"Parlays are for suckers"!
While there is no doubt that suckers do love their parlays, the sharp bettor can find a variety of ways to use parlays to their advantage.
This is the fourth blog in our series called The Sports Betting Path which is designed to help bettors go from amateurs to seasoned pros. If you haven't checked out the other blogs, then we highly encourage you to go back and do so.
What Exactly is a Parlay Bet?
A parlay bet is a type of sports wager where you combine multiple individual bets into a single, interconnected bet. In a parlay, you choose the outcomes of two or more events, such as the winners of different sports games or the total points scored in multiple matches. The key feature of a parlay is that all of your chosen bets must be correct for you to win the parlay bet. If any one of your selected bets is incorrect, the entire parlay is lost, and you receive no payout.
Parlay bets offer the potential for significantly higher payouts than individual bets, as the odds of winning a parlay are lower due to the added risk of needing all selected outcomes to be accurate. This increased risk can make parlay bets an exciting and potentially rewarding option for sports bettors looking for a higher risk-reward proposition. However, they are also more challenging to win, so one must be willing to accept the increased risk for the possibility of a larger payout.
How Do I Find Value in Parlay Bets?
If you read our last blog on Finding Value in Standard Bets, then you'll notice that the strategy here isn't too much different. On heavy sports days, one should have no shortage of opportunity to find value at more than one bet at any given sportsbook at one time.
As I write this, it's a Friday afternoon in November with college basketball having just started. Particularly early in the season, there is a a lot of value to be found in college basketball as the teams are not well known and a ton of games on the board.
On my screen, I can see that there are 5 games with positive value at BetMGM.
Once I add all of these events to my bet slip, I can see that this bet has a projected ROI of 6.01%. This means that on a $50 bet, one is expected to win approximately $3.00. Now again, it should be noted that this bet is going to lose a lot more often than it's going to win. With a Nostradamus No-Vig of +2849, we can expect this bet to win around 3.4% of the time. However, since we are getting +3027, there is still value. Making hundreds or thousands of these bets over time will result in the bettor making money!
Why Place a Parlay Instead of a Straight Bet
Let's be clear. Generally, we think bettors should mostly stick to straight bets, however, people may choose to place parlay bets instead of straight bets for several reasons:
- Higher Potential Payouts: Parlay bets offer the potential for significantly higher payouts compared to straight bets. Since all selected outcomes must be correct to win a parlay, the odds of winning are lower, but the potential rewards are greater. This can be appealing to bettors who are looking for a larger payoff for their wager.
- Entertainment Value: Parlay bets can add excitement and entertainment to sports betting. Combining multiple bets into a single wager can make watching a series of games or events more thrilling, as each outcome impacts the overall parlay.
- Other Reasons: In future blogs, we will discuss a few other reasons as to why it could be advantageous for bettors to play parlays. Until then, we hope that you enjoyed this breakdown, and good luck out there against the books!
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