Profitable Parlays - Fact Or Fiction?

· 4 min read
Profitable Parlays - Fact Or Fiction?

There are countless 'handicapping services' available of providing people who have parlays. They'll tout win rates similar to probably the most impressive straight wager cappers. Of course, you will see that they refer to money line parlays as 'safe' bets. On a number of these sites you may have the privilege of dealing with some form of royalty in the field of parlay wagering. Regrettably, thousands will be fooled by this fiction again this football season.

The truth is that exotic wagers keep sports books in business. Next time you are in Vegas check out the discarded tickets you see spread everywhere. It's safe to assume that you will find nearly all these losers are made of such bets positioned on both sports and racing. Of all sucker bets available to sports bettors, the parlay is king. Bettors are lured in by the promise of a huge payout while disregarding the point that there is absolutely no reasonable expectation of any return on 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. Plenty of 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 couple of dice at the back wall.

Chance is important in everything the house provides. There are also steps which can be taken to reduce the edge in only about every game. Nowhere in the casino are elements such as skill and preparation more useful than the sports book. The edge on a straight wager could be reversed in the bettors favor by utilizing statistics and expertise in an activity. However, a double digit house edge can never 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 has a whopping 10% house edge or better. Such casino advantages tend to be more in line with keno, plus they are equally impossible to overcome in the long run. There is no mystery surrounding the world of parlays. Bettors are drawn to risking a small amount of money for large payouts. The games which are frequently played in the casino are slots that offer thousands and even millions in progressive jackpots. The mentality of the bettors is 'Go big, or go home.' The casino is clearly happy to oblige as an incredible number of bettors go home with nothing in their pockets every year.

It is fair to assume that the biggest amount of losing bets a book accepts are exotic wagers of equal to or double the house minimum. This is due to most bettors do not have a meaningful bankroll reserve for sports betting. Given that they don't believe they are able to make any real money by placing $25-50 on a few games per week they continue taking parlays for $20 or less. By doing this they essentially ensure a substantial loss by the finish of the growing season. Meanwhile, should they only placed straight wagers at that same level they would limit their potential losses to some units at most.

Many bettors assume that because they are keeping the size of their bets low they are not taking on a substantial risk. This analysis is flawed since it ignores several factors.  new88casino , it really is my experience that a lot of bettors usually do not place just one parlay per week. In football this means a minimum of 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 put with such a high house edge. For example, in case you are placing only 5 team parlays your expectation should be to lose about $35 for every $100 you wager. Because the amount of bets you place increases it really is inevitable that you will hit that $100 mark many times over.

Using parlays as a side bet will usually result in upping your losses or erasing any profits you managed to make on straight wagers. In 2009 2009, I had litigant who broke even after increasing his bankroll by 45% using my picks. He were able to do this 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 an identical warning to him.

If you are going to follow his lead and continue using parlays I've a few pointers that will help in the long run. 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 a lot more than twice as much. Invest the a glance at the graph you need to understand why I'd never bet a parlay of 4 teams or even more. However, if you're going to make this investment here are two useful tips:

If you are going to bet a four or five 5 team parlay, always make it 6 or even 10. The difference between the house edge to add 1 or 2 2 more teams is within 5 percentage points and the payout is significantly higher for both options. The house edge on a 10 teamer is virtually the same as a 4 team parlay, but the actual odds of hitting it are over 1,000 to at least one 1.
If you are likely to throw your cash away chasing huge payouts on 7, 8, and 9 team parlays then just bet the 10 teamer. The House edge is approximately 10 points less than all three of those bets also it typically pays about 700/1.

Setting reasonable goals and being patient while working to achieve them may be the sign of a profitable professional bettor. Greed must be kept in check to become successful. In this regard, every bettor has two options. It is possible to chase high returns while assuming plenty of unnecessary risk. Or it is possible to minimize your exposure to several units while maintaining a reasonable expectation to improve your bankroll by 50%...The decision is yours.