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, by itself, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed coupled with fear that often result in betting parlays. People think they're risking less with parlays, however they are not. They believe they can win more with parlays, but they cannot. The higher win with parlays is far outweighed by the bigger probability of losing. Parlay bettors are actually risking more, with less probability of collecting.
A parlay is not a single bet. It is two bets -- a one-unit bet using 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? Just do it, 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 can be bad money management. In a parlay you either bet double on the next 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 should be there. The skilled handicapper is always wanting to make smart investments. He tries to remove the effect of luck to the greatest extent possible to make his results as predictable as possible.
Much like 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 player to consistently parlay the first half with the game. The ball player parlayed totals by combining the over in the first half with the over in the game, and the under in the first half with under in the game. Both parlays were manufactured 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 them 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 link vào mocbai lost both parlays he'd lose $200.
Initially, this were a great chance for the book. The normal coin-flip probability 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 enough time. The bettor, however, making $500 parlays, was ahead more than $20,000 after six months, and the book begun to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.
The issue for the bookmaker was that both halves of every parlay were co-dependent. By 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 total 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 overall game weren't 50-50 but better than 99% in favor of the "over." The ball player only needed to win the first 1 / 2 of the parlay to be virtually assured 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 far too smart to allow you to parlay first half to game. If they do enable you to do this, start worrying about collecting because that book will soon be taken to the cleaners.
You can find, however, some less obvious co-dependent parlays that can still be made at many books. One type of co-dependent parlay may be the parlay of the side and total in exactly the same game.
Any game where the total is significantly less than double the spread can provide you an edge 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 one another and boost your win with hardly any increase in risk. Such a bet, however, needed that you have an opinion privately or the total. Parlaying is another method to boost your potential win on these games, or even to create a potential win should you have no opinion.
There are two games this Saturday that qualify. They're Virigina -25 over Duke with a total of 48 �, and Kansas St. -24 � vs. North Texas with a complete 46 �).
In the Virginia game, if you were to think that Virginia covers the 25 points, 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 covers 25 points, the more likely it becomes that the overall game will review 48 �. The wider Virginia's winning margin, the much more likely the game will go over. If you want Virginia to cover the spread, and you believe that Duke will not be shut out, in that case your possibility of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are greater than the normal 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it is not as 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%.
In case 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 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 already won with the underdog for an absolute two-parlay spread.
The closer the posted total would be 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 make the strategy profitable long-term.
Not all bookmakers will help you to parlay the side to the full total in exactly the same game, because an increasing number of are realizing that these bets are sometimes 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 with an "if/reverse" bet and achieve greater success.