Free Parlay Odds
Jul 07, 2020 To find out what the parlay’s potential payout is, simply multiply parlays odds by the amount you wish to wager. If you want to bet $5, then multiply 46.92 by 5. That equals $234.60, which is the amount you would receive if all picks were correct. Popular Picks, Odds, News. Vancouver Canucks vs Arizona Coyotes: Picks, Odds, Prediction. Thursday 2020-03-12 4:00 am; New York Islanders vs Calgary Flames: Picks, Odds, Prediction. Thursday 2020-03-12 3:00 am; Florida Panthers vs Dallas Stars: Picks, Odds, Prediction. Thursday 2020-03-12 2:30 am.
A parlay bet is a popular form of sports wagering most gamblers are familiar with. In case you’re not, this bet is rather easy to understand. A parlay is simply a combo bet where, rather than betting several teams individually, you group them into a single wager. Using this option, the payout is greater and the risk is less, but you need all teams selected to win.
Free Parlay
To give an example, say you’re interested this week in betting Jets -4, Patriots +3, Dolphins +2.5 and Colts -7. If your bankroll is limited to just $100, using straight wagers you’d make four separate bets of $25 to win $22.73. If you we’re feeling both lucky and in the mood to gamble, you might instead bet them all together as a four team parlay. Under the parlay option, the stakes would be $100 to win at least $1,000. To win, you’ll need to go 4-0; if one or more games push while all others win, the payout is reduced, and with any other outcome, the bet is a loss.
What happens if there’s a push in a parlay? That bet will be taken out of the parlay and the payout will be reduced as if there were one fewer team in the parlay. So if you had a 4 team parlay and you got three picks cocrrect and the other was a push, you would be paid out the odds of a 3 team parlay.
Parlay bets can be very tempting as they can offer some big payouts. See a recent parlay Kevin made at 5Dimes.eu and cashed in on!
Are Parlays Sucker Bets?
There is a general misconception in sports betting that all parlays are sucker bets. This is simply because most sports bettors are not familiar with how they work, or how to bet them properly. In this article, I’ll address parlay betting strategies, but first let’s look at parlay odds and how they are calculated.
The parlay odds at most Las Vegas sportsbooks are:
2 teams 2.6 to 1
3 teams 6-1
4 teams 10-1
5 teams 20-1
6 teams 40-1
7 teams 80-1
8 teams 150-1
Online the odds are similar, though some sites such as BetNow and MyBookie offer better odds starting with three teams and up. What’s important to note is that these are fixed odds based on a 50/50 wagering proposition. If a spread is listed at Home Team -7 / Road Team +7 this is 50/50 proposition. If, instead, the spread was Home Team -7 -105 / Road Team +7 -115, this is no longer a 50/50 proposition, and the payout will be calculated using a method bookmakers refer to as “true odds”. I’ll cover that later in this article, but first let’s take a moment to understand where fixed parlay odds are derived from.
Let’s say you decide for the next eight weeks you’re going to bet the Monday night football game, starting with a $1.00 bankroll and betting your entire bankroll each week until you go 8-0 or bust. The potential win is as follows:
Week 1: $1.00 to win $0.91: If win total profit = $0.91 (Bankroll =$1.91)
Week 2: $1.91 to win $1.74: If win total profit = $2.65 (Bankroll =$3.65)
Week 3: $3.65 to win $3.32: If win total profit = $5.97 (Bankroll =$6.97)
Week 4: $6.97 to win $6.34: If win total profit = $12.31 (Bankroll =$13.31)
Week 5: $13.31 to win $12.10: If win total profit = $24.41 (Bankroll =$25.41)
Week 6: $25.41 to win $23.10: If win total profit = $46.51 (Bankroll =$47.51)
Week 7: $47.51 to win $43.19: If win total profit = $89.70 (Bankroll =$90.70)
Week 8: $90.70 to win $82.45: If win total profit = $172.15 (Bankroll =$173.15)
The reason parlays are often sucker bets shows up in this middle column. Had you bet these in an 8 team parlay, you’d only get paid 150 to one. Essentially, a parlay is no different than betting all in each time, only parlays generally pay much worse. However, you’ll notice the odds are not poor until you get to four teams, where the sportsbook has a whopping 31.25% advantage. Two teams pay a smidgen worse than the manual parlay (all in each time) option, where three team parlays pay a smidgen better. Rarely ever is a 2 or 3 team parlay a true suckers bet.
What Does a Parlay Pay?
As I mentioned earlier, fixed parlay odds vary greatly between online sportsbooks. Here is some info on which sites offer the best fixed parlay odds:
In general two team parlays pay +260, or $260 for every $100 bet. BetNow offers +264.5, and 5Dimes.eu offers +264, which is better than the +260 most betting sites offer.
