Profitable Parlays - Fact Or Fiction?

· 4 min read
Profitable Parlays - Fact Or Fiction?

There are countless 'handicapping services' available of providing people with parlays. They will tout win rates much like many of the most impressive straight wager cappers. Of course, you will see that they make reference to money line parlays as 'safe' bets. On many of these sites you may have the privilege of dealing 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 running a business. Next time you're in Vegas check out 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 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 typical straight wager at -110 is 4.5%. Compared with many table games this is really a fairly raised percentage. Many table games and slots provide a better value for the average 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 provides. There are also steps that can 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 compared to the sports book.  new88  on a straight wager could be reversed in the bettors favor by utilizing statistics and expertise in a sport. However, a double digit house edge can't ever be overcome in the long run.

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

It is fair to assume that the biggest amount of losing bets that a book accepts are exotic wagers of add up to or double the home minimum. It is because most bettors don't have a meaningful bankroll set aside for sports betting. Since they don't believe they can make any real cash by placing $25-50 on a few games weekly they continue taking parlays for $20 or less. Using this method they essentially ensure a substantial loss by the end of the season. Meanwhile, if they only placed straight wagers at that same level they might limit their potential losses to a few units at most.

Many bettors assume that because they are keeping the size of their bets low they are not taking on a significant risk. This analysis is flawed because it ignores several factors. Most of all, it really is my experience that most bettors do not place just one parlay weekly. 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 low unit bet this is still a dangerous amount of wagers to place with such a high house edge. For example, if you are 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 really is inevitable that you'll hit that $100 mark several times over.

Using parlays as a side bet will usually result in increasing your losses or erasing any profits you were able 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 that by placing 'small' side bets including parlays, reverses, and teasers. This is an expensive lesson to learn especially when you take into account I issued a similar warning to him.

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

If you are likely to bet a 4 or 5 5 team parlay, always make it 6 as well as 10. The difference between the house edge to include 1 or 2 2 more teams is at 5 percentage points and the payout is significantly higher for both options. The home 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 1 1.
If you are going to throw your cash away chasing huge payouts on 7, 8, and 9 team parlays then just bet the 10 teamer. THE HOME edge is about 10 points less than all three of these bets and 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 should be kept in check in order to be successful. In this regard, every bettor has two options. It is possible to chase high returns while assuming a huge amount of unnecessary risk. Or it is possible to minimize your contact with several units while maintaining an acceptable expectation to increase your bankroll by 50%...The decision is yours.