Parlay Betting

What is Parlay Betting?

If you’re a real risk taker and want to go for big profits you should look into parlay betting. A parlay is when a bettor takes anywhere from two to a dozen games and lumps then into one bet. This increases the odds and the potential payouts, but it also increases the risk because for your parlay to win you must correctly pick the winner in all of your games.

Let’s take a look at an example of a three-team football parlay. The odds listed beside each team are the odds you would get if you bet on each of them individually.

• Chicago -7 (-115)
• Pittsburgh -7 (-105)
• Tampa Bay -3 (-125)

Before showing you the parlay odds and payouts for this three-team parlay lets look at how much you would win by betting each game individually. Let’s say you bet $5 on each game and won all three bets. Your profits would be $4.35, $4.76 and $4.00 for a grand total of $13.11. Not bad I guess. Now take a look at what a three-team football parlay pays at Bodog. At $5 on the parlay your profit would be $27.85. If you bet $15 on the parlay (the total of your three individual bets) your profit would be $83.55!

You can easily see the possible benefits of betting on parlay with the chance at much bigger profits. However, don’t get too caught up in dreaming about your big profits. Remember you still have to win all of you bets to win the single parlay. If you won two out of three from the example (Chicago and Pittsburgh) you’d still be up $4.11 on your total bets. However, if you go two-of-three on the parlay you’re out your entire $5 or $15 depending upon your stake.

Parlays are very popular in football betting but they can be applied to almost any sport and bet type. You can mix point spreads, moneylines, totals and sometimes props on a parlay and you can bet on almost any sport including NFL, college football, NBA, college basketball, MLB, NHL, auto racing, and more.