3 team parlays pay 6/1 or $600 for every $100 bet. BetOnline.ag is the leader in the industry in 3 team parlay payouts.
This is the area where betting sites generally hurt the sports bettor, paying only 10 to 1, which gives them a 31.25% advantage. This can be avoided when betting at BetNow where the payout is +1228.3, or at 5Dimes where it is +1228.
Generally speaking, parlaying 5 teams or more teams is not a good idea; however, for sports gamblers looking for a lotto ticket, 5dimes.eu and Bookmaker.eu each offer up to 15 team parlays and have by far the best odds in the business on these.
How much does a 15 team parlay pay? A 15 team parlay will pay out over +16,000. I just tested this out and a $1 15 team NFL parlay at -110 odds will payout $16,306. Good luck hitting on that!
True Odds Parlays
1 Earlier, I mentioned fixed odds are only given when all selections are 50/50 propositions. If one side of a line requires a greater stake than the other to yield the same payout, this is not a 50/50 proposition, and the bookmaker will now use “true odds”. What’s important to note is that true odds doesn’t actually mean the “true odds” of winning. Rather, true odds pays the same as if you bet each team individually and rolled the profit forward each time, which is what I showed in the example of 8 all in bets starting with a $1.00 stake.
To calculate true odd parlays, each bet first needs to be converted into a multiplier. To do this, take what a winning ticket would return and divide it by the amount risked. For example, at -110 a $110 stake returns $210 ($110 stake + $100 win). Calculating the multiplier as return/risk here, we plug in 210/110, which means the multiplier is 1.91. If we did the same on -115, the multiplier is 215/115=1.87.
Let’s say you’re in the mood to gamble on an 8 team parlay, but the only out available to you is a bookmaker paying 150-1 fixed odds. A trick of the trade here is to include one bet that is priced differently than -110 in order to force the bookmaker to use true odds. So, let’s say you make 7 selections priced at the standard -110 pricing and one at -115. A true parlay calculates by multiplying each modifier together. The math is 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.87, which equals 173.41. This bet returns 173.41 times the stake, which includes the risk amount, so the bet is 1 to win 172.41. Notice this is significantly better than the fixed odds payout of 1 to win 150 on an 8 team parlay. In short, the trick of the trade when dealing with poor fixed odds is to simply add one team to the parlay that is priced differently than the standard -110.
As you can now see, if you know how to bet parlays properly, they are not always sucker bets. There are, however, a few reasons that parlays are generally not a good move. I’ll cover these, and then cover the times it does make sense.
Top Reasons to Avoid Parlays
1) Progressive betting systems are generally regarded as poor strategy for both bankroll management and bankroll growth. Professional bettors make wagers based on their quantified edge per game. While the math can work out, doing the math for proper bet sizing on a parlay is a lot of added work with little to no upside for most sports bettors.
2) Parlay bets have higher variance than straight bets. Here you’re getting the same odds, but your chance of hitting a dry spell is greatly increased. When the odds are the same it is most often better to go with the lower variance option, which in this case is straight wagers.
3) Line Shopping – Sports bettors maximize their profit by always shopping for the best price. For example, finding -4 when other sites are -4.5, and finding reduced vig options such as -104 instead of -110. When betting parlays, you’ll need to find the most favorable odds for each team at a single betting site. This scenario is rare, so generally you’ll end up with better odds by making straight wagers at multiple betting sites.
Parlays That Make the Most Sense:
Reduced Juice – BetOnline.ag offers 6.5 to one on three team parlays. This comes out better than betting sides at the -105 price standard reduced juice sports books offer. In sports such as NFL football where 50/50 wagering propositions are common, a sports bettor gets far superior odds by betting 3 team parlays at BetOnline.
Correlated Parlays – If a bookmaker was offering betting lines on both “will it be cloudy today?” and “will it rain today?”, if allowed, you’d be much better off betting either both as no, or both as yes, in a parlay bet as opposed to straight wagers. While this is a simplified example, there are plenty of times when outcomes are correlated in sports betting. For example, a handicapper might determine that if one team covers the spread, the game is more likely to go over or under the posted total. Also, during the final week of the NFL season, a certain team winning or losing the day game might result in a previously important night game now having no meaning in the playoff race.
Free Play Bonuses – Several online betting sites, for example BetNow, offer players free bets based on the size of their initial deposit. Free play bonuses are not the same as cash. The difference is that a bet made with cash returns both stake and win, where a bet made with a free play returns only win. Parlays allow you the chance to use the same free play more than once, because a parlay really is only a wager that continues to place stake+win on the next selection. Remember, fixed odd three team parlays pay a little better than true odds. So when using free plays to bet 3 team parlays, you’re getting slightly better odds, and also a chance to apply that free play stake to three different bets. This is common knowledge that 3 team parlays are a great use of free play bonuses.
