. Three picks should already give you a substantial payout than winning those three wagers separately. To keep a better edge against the house, these picks should be at around -120 to +110.
Parlays are money-makers for sportsbooks due to their high house edge where losing a single wager can null the entire bet. However, parlay provide punters with better payouts on certain markets.
