Have you ever wondered what could be better than winning one bet? What if you could win a carefully designed series of bets and have your payout go through the roof?
You can accomplish this by placing a parlay bet. In a parlay wager, two or more bets are combined, for example, a spread wager and an over/under wager.
When parlays win, you’re guaranteed to win big, even though they’re less likely to win. If you bet on two or more outcomes, a parlay will always pay out more than if you bet on each individual outcome separately. To win, all wagers must be correct.
You’ll find everything you need to know about parlay betting on this page. Let’s look at examples of parlays in action to explain how they work.
What Is Parlay Betting?
A parlay bet sometimes called an accumulator or combo bet is a wager in which two or more bets are combined and all outcomes must be correct.
Bettors can find parlays appealing. This is because you can win more than they would if they place each bet individually (assuming that each side’s total bet amounts are equal).
The Moneyline or point spread is bet on in each of the games in a parlay bet. All your picks must win in order for your parlay to be successful. Your chances of winning are slim if any of them lose.
Parlay Types And How They Work
Parlays are bets that combine multiple wagers (called “legs”) into one. Each leg of a parlay must win if the parlay is to be successful. A seven-team parlay that loses its seventh team, but its first six teams win, is a loser.
The risk associated with parlays is due to this reason. Parlays, however, offer much higher payouts than single bets because they combine multiple wagers into one bet.
Parlay betting is making with most types of wagers. A parlay can include a Moneyline, point spread, and total (with some exceptions). There are some sportsbooks that also offer parlays on prop bets (again, there may be some restrictions).
Your options are virtually endless when it comes to parlays.
Standard Parlay
Football (NFL and college), basketball (NBA and college), baseball, and hockey are the four most popular North American sports for parlays.
There is no minimum or maximum amount of wagers that parlays need, but the number of wagers totally depends on the sportsbook. This latter bet isn’t recommended since predicting 10+ outcomes accurately is extremely difficult.
This brings us to this point: As you add legs to your parlay, your winnings grow. If you add more legs, your chances of winning decrease significantly.
Parlay Betting Rules
In general, it is permissible to wager across different types of bets and across different sports, so long as the events are independent and unrelated.
Correlation parlay betting is not permittable by sportsbooks. A correlated parlay is exactly what it sounds like, but what is it? Parlays that correlate bets on two events that have a direct connection.
To wager on the Nuggets/Clippers game, for instance, you will need to make your wagers independently at halftime and at full-time. The reason for this is that accurate result is directly creatable. It is extremely likely that the game will remain as such for the full-time period if it is grossly below or above the halftime line.
As these consider semi-correlations, they will let you bet on Over/Under, as well as winners.
When placing a parlay bet, it’s also important to remember that a tie outcome, or in some cases a null bet, will remove that event from the wager, and the payout will revert to the next lowest number of games.
If one outcome is a tie, push, or void, then a five-game parlay becomes a four-event parlay.
Do Parlay Bets Include the Spread?
That’s right. When placing a parlay bet, you can include the spread so long as the two outcomes are not completely correlated.
You will have a more difficult time wagering on a point spread because bookies often set lines based on the final outcome. So, even if you’re 100% certain of the winning team, if they don’t win by an adequate margin you can still lose the bet if you choose the spread.