Circumventing Betting Limits – I’ll warn you upfront that betting sites do not take kindly to this, and it might get you banned. The basic idea here is, say you find a parlay with monster value in a small market with low betting limits. Let’s say a woman’s field hockey line opens at +150 when it should be +100. Here making ten unique two-team parlays, using the +150 bet with a random -110 each time might be advantageous, as on average you’ll get down 5 times the max bet. At -110 juice the expected ROI is less, but to get the maximum amount down on line of significant value, it might make sense. While personally I rarely use this strategy online, I do attempt to get away with it in Las Vegas from time to time. This takes a little bit of acting, such as starting to walk away from the cage and then saying wait, also give me… Know this: It is a trick of the trade advantage players use that is not for novice bettors.
This concludes our article on parlay betting. As a final tip: if you enjoy using parlays as a lottery ticket, www.Bovada.lv runs a $10,000 weekly parlay jackpot during football season, which is an added bonus on top of what a $5 stake pays on a 10 team parlay win. To learn more, see the promo section at www.Bovada.lv. If nothing else, this article gives you some great conversation material next time someone in the sports bar says, parlays are for suckers. Hopefully, it ends up being much more than that, adding extra winnings to your bankroll. Either way, we wish you the best of luck.
Other Advanced Sports Betting Strategy Articles:
» Teaser Betting Strategy
» Prop Betting Strategy
» How To Get Max Value When Betting
Super Bowl 55 Parlay Analysis
There was plenty of traction on this piece a year ago, and while the selection (Kansas City and Over) ended up landing a couple of points short. Didn't discourage me from taking another crack at it this year, as we've got the Kansas City Chiefs involved once again.
Last year's Favorite-Under result marked the 12th time that correlation has landed for a Super Bowl, as all the rest of the history hasn't changed from last year's numbers.
Super Bowl Over-Under Correlated Parlay Results
Favorite-Over: 15 times
Favorite-Under: 12 times
Underdog-Over: 10 times
Underdog-Under: 13 times
That's the good news on my end as this year's entry can be much shorter, as jumping right past the historical part of things and down to the individual results by both franchises in the 2020 season.
2020 Season Breakdown
Kansas City ATS Win-Over: 4 times
Kansas City ATS Win-Under: 4 times
Kansas City ATS Loss-Over: 4 times
Kansas City ATS Loss-Under: 6 times
Tampa Bay ATS Win-Over: 5 times
Tampa Bay ATS Win-Under: 6 times
Tampa Bay ATS Loss-Over: 6 times
Tampa Bay ATS Loss-Under: 2 times
Depending on a couple of numbers with Kansas City spreads and totals – most notably the Chiefs/Saints game which is graded at -2.5 or -3 out there – there may be a push or two in KC's category, but nothing egregious in that these things results should always be treated as support, not gospel.
However you look at it though, there does seem to be two stronger correlated results at play for this game, depending on who you like to win the game.
Super Bowl 55 - Most Viewed Stories
Remember, in the previous 13 Super Bowls that were actually regular season rematches, the point-spread hasn't mattered once (13-0 or 12-0-1 ATS for eventual winner depending on if you're using -6.5 or -7 for the 1999 St Louis Rams), so even flipping the ATS side out for a ML correlated parlay is an option this year, if it's available to you.
But let's walk through each potential option here for the 37 total games these two teams have played, even with one of those being a head-to-head outcome that ended up going Underdog-Under in that 27-24 Kansas City win, as Tampa covered the +3.5 through the backdoor, and the 'under' never really approached sweat territory.
That's probably a good place to start.
Option #1: Underdog-Under (Tampa Bay +3 - Under 56)
This would be the clear cut side for those bettors that are favoring quarterback Tom Brady and the Buccaneers this week, as combining those specific results for the two respective teams (TB ATS win-under= KC ATS loss-under) comes up with the largest total of any option: 12.
The majority of 'under' tickets that cashed in Chiefs games this year came when KC failed to cover the spread, and the question of whether or not some of that has to do with the Chiefs “letting up” and letting all those opponents through the backdoor for all those weeks in a row has to at least be considered when looking at those results.
But combined with the slight edge Tampa had to the 'under' in their ATS wins (6 times), and this being the exact result we saw in the first meeting, there is plenty to like here.
Any Tampa SU victory is probably going to come on the backs of some strong defensive play by the Bucs, in whatever fashion that arrives. Whether it's through turnovers, or 3rd down sacks forcing punts etc, no matter how an 'under' bettor wants to get there with even an individual 'under' bet, a strong day by Tampa's defense is probably needed.
Now expecting the exact same ATS and total result in a rematch can be tough to be on board with, which is something I'd definitely have trouble with here, and it's not like the Bucs couldn't go out and win a high scoring game in this Super Bowl.
