How Does A Football Parlay Work
How Do NFL Teasers Work? Since you’re teasing the football lines by a certain number of points, you can only have point spreads and totals in your NFL teasers – no moneylines, props or futures. Otherwise, these bets work much the same way as parlays: You can’t bet both sides of a line, and you can’t bet the same team more than once. Payouts on a 2 team parlay are standard throughout the industry at 13/5. Sportsbooks will pay $2.64 for every $1.00 wagered. Now one has to take into account that the true parlay odds on a 2 team parlay at -110 (standard vigorish) is +264 roughly right around 13:5 so most bookmakers do offer fair odds on 2 and 3 team parlays. Once you get over the 3 team parlay is when the bookmakers start to juice the odds against the player. By definition, a parlay is a group of multiple individual bets (two or more) that are connected together and treated as one big wager. 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. In its essence a parlay bet is a wager on two or more different events and the bettor wins only when all wagers are winners. There are different forms of parlay bets that would allow you to win even if one or more of the bets in the parlay are losers, but we will focus solely on the regular parlay in this article.
A parlay is a single sports wager that involves two or more bets combined into one. This can include point spreads, moneylines, totals, futures, or even prop bets, as long as the bets are on different games.
The allure of these bets has always been a larger payout than choosing a single team to win. But there’s more gamble to these types of wagers because every “leg” of the parlay needs to not lose in order to win. If one leg loses, the whole parlay loses.
The flexibility of a parlay bet also makes it attractive to gamblers. You can combine multiple sports into your parlay bet; for example, you can include the Cowboys from the NFL, the Celtics from the NBA and the Coyotes from the NHL into a single bet. If they all win, you win.
Test out the parlay calculator above and compare odds at different sportsbooks to see how it works!
Placing a parlay bet
There are two ways to place a parlay bet and both are quite simple. Bettors can either tell the ticket writer directly which teams and totals they’d like to bet on and how much they’d like to risk on the bet. Filling out a parlay card is the other option for placing this kind of bet. Once the card is filled in, the bettor simply needs to visit the sportsbook desk to place the bet.
Some mobile sports wagering apps offer both types of parlay bets.
Get the best parlay deal at online sportsbooks with Parlay Insurance here:
Winning a parlay
There are two instances when a parlay can be a winning bet. A parlay only wins if none of the sides, totals or moneylines selected is a loser. The parlay can still be a winner if a game is canceled or ends in a tie. The pay schedule will simply more down to the lesser payment. For example, the bettor will win if a baseball parlay for four teams has three winners and one game is canceled because of rain. The bet will only pay based on the schedule for three winners instead of four as originally planned. The bet is a loser if one pick for a parlay is wrong.
Parlay odds
Not all parlay payouts are the same. Sportsbooks may have different odds for the number of teams bet in a parlay. This can be very confusing when looking at online sports that have different odds and payouts for the same parlay. Further, these odds may change at any time so bettors should check with the ticket writer in sportsbook before placing a parlay.
Parlay payouts
Payouts for a parlay are fixed by the time the bet is placed. Even if the lines and odds for an individual game move, the parlay lines and odds won’t change from when the parlay bet was placed. The parlay bet won’t be changed whether the lines change for or against the bettor.
If the lines change for a game, or games, in the favor of the bettor another parlay may be bet with the new line. The original bet cannot be changed and the bet will stand. The good news is that the bettor has two live parlay bets.
Types of parlays
A parlay is a type of sports bet and there are different variations of this kind of wager. The most common types of parlays are Round Robin parlays and Teasers.
Round Robin
A Round Robin bet is placing multiple parlay wagers at once. It’s just that simple. Round Robin bets are just a way to simplify making multiple parlays. When a bettor “Round Robin’s” teams in sports betting it’s similar to a horse bettor “boxing” horses for an exacta or trifecta bet in a race.
Football Betting Cards Parlay
The bettor will select anywhere from 3 to 8 teams or totals to be in the Round Robin. They will then choose how many teams or totals they’d like to tie together for the Round Robin. For example, a bettor may select eight teams and totals for a Round Robin and tie the parlays to as many three-team combinations as possible.
