The general rule regarding parlays is: DON'T.
Parlays generally carry an increased house edge than straight bets, which means you give the book a bigger advantage over you once you play them. That, alone, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed combined with fear that often lead to betting parlays. People think they are risking less with parlays, but they are not. They believe they are able to win more with parlays, however 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 possibility of collecting.
A parlay is not a single bet. It is two bets -- a one-unit bet on one team and a two-unit bet on the other. 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 one team loses, however, the double bet is presumed to possess been on the loser. How smart is that for the bettor? Just do it, make a parlay. 789WINGO '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 next team, or nothing on that same team, dependant on whether the first game won or lost. That adds an element of luck to your betting it doesn't should be there. The skilled handicapper is always wanting to make smart investments. He tries to eliminate the effect of luck to the best extent possible in order 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 when the two bets are co-dependent.
I knew one bookmaker who was simply taken for thousands because he didn't understand the co-dependency of certain bets. He allowed a player to consistently parlay the initial half with the game. The player parlayed totals by combining the over in the first half with the over in the overall game, and the under in the initial half with under in the game. Both parlays were made 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 them won, the ball player would win $260 and lose $100 on the other parlay for a net win of $160. He could never win both parlays. If he lost both parlays he would lose $200.
At first glance, this were a great chance for the book. The standard coin-flip odds of winning one parlay out of your two are 50-50. So far as the bookie was concerned the bettor ought to be winning $160 half the time, and losing $200 half enough time. The bettor, however, making $500 parlays, was ahead a lot more than $20,000 after six months, and the book begun to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.
The issue for the bookmaker was that both halves of every parlay were co-dependent. At the end of the first half, the bettor was almost never in a 50-50 situation.
Take the Thursday night game between Utah and Air Force. The game total was 53 and the initial half total was 27. At 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 a winner. For the parlay probability to be correct, there should now be a 50-50 probability of winning the "over" for the game. Obviously the chances of winning the "over" in the overall game weren't 50-50 but much better than 99% in favor of the "over." The 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 instead of just $10 for $11.
Before you rush out to try this, remember that most off-shore books are much too smart to let you parlay first half to game. Should they do let you do this, start worrying about collecting because that book will be taken to the cleaners.
You can find, however, some less obvious co-dependent parlays that can be made at many books. One kind of co-dependent parlay may be the parlay of the medial side and total in exactly the same game.
Any game in which the total is 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 to use these anomalous side and total combinations to hedge one another and increase your win with very little increase in risk. This type of bet, however, required that you have an opinion privately or the full total. Parlaying is another method to boost your potential win on these games, or even to develop a potential win if you have no opinion.
There are two games this Saturday that qualify. They're Virigina -25 over Duke with a complete of 48 �, and Kansas St. -24 � vs. North Texas with a complete 46 �).
In the Virginia game, if you believe that Virginia will cover the 25 points, then they must hold Duke to no more than 11 points or the game will go over the total. The much more likely it becomes through the game that Virginia covers 25 points, the more likely it becomes that the overall game will go over 48 �. The wider Virginia's winning margin, the more likely the game will go over. If you want Virginia to cover the spread, and you believe that Duke will not be shut out, then your probability of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are greater than the normal 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it really is less likely that Virginia will cover the 25 points. Therefore, the probability that a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is greater than the normal 25%.
Assuming you have no opinion on the overall game, you can parlay the favourite 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 total of 58 -- the under has already won with the underdog for a winning two-parlay spread.
The closer the posted total is to the spread on the side, the better win-rate will undoubtedly be on the parlay "spread" bet. The co-dependency in side to total parlays is not 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 make the strategy profitable long-term.
Not all bookmakers will allow you to parlay the medial side to the full total in the same game, because a growing number of are realizing these bets are occasionally co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets that you should consider including such bets in your professional betting arsenal.
If your bookmaker provides "if/reverse" bets, it is possible to replace the parlay bet having an "if/reverse" bet and achieve greater success.