Profitable Parlays - Fact Or Fiction?

· 4 min read
Profitable Parlays - Fact Or Fiction?

There are countless 'handicapping services' in the business of providing people with parlays. They will tout win rates similar to one of the most impressive straight wager cappers. Needless to say, so as to they refer to money line parlays as 'safe' bets. On a number of these sites you may even have the privilege of working with some sort of royalty in neuro-scientific parlay wagering. Regrettably, thousands will be fooled by this fiction again this football season.

The truth is that exotic wagers keep sports books in business. Next time you're in Vegas take a look at the discarded tickets you see spread everywhere. It's safe to assume that you will find the majority of these losers are made of such bets positioned on both sports and racing. Of all the sucker bets open to sports bettors, the parlay is king. Bettors are lured in by the promise of a huge payout while disregarding the fact that there is absolutely no reasonable expectation of any return on the investment.

The home edge on a standard straight wager at -110 is 4.5%. Compared with many table games this is really a fairly raised percentage. A lot of table games and slots provide a better value for the common bettor placing a random wager. However, we all know that betting on sports isn't anything like throwing a set of dice at the back wall.

Chance is important in everything the house has to offer. There are also steps that could be taken to reduce the edge in only about every game. Nowhere in the casino are elements such as for example skill and preparation more useful than the sports book. The edge on a straight wager could be reversed in the bettors favor by utilizing statistics and expertise in an activity. However, a double digit house edge can never be overcome in the long term.

# of Teams | Actual Odds | Typical Payout | House Edge


2 | 3/1 | 2.6/1 | 10.00%

3 | 7/1 | 6/1 | 12.50%

4 | 15/1 | 10/1 | 31.25%

5 | 31/1 | 20/1 | 34.38%

6 | 63/1 | 40/1 | 35.94%

7 | 127/1 | 75/1 | 40.63%

8 | 255/1 | 150/1 | 41.02%

9 | 511/1 | 300/1 | 41.21%

10 | 1023/1 | 700/1 | 31.54%

As you can plainly see every parlay you can possibly bet includes a whopping 10% house edge or better. Such casino advantages tend to be more consistent with keno, plus they are equally impossible to overcome over time. There is no mystery surrounding the world of parlays. Bettors are drawn to risking handful of money for large payouts. The games which are most often played in the casino are slots that offer thousands and even millions in progressive jackpots. The mentality of the bettors is 'Go big, or go back home.' The casino is actually happy to oblige as millions of bettors go home with nothing within their pockets every year.

78win  is fair to assume that the biggest amount of losing bets that a book accepts are exotic wagers of equal to or double the home minimum. The reason being most bettors do not have a meaningful bankroll reserve for sports betting. Since they don't believe they are able to make any real money by placing $25-50 on several games per week they continue taking parlays for $20 or less. By doing this they essentially ensure a substantial loss by the finish of the season. Meanwhile, if they only placed straight wagers at that same level they would limit their potential losses to some units at most.

Many bettors assume that because they're keeping how big is their bets low they're not taking on a significant risk. This analysis is flawed because it ignores several factors. Most importantly, it really is my experience that a lot of bettors usually do not place just one single parlay per week. In football this means at the least 34 parlays are placed during the regular season. In baseball that number can easily exceed 100. With a minimal unit bet this is still a dangerous amount of wagers to put with such a high house edge. For instance, for anyone who is placing only 5 team parlays your expectation ought to be to lose about $35 for every $100 you wager. Because the number of bets you place increases it is inevitable that you'll hit that $100 mark many times over.

Using parlays as a side bet will usually result in upping your losses or erasing any profits you managed to make on straight wagers. In 2009 2009, I had litigant who broke even with increasing his bankroll by 45% using my picks. He were able to do this by placing 'small' side bets including parlays, reverses, and teasers. That is an expensive lesson to learn especially when you consider I issued an identical warning to him.

If you are likely to follow his lead and continue using parlays I have a few pointers that will assist you in the end. First of all, the best value of most parlays is clearly the three team parlay. The difference between the house edge on a 2 & 3 teamer is insignificant, but the payout is a lot more than twice as much. Invest the a look at the graph you need to understand why I would never bet a parlay of 4 teams or even more. However, if you're going to make this investment here are two useful tips:

If you are going to bet a four or five 5 team parlay, always make it 6 or even 10. The difference between your house edge to add one or two 2 more teams is within 5 percentage points and the payout is significantly higher for both options. The house edge on a 10 teamer is virtually exactly like a 4 team parlay, but the actual odds of hitting it are over 1,000 to at least one 1.
If you are going to throw your money away chasing huge payouts on 7, 8, and 9 team parlays then just bet the 10 teamer. The House edge is about 10 points less than all three of those bets also it typically pays about 700/1.

Setting reasonable goals and being patient while attempting to achieve them is the sign of a profitable professional bettor. Greed must be kept in check to become successful. In this regard, every bettor has two options. You can chase high returns while assuming plenty of unnecessary risk. Or you can minimize your contact with several units while maintaining a reasonable expectation to increase your bankroll by 50%...The choice is yours.