The combination of teams will dictate how many different parlays the bettor has. Continuing the example, if a bettor wants to Round Robin eight teams they will have 28 different parlays if they choose two teams. If the bettor chooses to make three-team parlays they will have 56 different parlay tickets.
The ticket will cost the amount chosen for each parlay. If the bettor only has $300 they might choose to Round Robin the teams by two, so they have 28 different parlays for $10 each. The payout for each winning parlay is the same as it would be if the parlay bets were each made individually.
Teaser
A teaser is similar to a traditional parlay where the bettor can select multiple teams or totals. However, there are no moneylines allowed with a teaser. Unlike a parlay, the bettor may move each point spread or total plus or minus a certain number of points. The additional points on the spread or total make these bets easier to win and thus they pay less than a traditional parlay.
Teaser bets can change the point spreads or totals anywhere from six to 10 points. However, each leg of the teaser must use the same number of points. Those legs of the teaser may go in different directions.
- For example, the New England Patriots -7 can be teased down six points to -1. Meanwhile, the Cleveland Browns can be teased up six points from +4 to +10 points.
Much like a traditional parlay, the more teams involved with a teaser the better the payoff. Again, different sportsbooks have different odds and rules so they might have different payouts and teaser options available to bet.
Parlay Cards
The more popular way to bet parlays in casinos today seems to be with a Parlay Card. These are the long narrow cards where bettors fill in the numbered circle of the side or point spread they want to include in their bet. Once the teams and totals are chosen the bettor simply presents the filled in portion on the card to the ticket writer in the sportsbook along with how much they’d like to wager.
How Does A Football Parlay Work
Parlay Cards are especially popular during football season. There are many different types of Parlay Cards including a variety of teasers, ties win and reverse teaser cards known as pleasers. These are more popular every year so the mobile sports wagering apps have started to add Parlay Cards for mobile bettors.
A parlay is a wager on multiple games all placed into a single bet. In theory the payout for a 2-team parlay is the same as if you bet one game, collected your winnings plus stake, and then bet the winnings plus stake on a second game. A three 3-team parlay in theory pays the same as if you repeated this process of rolling forward an additional time and a 4-team if you repeated it yet another time… so on and so forth. Some online betting sites allow players to bet up to 25-teams in the same parlay, while most allow a lesser amount such as 10-team max or 8-team max. Now I stated “in theory” because when it comes to football parlays the payouts are often less.
What’s important to note for football betting is many online sportsbooks short-pay point spread selections when adding them to a parlay. In their defense, they get away with this because built deep into their betting rules are terms such as “fixed parlay odds” for football point spreads. Although this might seem unethical, bettors always see the payouts prior to confirming their bet. So, this is more a matter of betting sites taking advantage of recreational bettors who don’t know any better, than it is cheating.
Beware of Fixed Odds Parlays
The image to the right shows the fixed parlay odds for football point spreads offered by popular US betting site BetOnline (review). Now to make sure we’re clear you can wager any number of selections as you’d like in the same football parlay. If each selection wins you’ll get the payouts shown to the left. If any one or more selections lose your entire stake is a lost. Now let me take some time to show what the payout would be if you wagered these individually and then rolled your profit forward each time.
You start with a $100 bet and wager it at -110, this is $100 to win $90.91 so if it wins you end up with $190.91. You then wager that all on the next game at -110, and this is $190.91 to win $173.55 so if it wins you now have $364.46. $100 was your stake, so your profit is $264.46. At BetOnline $100 pays $260. I calculated this by noticing their odds are listed as 13/5 and $100 has 20 parts of 5 so 5*13=$260. As you can see by offering “fixed odds” BetOnline is able to short the payout by $4.64. I’ll save showing the work behind the math, but if you were to keep rolling your $100 initial stake plus winnings forward 6 consecutive times without a loss you’d end up with $4841.27, of which $100 was your stake, and $4741.27 profit. Notice BetOnline only offers 45 to 1 on a 6-team parlay, when the actual odds are over 47.4 to 1. If you think this is small, it’s not; it adds up in a hurry.
