3/25/2022

Parlay Bet Example

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Parlay Bet Example 5,0/5 4527 votes

NFL betting and NFL parlays go hand in hand, and aside from straight wagering, NFL parlay bets are the most popular type of wager placed on the NFL An NFL parlay is a bet where you combine multiple selections into a single wager, with all of the selections needing to win for your bet to win.

Before we go any further, we need to explain what a parlay is fully.

By definition, a parlay is a group of multiple individual bets (two or more) that are connected together and treated as one big wager.

How To Bet Parlay

In order to win the entire bet, you have to win each of the individual bets on your parlay. If you lose one individual bet, then you lose the entire parlay bet.

Why would you ever want to group bets together and force them to be dependent on each other?

The reason is that the sportsbook will pay you out much more money for correctly picking multiple individual bets together.There is more risk in this type of bet so it should be expected that we are offered a higher reward for making this wager.

What do parlay bets pay
  • A parlay is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers for a high payout. A 2 team parlay might pay 13/5, a three team parlay might pay 6/1, a four team parlay might pay 10/1, and so forth with the payouts getting higher with more teams or totals selected.
  • For example, if you have a three-team parlay and you win two bets and the third pushes, you would be paid out as if you won a two team parlay. Forcing True Odds There’s a fancy little trick floating around that can be used when a sportsbook is not paying out true odds (meaning they have manipulated them slightly in their favor which most of.

Let’s compare betting three games individually versus betting them as a parlay.

Parlay Bet Example

Let’s assume that each game is -110 moneyline odds.

Let’s also assume that our bankroll for these three games is $300. We’re going to look at the scenarios if we picked all three games correctly and if we only picked two of the games correctly.

If we bet the games individually, we would bet $100 per game.

2 Team Parlay Bet

GameBet AmountOddsOutcomeProfit/Loss
Game 1$100-110Win$90.91
Game 2$100-110Win$90.91
Game 3$100-110Win$90.91
Our total profit would be $272.73 if we bet all three of these games individually.

Now, what would happen if we picked all three games as a parlay bet? This time, we would place a single bet of $300. We will go over how to calculate parlay payouts in the section below here, but for now, we have done the calculations for you.

The profit on this bet as a parlay would be $1787.40! Even if we only bet $100 total, we would see a profit of $595.80. As you can see, you can bet 1/3 of the amount you bet total in the individual games and still make more than double what you would betting the games individually.

At this point, a lot of people are wondering why you would ever bet anything but parlays. You can bet less and make so much more! Well, as you are probably guessing, there is more to the story.

Let’s look at what happens in our same example, except this time we only pick two out of the three games correctly. We bet the same games again for $100 each individually, and we are correct on two out of the three games.

GameBet AmountOddsOutcomeProfit/Loss
Game 1$100-110Win$90.91
Game 2$100-110Win$90.91
Game 3$100-110Loss($100.00)

If we bet all three of the games as a parlay for $300 (or $100), our profit is negative $300 or negative $100. If you get even one game wrong in a parlay, you lose the entire bet. You’ve now seen the downside to parlays.

You have to be perfect to cash in, or you lose.

Even if you only get one game correct betting them individually, you’re only going to lose $109. If you bet the same $300 on a parlay, though, you lose the entire $300. The risk is higher for parlays, but the associated reward is also higher.

A parlay, accumulator (or acca), combo bet or multi is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers and is dependent on all of those wagers winning together. The benefit of the parlay is that there are much higher payoffs than placing each individual bet separately, since the difficulty of hitting all of them is much higher. If any of the bets in the parlay lose, the entire parlay loses. If any of the plays in the parlay ties, or 'pushes', the parlay reverts to a lower number of teams with the odds reducing accordingly.

Parlay Meaning

Odds and payout[edit]

Parlay bets are paid out at odds higher than the typical single game bet, but still below the 'true' odds. For instance, a common 2-team NFL parlay based entirely on the spread generally has a payout of 2.6:1.[citation needed] In reality however, if one assumes that each single game bet is 50/50, the true payout should instead be 3:1 (10% expected value for the house). A house may average 20-30% profit on spread parlays compared to perhaps 4.5% profit on individual sports mix parlay bets.

Aside from 'spread' parlays, another way to parlay is to bet on two or more teams simply winning straight up. In order to calculate the payout of this parlay, one must multiply out the payout for all games. For example, if 3 teams are -385 favorites, a successful parlay on all 3 teams winning would pay out at a ratio of approximately 1/1. This is because (385/485)^3 is approximately 50%.

Examples[edit]

How do parlays work

Typical payouts for up to 10 team parlay bet[edit]

The following is an example of a traditional Las Vegas Parlay Card at William Hill Sports Book, which shows the typical payouts for an up to 10 team parlay bet based on -1.10 prices (amount won is assuming $100 is bet)[citation needed]:

NumberOddsAmount wonPayout
2 Team Parlay2.6 to 1$260$360
3 Team Parlay6 to 1$600$700
4 Team Parlay11 to 1$1,100$1,200
5 Team Parlay22 to 1$2,200$2,300
6 Team Parlay45 to 1$4,500$4,600
7 Team Parlay90 to 1$9,000$9,100
8 Team Parlay180 to 1$18,000$18,100
9 Team Parlay360 to 1$36,000$36,100
10 Team Parlay720 to 1$72,000$72,100

Profitability of parlays in sports betting[edit]

Many gamblers have mixed feelings as to whether or not parlays are a wise play. The best way to analyze if they are profitable in the long term is by calculating the expected value. The formula for expected value is: E[X] = x1p1 + x2p2 + x3p3…xkpk . Since the probability of all possible events will add up to 1 this can also be looked at as the weighted average of the event. The table below represents odds.[citation needed]

Column 1 = number of individual bets in the parlay

Column 2 = correct odds of winning with 50% chance of winning each individual bet

Column 3 = odds payout of parlay at the sportsbook

Column 4 = correct odds of winning parlay with 55% chance of winning each individual bet

Number of individual betsCorrect odds at 50%Odds payout at sportsbookCorrect odds of winning parlay at 55%
23 to 12.6 to 12.3 to 1
37 to 16 to 15.0 to 1
415 to 112 to 19.9 to 1
531 to 124 to 118.9 to 1
663 to 148 to 135.1 to 1
7127 to 192 to 164.7 to 1
8255 to 1176 to 1118.4 to 1
9511 to 1337 to 1216.1 to 1
101,023 to 1645 to 1393.8 to 1
112,047 to 11,233 to 1716.8 to 1

Betting Parlay Payout

The table illustrates that if a 55% chance of winning each individual bet were achievable, parlays would be profitable in the long term. Compare the expected value you receive on an individual bet at a typical price of -110 with a 55% chance of winning: ((100/110+1)*.55)-1 = .05 (exactly 5 cents won for every dollar bet on average), multiplied by 11 = .55, to the expected return on the 11 game parlay ((1234/717.8)-1) = .719 (72 cents won for every dollar bet on average). In this case a parlay has a much higher expected value than individual bets with greatly increased variance in outcomes.

What's A Parlay Bet

See also[edit]

How Are Parlay Bets Calculated

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