The general rule regarding parlays is: DON'T.
Parlays generally carry an increased house edge than straight bets, therefore 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 combined with fear that often result in betting parlays. People think they are 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 possibility of losing. Parlay bettors are actually risking more, with less possibility of collecting.
A parlay is not an individual bet. It 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 have 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 there is a split we'll put the double bet on the loser. If your bookmaker sold you a parlay with that line, how many of you'll still make the bet?
A parlay is also bad money management. In a parlay you either bet double on the next team, or nothing on that same team, dependant on whether the first game won or lost. That adds an element of luck to your betting it doesn't have to be there. The skilled handicapper is always wanting to make smart investments. He tries to remove the effect of luck to the best extent possible to make his results as predictable as possible.
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 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 overall game. The player parlayed totals by combining the over in the first half with the over in the game, and the under in the initial half with under in the overall game. Both parlays were manufactured in the same game. Each time the player won he would win 2.6 times his bet. Betting $100 on each parlay, if one of these won, the ball player would win $260 and lose $100 on another parlay for a net win of $160. https://new88.studio/ could never win both parlays. If he lost both parlays he'd lose $200.
At first glance, this appeared to be 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 ought to be winning $160 half the time, and losing $200 half the 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 problem for the bookmaker was that both halves of every parlay were co-dependent. At the end of the initial half, the bettor was almost never in a 50-50 situation.
Take the Thursday night game between Utah and Air Force. The game total was 53 and the initial 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 the parlays, the "over" in the first 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 chances of winning the "over" in the overall game were not 50-50 but better than 99% and only the "over." The player only had a need to win the first half of the parlay to be virtually assured 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. Should they do let you do this, start fretting about collecting because that book will be taken up to the cleaners.
There are, however, some less obvious co-dependent parlays that may be made at many books. One type of co-dependent parlay may be the parlay of the side and total in the same game.
Any game where the total is significantly less than double the spread can provide you an advantage 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 hardly any increase in risk. This type of bet, however, needed that you have an impression on the side or the total. Parlaying is another method to increase your potential win on these games, or even to develop 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 total 46 �).
In the Virginia game, if you believe that Virginia will cover the 25 points, then they must hold Duke to no more than 11 points or the overall game will go over the total. The much more likely it becomes through the game that Virginia will cover 25 points, the more likely it becomes that the game will review 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 greater than the standard 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it is less likely that Virginia will cover the 25 points. Because of this, the probability that a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is greater than the normal 25%.
Assuming you have no opinion on the 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 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 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 wouldn't normally allow such bets), but there is 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 medial side to the full total in the same game, because a lot more are realizing these bets are occasionally co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets so 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 having an "if/reverse" bet and achieve greater success.