Parlays
A parlay ties two or more bets into one ticket. Every leg has to win, and the payout multiplies. So does the book's cut, which is the part nobody advertises.
One ticket, every leg
You pick two or more bets and put them on one ticket. Each pick is called a leg, so a two-team parlay has two legs and a five-teamer has five. If all of them win, the ticket pays far more than the same bets would have paid one at a time. If one loses, the ticket loses. There is no prize for going three for four.
What it pays, and what it should pay
The book multiplies the prices together. With every leg at the standard -110, a $100 parlay wins:
| Legs | A $100 parlay wins | A fair price would win | The book's cut |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (a straight bet) | $91 | $100 | 4.5% |
| 2 | $264 | $300 | 8.9% |
| 3 | $596 | $700 | 13.0% |
| 4 | $1,228 | $1,500 | 17.0% |
| 5 | $2,436 | $3,100 | 20.8% |
The fair price is what the ticket should pay if every leg were a coin flip, which is what a point spread is built to be. Two coin flips come in one time in four, so a fair two-teamer pays 3 to 1. The book pays about 2.6 to 1.
Some books don't multiply at all. They pay from a fixed table, and the table is often a little worse: a two-teamer at 13 to 5 wins $260, not $264. I'd find out which one your book uses before the first ticket, not after.
Why every book pushes them
Look at the last column again. On a straight bet the book's cut is 4.5 percent, and on a five-team parlay it is over 20. The player watches the payout getting bigger with each leg while the book watches its margin getting bigger faster, and only one of them is reading the right number.
That is why parlays are on the front page of every sportsbook, why the bet slip offers to combine your picks before you ask, and why the promotions are parlay boosts and parlay insurance. A book does not spend its marketing money on the bets where it makes least. When I see a book work that hard to sell me something, I want to know what it earns on it, and here the table answers.
If you do take a boost, work out what the ticket should have paid without it first. Then you can see what the boost is really worth.
Pushes, voids and the back of the card
At most books a leg that pushes or is voided drops off the ticket, and the parlay is paid as if it had one leg fewer. A three-teamer with a push becomes a two-teamer.
Printed parlay cards can be different. Some say ties lose, and it is on the back of the card (the small print on a parlay card has always been worth the thirty seconds).
The cousins
A same game parlay puts several bets from one game on a single ticket: the side, the total, a player to score. Those legs are related, because if a team wins big its quarterback probably had a good day. The book knows this and prices the relationship itself, so you can't check the payout with a multiplication. That makes the cut harder to see, and it is generally bigger than on an ordinary parlay.
A round robin is a set of smaller parlays made from one list of picks. Take three teams and it writes the three possible two-teamers, so one loser no longer kills everything, and you pay for that with three stakes. A teaser is a parlay where you move each point spread in your favor, usually by 6 points in football, and accept a smaller payout for it.
When I'd bet one
There are two honest reasons. The first is fun at a small stake: you want a big sweat for $10, you know what it costs, and you can afford to lose it. That is a fair deal, and I'd never talk anyone out of it. The second is a real edge on every leg, because a parlay multiplies an edge the same way it multiplies the book's cut. That is rare, and the people it applies to know who they are.
Either way I'd keep it to two or three legs, since the cut climbs with every one you add, and I'd stake small, because this is the bet where the price is most against you. Check the book's maximum payout too, so you are not staking money that can't be paid.
What a parlay is not is a way to get even after a bad day. That is how a bad day becomes a bad month. A parlay is a fine way to turn $10 into a good Sunday, and a poor way to make a living.