The general rule regarding parlays is: DON'T.
Parlays generally carry an increased house edge than straight bets, which means you give the book a more impressive advantage over you when you play them. That, alone, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed combined with fear that often lead to betting parlays. People think they are risking less with parlays, but they are not. They believe they can win more with parlays, however they cannot. The higher win with parlays is far outweighed by the higher probability of losing. Parlay bettors are actually risking more, with less probability of collecting.
A parlay is not an individual bet. It is two bets -- a one-unit bet on one team and a two-unit bet on another. Which team gets the two-unit bet? In point-spread betting at constant money odds, if both teams win or both teams lose no matter which team gets the double bet. When one team wins and one team loses, however, the double bet is presumed to have been on the loser. How smart is that for the bettor? Go ahead, create a parlay. We'll wait until both games are over, and in case there is a split we'll put the double bet on the loser. If your bookmaker sold you a parlay with that line, just how many of you would still make the bet?
A parlay is also bad money management. In a parlay you either bet double on the second team, or nothing on that same team, depending upon whether the first game won or lost. That adds an element of luck to your betting that doesn't should be there. The skilled handicapper is definitely seeking to make smart investments. He tries to remove the effect of luck to the best extent possible to make his results as predictable as you possibly can.
As with every rule, however, you can find exceptions. The exception to the rule regarding parlays occurs when the two bets are co-dependent.
I knew one bookmaker who was taken for tens of thousands because he didn't understand the co-dependency of certain bets. He allowed a player to consistently parlay the initial half with the game. The player parlayed totals by combining the over in the first half with the over in the overall game, and the under in the initial half with under in the game. Both parlays were made in the same game. Each time the player won he would win 2.6 times his bet. Betting $100 on each parlay, if one of them won, the player would win $260 and lose $100 on the other parlay for a net win of $160. He could never win both parlays. If he lost both parlays he'd lose $200.
Initially, this appeared to be a great opportunity for the book. The normal coin-flip odds of winning one parlay out of the two are 50-50. So far as the bookie was concerned the bettor ought to be winning $160 half enough time, and losing $200 half enough time. The bettor, however, making $500 parlays, was ahead a lot more than $20,000 after six months, and the book begun to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.
The issue for the bookmaker was that the two halves of each parlay were co-dependent. By the end of the first half, the bettor was hardly ever in a 50-50 situation.
Take the Thursday night game between Utah and Air Force. The game total was 53 and the initial half total was 27. By the end of the initial half, the score was 31-21, for a complete of 52 first-half points. The first half of one of many parlays, the "over" in the first half was successful. For the parlay probability to be correct, there should now be a 50-50 possibility of winning the "over" for the game. Obviously the odds of winning the "over" in the overall game weren't 50-50 but much better than 99% in favor of the "over." The ball player only had a need to win the first half of the parlay to be virtually assured he would collect 2.6 times his money rather than just $10 for $11.
Before you rush out to try this, remember that most off-shore books are much too smart to enable you to parlay first half to game. If they do permit you to do this, start worrying about collecting because that book will be taken to the cleaners.
There are, however, some less obvious co-dependent parlays that may still be made at many books. One type of co-dependent parlay may be the parlay of the side and total in exactly the same game.
Any game in which the total is less than double the spread can provide you an advantage in parlaying side to total in the same game. We've already discussed, in a prior article, how to use these anomalous side and total combinations to hedge each other and boost your win with hardly any increase in risk. This type of bet, however, needed that you have an opinion privately or the full total. Parlaying is another method to boost your potential win on these games, or even to create a potential win should you have no opinion.
You can find two games this Saturday that qualify. They're Virigina -25 over Duke with a complete of 48 �, and Kansas St. -24 � vs. North Texas with a total 46 �).
In the Virginia game, if you were to think that Virginia covers the 25 points, they must hold Duke to only 11 points or the game will go over the full total. The more likely it becomes through the game that Virginia covers 25 points, the more likely it becomes that the game will go over 48 �. The wider Virginia's winning margin, the more likely the game will go over. If you want Virginia to cover the spread, and you believe that Duke will never be shut out, in that case your possibility of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are higher than the standard 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it really is not as likely that Virginia covers the 25 points. Therefore, nhà cái thabet that a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is higher than the normal 25%.
For those who have no opinion on the overall game, you can parlay the favourite with the "over" and the underdog with the "under" and collect sufficiently often to exceed the losses when both parlays lose. In the only other game meeting the qualifications this week -- Friday's game between California -30 against New Mexico State with a complete of 58 -- the under has recently won with the underdog for a winning two-parlay spread.
The closer the posted total is to the spread on the side, the better win-rate will be on the parlay "spread" bet. The co-dependency in side to total parlays is not as strong as parlaying first half and game totals (if it were, most books wouldn't normally allow such bets), but you will find a sufficient co-dependency in the games with low totals and high spreads to help make the strategy profitable long-term.
Not all bookmakers will help you to parlay the medial side to the full total in the same game, because progressively more are realizing these bets are occasionally co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets that you consider including such bets in your professional betting arsenal.
If your bookmaker provides "if/reverse" bets, you can replace the parlay bet having an "if/reverse" bet and achieve greater success.