The general rule regarding parlays is: DON'T.
Parlays generally carry a higher house edge than straight bets, which means you give the book a bigger advantage over you once you play them. That, by itself, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed coupled with fear that often lead to betting parlays. People think they are risking less with parlays, however they are not. They believe they can win more with parlays, but they cannot. The higher win with parlays is far outweighed by the higher possibility of losing. Parlay bettors are in fact risking more, with less probability of collecting.
A parlay is not a single bet. It is two bets -- a one-unit bet using 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 something team loses, however, the double bet is presumed to have been on the loser. How smart is that for the bettor? Just do it, make 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 if the first game won or lost. That adds an element of luck to your betting that doesn't need to be there. The skilled handicapper is always seeking to make smart investments. He tries to get rid of the effect of luck to the greatest 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 once the two bets are co-dependent.
I knew one bookmaker who was simply 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 overall game. The ball player parlayed totals by combining the over in the initial half with the over in the game, and the under in the first half with under in the overall game. Both parlays were manufactured in the same game. Each and every time the player won he'd win 2.6 times his bet. Betting $100 on each parlay, if one of these won, the ball player would win $260 and lose $100 on another parlay for a net win of $160. He could never win both parlays. If he lost both parlays he'd lose $200.
Initially, this were a great chance of the book. ONBET đăng nhập -flip probability of winning one parlay out from 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 6 months, and the book began to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.
The problem for the bookmaker was that the two halves of every parlay were co-dependent. By the end of the initial half, the bettor was almost never in a 50-50 situation.
Take the Thursday night game between Utah and Air Force. The overall game total was 53 and the initial half total was 27. By the end of the first half, the score was 31-21, for a total 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 were not 50-50 but better than 99% and only the "over." The ball player only had a need to win the first half of the parlay to be virtually assured that he would collect 2.6 times his money rather than just $10 for $11.
Before you rush out to use this, remember that most off-shore books are much too smart to let you parlay first half to game. Should they do enable you to do this, start worrying about collecting because that book will be taken up to the cleaners.
There are, however, some less obvious co-dependent parlays that can 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 where the total is significantly less than double the spread can give you an edge in parlaying side to total in exactly the same game. We've already discussed, in a prior article, how exactly to use these anomalous side and total combinations to hedge each other and increase your win with hardly any increase in risk. Such a bet, however, needed that you have an opinion on the side or the full total. Parlaying is another method to boost your potential win on these games, or even to develop a potential win for those who have no opinion.
There are two games this Saturday that qualify. They're Virigina -25 over Duke with a total of 48 �, and Kansas St. -24 � vs. North Texas with a complete 46 �).
In the Virginia game, if you believe that Virginia covers the 25 points, they must hold Duke to no more than 11 points or the overall game will go over the total. The more likely it becomes during the game that Virginia will cover 25 points, the much more likely it becomes that the game will review 48 �. The wider Virginia's winning margin, the much more likely the game will go over. If you like 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 greater than the standard 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it really is less likely that Virginia will cover the 25 points. As a result, the probability that a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is higher than the normal 25%.
If you have no opinion on the game, you can parlay the favorite with the "over" and the underdog with the "under" and collect sufficiently often to exceed the losses when both parlays lose. In the only real 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 privately, the better win-rate will undoubtedly be on the parlay "spread" bet. The co-dependency in side to total parlays isn't as strong as parlaying first half and game totals (if it were, most books wouldn't normally allow such bets), but there is 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 allow you to parlay the medial side to the total in exactly the same game, because increasingly 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, it is possible to replace the parlay bet with an "if/reverse" bet and achieve greater success.