Tampa's scored 30 or more in all three of its playoff wins and in six straight games overall. They've only played a total of seven games since losing to Kansas City earlier in the year, so it's almost like Brady and Tampa knew they'd have to kick offensive production into high gear if to get here and possibly get another shot at Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Both are right in front of Tampa now, and with how many points their offense has put up in those past six games (35.6 points per game) has to bring pause to any 'under' look as well.
Option #2: Underdog-Over (Tampa Bay +3 - Over 56)
All those points Tampa's been putting up is part of what 'over' bettors are leaning on for this game, and as a combined number from both teams this year, that option comes in 3rd place with 9 total occurrences.
This would be the option most who like Tampa to win the game would land on I believe, simply because of the general consensus out there that the only way to beat Mahomes and the Chiefs is to outscore them in a shootout. It's how the Raiders did it earlier this year (40-32) and even KC's most recent two losses a year ago followed a similar script.
Tampa's had a few solid wins of this nature already this year, including out scoring that same Raiders (45-20), in the Raiders very next game following that win over the Chiefs. Talk about another thing falling into place for Brady and the Bucs this year, as they even catch non-conference foes in huge letdown spots after big wins like that.
The most notable Tampa win that fell in this category though was beating Green Bay in the NFC Championship, although three 2nd half interceptions from Brady and some questionable decision making by the Packers helped that result get to the finish line too.
But sitting in third out of four potential options in the tallies for these teams this year, and the general consensus being any upset win for the Bucs is likely going to have to come in a high-scoring game, not sure I could fully get behind this option at all.
It could easily happen, but definitely wouldn't be the first choice.
Free Parlay Odds Game
Option #3: Favorite-Under (Kansas City -3 - Under 56)
A Tampa-Over correlated parlay might not be my first choice, but I do know that my last choice would probably have to be this one and the history supports it.
The combined total of this result is the lowest of any four options (6), and it would also mean that one thing would have to happen that I'd have a hard time getting behind; the Chiefs defense completely keeping Tom Brady and the offense in check.
Never mind the notion that Tampa will benefit from the possibility of more flags being thrown on their opponent, or even the six straight games of scoring 30+ for the Bucs offense. Both of which are valid points to stay away from this kind of correlated play.
But this is yet another high stakes matchup throughout the careers of QB Tom Brady and KC Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, and Brady's too much of Spagnuolo's schemes/defenses not to be well prepared for this game.
Spagnuolo was a defensive coach on Andy Reid's staff in Philadelphia in the early 2000's when the Eagles were making all those NFC title games, only getting to the Super Bowl once and losing to Tom Brady.
Spagnuolo then moved on to become the defensive coordinator for the New York Giants in 2007, learning from his mistakes in that NE/Philly 2004 Super Bowl as a defensive assistant to become the architect who ended Brady and New England's perfect season.
There have been a few other stops along the way for these two, but most recently it's been these battles these past two years with Brady vs KC, as Spagnuolo became the DC there in 2019.
I know that if I was Brady in that historical timeline, I'd never forget about the guy who schemed up the plan to prevent me from making history like being the 2nd team ever to have a perfect season.
And outside of a slow 1st half in the regular season meeting this year, Brady's offenses haven't had a problem scoring on Spagnuolo's defenses for the most part since that 2007 Super Bowl. At least not when Brady's had the caliber of weapons that he has at his disposal this year.
Brady's seen it all from this guy from a scheme perspective, and if he and Tampa execute correctly and efficiently, then, backing this correlated side is rather hard to get behind.
Tampa's going to get their points in my opinion, and for this Favorite-Under correlation to hit, both defenses are going to need to play lights out and hold down both of these QB's. Not something I see happening too often either.
Option #4: Favorite-Over (Kansas City -3 and Over 56)
The other half of any locked in 'over' belief here comes in as what had the 2nd best tally of the bunch (10) for both teams this year, as KC split 4-4 O/U in games that they covered the number, but games that Tampa failed to cash an ATS ticket, the 'over' connected in six of eight tries.
Leaning on that (75%) result isn't going to be hard for most to do given it means cheering for plenty of points from Mahomes and company, and with it being the best correlated result in Super Bowl history over the years still (15 times), the more support the better.
Free Parlay College Football
But while public percentages and that type of handicapping approach aren't nearly as useful for Super Bowl betting, the idea that this option feels like the “squarest of the bunch” doesn't particularly sit right.
I think given that the majority of those 10 combined results for this approach came in higher scoring games that turned out to be Tampa Bay ATS losses, maybe going the KC team total 'over' route may be the better option to sharpen those edges around that square, although you wouldn't be able to parlay the two together in all likelihood.
Free Parlay Cards
Couldn't fault anyone for going with this option with all things considered, it's just not the one for me.