The general rule regarding parlays is: DON'T.

Parlays generally carry a higher house edge than straight bets, which means you give the book a bigger advantage over you when you play them. That, alone, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed combined with fear that often result in betting parlays. People think they're risking less with parlays, however they aren't. They believe they can win more with parlays, however they cannot. The higher win with parlays is far outweighed by the higher probability of losing. Parlay bettors are in fact risking more, with less possibility 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 it doesn't matter which team gets the double bet. When one team wins and something team loses, however, the double bet is presumed to possess been on the loser. How smart is that for the bettor? Go ahead, create a parlay. We'll wait until both games are over, and in case of 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'll still make the bet?

A parlay can be bad money management. In a parlay you either bet double on the next team, or nothing on that same team, dependant on if the first game won or lost. 789bet casino adds an element of luck to your betting it doesn't need to be there. The skilled handicapper is definitely seeking to make smart investments. He tries to eliminate the effect of luck to the best extent possible to make his results as predictable as you possibly can.

As with every rule, however, there are exceptions. The exception to the rule regarding parlays occurs when the two bets are co-dependent.

I knew one bookmaker who was taken for tens of 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 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 overall game. Both parlays were manufactured 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 player would win $260 and lose $100 on another parlay for a net win of $160. He could never win both parlays. If he lost both parlays he would lose $200.

Initially, this were a great chance of 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 should 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 started to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.

The issue for the bookmaker was that the two halves of each 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 overall game total was 53 and the initial half total was 27. By the end of the first half, the score was 31-21, for a complete of 52 first-half points. The first half of among the parlays, the "over" in the initial half was a winner. For the parlay probability to be correct, there should now be a 50-50 possibility of winning the "over" for the overall game. Obviously the odds of winning the "over" in the game weren't 50-50 but much better than 99% in favor of the "over." The ball 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 instead of just $10 for $11.

Before you rush out to try this, be aware that most off-shore books are much too smart to enable you to parlay first half to game. Should they do permit you to do this, start worrying about collecting because that book will soon be taken to the cleaners.

There are, however, some less obvious co-dependent parlays that may still be made at many books. One kind of co-dependent parlay is the parlay of the medial side and total in the same game.

Any game in which the total is significantly less than double the spread can give you an advantage 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 each other and boost your win with very little increase in risk. Such a bet, however, needed that you have an opinion privately or the full total. Parlaying is another solution to increase your potential win on these games, or even to create a potential win assuming you have no opinion.

There are 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 complete 46 �).


In the Virginia game, if you believe that Virginia covers the 25 points, then they must hold Duke to only 11 points or the overall game will go over the total. The more likely it becomes during the game that Virginia will cover 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 like Virginia to cover the spread, and you also believe that Duke will not be shut out, then your possibility of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are greater than the standard 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it is less 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 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 recently won with the underdog for an absolute two-parlay spread.

The closer the posted total is to the spread privately, the better win-rate will 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 exists a sufficient co-dependency in the games with low totals and high spreads to help make the strategy profitable long-term.

Not all bookmakers will allow you to parlay the side to the full total in the same game, because a growing number of are realizing that these bets are occasionally 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, you can replace the parlay bet with an "if/reverse" bet and achieve greater success.