When betting sites offer fixed parlay odds on point spreads generally the more teams you bet the worse the odds become. If you were to roll all bets forward 8-times, staking your full return each time, you’d get paid 175.45 to 1 and notice BetOnline only pays 165 to 1 on 8-team parlays. I cover some of this math in my article on football teasers in case you’re interested in how it is calculated, but for now let me state at BetOnline 6-team fixed odds parlays for football give you odds of -111.92 per team and BetOnline 8-team fixed odds parlays for football give you odds of -111.67 per team. For BetOnline parlays it’s fairly consistent and just a matter of rounding. However at sites such as Sportsbook.com and BetUs.com the payouts are even worse on higher number of teams.
How to Get Around Fixed Odds Parlays
How Does A Football Parlay Work Against
There’s a trick you should know about. In Las Vegas, and with many online sportsbooks, fixed odds only apply to point spreads priced -110. If you were to add an alternative selection you can force the sportsbook to give you the true odds. For example an 8 team point spread parlay at BetOnline where 7 teams are -110 and one team is -115 you’ll end up with a payout of 171.8 to 1 instead of the 165 to 1 they offer if all teams were -110. You’re also more likely to win because teams priced -115 win more often than teams priced -110. The golden rule is to never select only teams priced -110 at betting sites that use fixed odds for football parlays.
Another option for parlay bettors is to just turn to sites which don’t short the payouts. Sites I know of that use true odds as opposed to fixed odds include www.bovada.lv and www.bookmaker.eu. Of course there’s another challenge parlays present. The best way to beat sports betting is to line shop for the best price. Forcing yourself to only bet in parlays, instead of straight point spread bets, limits you to using just a single betting site. Truth be told, more times than not parlays are an enemy of football bettors than they are a blessing. There are however times betting parlays does make sense.
Correlated Parlays Are Great
If a betting site allowed you to parlay yes or no for two propositions listed as “will it be rainy today?” and “willing it be cloudy today?” obviously you’d have a huge edge betting parlays instead of straight wagers. Unfortunately online betting sites block parlays for anything too heavily correlated. For example, a college football line from late last season was LSU –49 / NWST +49 with an over/under of 56. Obviously the betting sites did not allow parlays on this game because the results were too heavily correlated. However, there are times where correlations that do make sense are allowed. I recall the opening round of the January 2012 NFL playoffs had a very injured Pittsburgh Steelers team visiting the struggling offense and strong defense of the Denver Broncos. The line was Broncos +7.5 and over/under 33.5. The betting sites did allow me to parlay Denver and the under, which in my opinion was correlated for the reason I thought if Denver did cover the point spread it would most likely be by a low total. This wager didn’t work out as the game turned into a shoot out (go figure eh?) but I’m sure you see the point that betting parlays when there is a correlation does make sense.
Using Parlays for Bonuses
Bookmaker.eu offers a decent free play sign up bonus and then also offers 20% reload bonuses for deposits made on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. These bonuses are issued as free play credits, and it makes great sense to always use these on parlays. The reason is when you bet say $100 cash at +$100 and win you get back $200 (your stake + win). When you bet using free plays you only get back $100. This is because your $100 staked was a free play; it’s now used up and all you get is your return because win or lose that free play is gone. When you instead use Bookmaker free plays as parlays you’re getting to recycle this stake multiple times.
Circumventing Betting Limits
The final good use for parlays is to circumvent betting limits. For example, if you’re wagering with www.bovada.lv and they have a $1000 max bet on a football point spreads (the same they often do) but this bet has such large expected value you want to get a lot of action down on it. You could then bet more by adding this selection to various 2-team parlays. Perhaps you make one bet straight, and also make a $1000 parlay on the moneyline of the largest favorite on the board plus this team.
Final Thoughts
Parlays are mostly lottery type gambles for recreational bettors, but when used on correlated outcomes, or to increase free play value, or to circumvent betting limits they can be smart plays. In most all other cases you’re far better off betting straight using a football betting system over adding the selection to the parlay. However, if you’re just looking to gamble, be reminded to avoid fixed odds by either adding a team priced something other than -110 to your betting ticket, or by using betting websites with favorable parlay odds. Popular US friendly betting site www.bovada.lv is a great choice for casual gamblers looking to wager football parlays.
How Does A Football Parlay Worksheet
Editor’s note: This article provided a decent introduction on “what is a parlay bet” and some basic strategy. If you’re interested in taking your game to the next level, read our page on football betting strategy where many articles to advanced topics are linked.