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 more impressive advantage over you when you play them. That, alone, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed coupled with fear that often lead to betting parlays. People think they're risking less with parlays, but they are not. They believe they are able to win more with parlays, but they cannot. The bigger win with parlays is far outweighed by the higher probability of losing. Parlay bettors are in fact risking more, with less probability of collecting.
A parlay is not an individual bet. It really is two bets -- a one-unit bet on 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 one team loses, however, the double bet is presumed to have been on the loser. How smart is that for the bettor? Go ahead, 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 can be bad money management. In a parlay you either bet double on the second team, or nothing on that same team, depending upon whether the first game won or lost. That adds some luck to your betting that doesn't need to be there. The skilled handicapper is definitely seeking to make smart investments. He tries to get rid of the result of luck to the greatest extent possible in order to make his results as predictable as you possibly can.
Much like every rule, however, there are 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 thousands because he didn't understand the co-dependency of certain bets. He allowed a new player to consistently parlay the first half with the game. The ball player parlayed totals by combining the over in the initial 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. Every time the player won he'd win 2.6 times his bet. Betting $100 on each parlay, if one of these won, the 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 appeared to be a great opportunity for the book. The standard coin-flip odds of winning one parlay out of 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 the 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.
casino new88 for the bookmaker was that both halves of every parlay were co-dependent. By the end of the initial half, the bettor was hardly ever in a 50-50 situation.
Take the Thursday night game between Utah and Air Force. The game total was 53 and the first half total was 27. At the end of the initial 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 initial half was a winner. For the parlay probability to be correct, there should now be considered 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% in favor of the "over." The player only had a need to win the first 1 / 2 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, be aware that most off-shore books are far too smart to enable you to parlay first half to game. If they do let you do this, start worrying about collecting because that book will be taken up 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 is the parlay of the side and total in the same game.
Any game in which the total is significantly less than double the spread can provide you an edge in parlaying side to total in 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 boost your win with very little increase in risk. This type of bet, however, needed that you have an opinion on the side or the total. Parlaying is another method to boost your potential win on these games, or even to create a potential win when you have no opinion.
You can find two games this Saturday that qualify. They are Virigina -25 over Duke with a complete of 48 �, and Kansas St. -24 � vs. North Texas with a total 46 �).
In the Virginia game, if you were to think that Virginia covers the 25 points, then they must hold Duke to only 11 points or the 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 overall game will go over 48 �. The wider Virginia's winning margin, the more likely the game will go over. If you like Virginia to cover the spread, and you also believe that Duke will not be shut out, in that case your probability of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are higher than the standard 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it really is not as likely that Virginia covers the 25 points. Consequently, 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 overall 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 already won with the underdog for an absolute two-parlay spread.
The closer the posted total would be 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 isn't as strong as parlaying first half and game totals (if it were, most books would not allow such bets), but there exists a sufficient co-dependency in the games with low totals and high spreads to make the strategy profitable long-term.
Not all bookmakers will help you to parlay the side to the total in exactly the same game, because increasingly more are realizing these bets are sometimes co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets that you can 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.