Parlay Betting – How To Bet Parlays

Jay Sanin on April 2, 2024

Parlays bets are quite common and a favorite offering of legal sportsbooks throughout the country. Parlays are especially common during football season but are in play year-round and for all sports. Parlay bets combine two or more wagers into a single bet for enhanced odds in return. For a bettor to win a parlay, all the included picks, or legs, of the parlay, must win for the bet to be graded a winner. If any single leg of the parlay loses, the bet is considered a loser. Parlays give sports bettors the opportunity for a much larger payday in exchange for an elevated level of risk when compared to betting each leg individually.

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Understanding Parlays – How a Parlay Bet Works

Parlays are two or more bets combined into one wager, all of which must win for you to cash your parlay. For a hypothetical five-leg parlay example, going 4-1 is no different than going 0-5, both would be considered a loss. Going 5-0 would be considered a winner, and pay in the +2000 neighborhood if all bets were sides or totals. You can include sides, totals, game props, player props, or any other offering allowed by a sportsbook in your parlay.

When betting parlays, point spread parlays have a fairly set pay scale when it comes to return on the number of legs used. This is due to the nature of the -110 fixed odds that are generally used for sides and totals on football and basketball wagers. Payouts can begin to change drastically when using moneyline options in parlays. Adding legs that have larger plus or minus odds figures will have a significant impact on the payout of a given parlay. Parlay payouts will differ slightly from sportsbook to sportsbook, with the variance increasing with each added leg.

As mentioned, however, if only playing sides, totals, and other -110 offerings, the consensus payouts are as follows:

Point Spread Parlay Betting Table Payouts

# Of Parlay Teams	Parlay Payout
2 Team Parlay	+260
3 Team Parlay	+600
4 Team Parlay	+1000
5 Team Parlay	+2000
6 Team Parlay	+4000
7 Team Parlay	+7500
8 Team Parlay	+10000
9 Team Parlay	+15000
10 Team Parlay	+20000

** Online Sportsbook average payouts, some parlay betting sites offer higher returns

The plus figure odds returns should be read as the return on a $100 wager. For instance, the +2000 return on a winning five-team parlay would return $2000 on a $100 wager. The payout proportion remains the same regardless of the amount wagered, a bettor making a wager on a five-team parlay stands to win $20 for every $1 wagered if all legs included win. The massive odds boost is the primary reason parlays are popular with many sports bettors.

Ties, or pushes, are generally handled as such at parlay sportsbooks. At the majority of sportsbooks, a tie simply reduces the number of teams in your parlay. Using the example on the pay table above, if you bet a four-team parlay and one of the included bets is a push, the remaining three games are now considered a three-team parlay. If those three remaining games all win, you will be paid in the neighborhood of +600, the odds of a three-team parlay.

While many bettors love the appeal of point spread parlays, others view them as poor value bets due to the house advantage increasing over what it is for straight bets. There is also the return on moneyline parlays to consider, which bettors may view quite differently. Adding just one large plus figure in a parlay can significantly alter the rate of return. The same bettors that may turn their nose up at point spread-based parlays, may be far more eager to play a moneyline parlay.

Understanding Moneyline Parlays – How Does a Moneyline Parlay Payout

Moneyline parlays do not pay off at the same nearly fixed odds rate as point spread parlays. While a parlay made against the point spread assumes a roughly 50/50 chance for each team to win, moneyline parlays do not. The chances of a -260 favorite winning a game are significantly greater than the assumed 50% against the point spread. Meanwhile, a +200 underdog is assumed to have a much lower probability of winning outright than against the spread. As a result, the payouts for these bets are calculated differently. Naturally, a two-team parlay on a pair of -200 money line favorites pays less than a two-team parlay that uses a pair of -110 point spread options. On the other side, a pair of +130 underdog options would pay more.

In the examples above, a pair of -200 favorites would pay out roughly +125. On the other side, a pair of small underdogs at +130 would pay out in the neighborhood of +430. The odds of each leg in the parlay matter significantly when calculating payout.

Using an Chicago White Sox at -130 in a two-team parlay. If you make a $10 wager, you will have an expected return of around +275 on a winning bet. The increase in the payout is due to the Angels winning as underdogs, despite having a -160 leg in the parlay.

Calculating Moneyline Parlay Payouts

Calculating money line parlay payouts is a fairly easy task, but does require some basic math. Essentially, each leg of the parlay is converted to a decimal figure and multiplied by the decimal figure of each leg to calculate the potential payout.

The first thing you need to do is convert the odds of each selection in your parlay into a decimal. When considering a favorite in your parlay, simply divide 1 by the set odds. If you are using a -170 favorite in your parlay, the conversion is 1/1.70, which is .5882. Because the amount of the wager is returned on a winning bet, the calculated figure must be added to 1. This means the figure used for payout calculation purposes would be 1.5882.

Using this betting line as an example, a bettor taking two -170 favorites will calculate the payout by multiplying 1.5882 by 1.5882, which equals 2.522. In turn, a $10 parlay will return a total of $25.22, or have odds of +152.

When adding underdogs in a parlay, it is equally easy to calculate. You will simply add 1 to the payout, the same as you with a favorite. The difference is that an underdog will already have a decimal figure higher than 1 due to the figure being divided by 1 being greater than 1. For example, a +150 underdog is calculated as 2.50. Dividing 1.5/1 = 1.5 and the addition of 1 gives 2.50. Using another hypothetical example, if you make a $10 parlay on a -170 favorite and a +150 underdog, your payout is calculated by multiplying 1.5882 by 2.50, which equals 3.970, so you’d receive $39.71, or +297 odds.

Three or more team parlays are calculated exactly the same, simply multiplying each decimal figure by the next for each included leg. For another example, if you were to make a parlay of three -170 favorites, you would multiply 1.5882 x 1.5882 x 1.5882, which equals 4.06. This means a $10 wager would return $40.06, or +300 odds.

If you want to dig deeper into parlay betting options, check out how to play a Progressive Parlay.

Are Parlays a Good Bet?

There is plenty of debate on whether or not parlays are good bets in the sports betting community. However, most serious sports bettors know that the increased risk of parlay wagers is simply not worth the potential for an increased payout on those bets. This is evidenced by the hold rates at major sportsbooks like BetMGM on parlay wagers when compared to straight bets.

Online sportsbooks in the United States have reported hold percentages on parlays that are sometimes more than double their hold rate on straight bets. This is a function of every leg of a parlay needing to win for a parlay ticket to cash, something that is hard to make happen given the 50/50 probability of markets like spread, total, and prop bets. Try flipping a coin 10 times at home and see how often all 10 flips land on one side and that is what some of the larger parlays you’ve assembled are akin to.

However, bettors continue to involve themselves with parlays in spite of the math, in the hopes of hitting it big at some point. While some parlay wagers do in fact win, straight bets might be the better strategy for those actually looking to win at sports betting.