You have to risk it to get the biscuit. That famous mantra captures what it means to place a sports parlay bet. Both novice and experienced bettors are drawn to parlay betting for one reason: larger payouts. Granted, with larger stakes come greater risks. This guide explains everything you need to know about parlay betting, how they work, what the outcomes may be and pros and cons of parlay wagers.
Here are the best online sportsbooks that accept parlay bets in the United States:
In order for a parlay to win, a bettor must accurately pick the outcome of ALL events listed on the ticket. If they have wagered on five events, all five picks must be correct for the wager to cash. This includes moneylines, point spreads and over-under totals.
A parlay loses when one leg of the wager is incorrect. So, if you accurately predicted a Alabama-Georgia point spread bet, a Seahawks-49ers moneyline, but bet the OVER in the Browns-Steelers and the UNDER hit, your entire parlay ticket loses.
The best online sportsbooks offer a parlay incentive where in the off-chance one leg of the wager pushes, also known as ties, only that event is removed from the bet slip and the rest of the action lives on. So, if you accurately picked two events on a three-team parlay and the third event pushed, you would get paid out on a two-event parlay.
Parlay betting is a high-risk, high-reward sports wager. The more bets involved in the parlay, the smaller the chances are that the gambler will win. Using a standard -110 vig for both point spreads and totals bets, here is a look at the odds of winning a parlay bet, as well as parlay payouts if you win.
| Parlay Bet Size | Odds | Payouts |
|---|---|---|
| 2-Team Parlay | 27.47% | $264.46 |
| 3-Team Parlay | 14.37% | $595.79 |
| 4-Team Parlay | 7.52% | $1,228.33 |
| 5-Team Parlay | 3.94% | $2,435.90 |
| 6-Team Parlay | 2.06% | $4,741.27 |
| 7-Team Parlay | 1.08% | $9,142.43 |
| 8-Team Parlay | 0.56% | $17,544.64 |
| 9-Team Parlay | 0.30% | $33,585.23 |
| 10-Team Parlay | 0.15% | $64,208.16 |
As is the case with most sports betting options, there are pros and cons to parlay wagers.
Be sure to review each before building your first parlay and do your homework on each event to avoid any assumptions heading into a matchup.
Bettors can correlate point spread bets with with Over/Under bets in a number of ways. Factors in certain games correlate and bettors can use those factors to create EV+. If a site allows same-game parlays or SGPs, you can use this to correlate point spreads with Over/Under bets. Sportsbooks used to disallow this but SGPs are more common now.
Parlay bets are multiple bets tied to one another. For your parlay to win, all of the teams in the parlay bet must win their leg. In a 4-leg parlay on the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Green Bay Packers, and San Francisco 49ers, you would wager that all four teams win. Because parlays hit less often, the potential payouts are huge.
A parlay bet is when you wager on two or more outcomes on the same ticket. In order for the parlay bet to win, you must pick each outcome correctly. If one leg of the parlays loses, the entire ticket is a loss. However, if you correctly pick all outcomes on a parlay bet, a higher payout is awarded.
It can be. There is a higher risk when parlay betting, but also a higher reward should it cash. Whether or not it’s a good bet depends on your confidence in the outcomes projected and the research you put into your parlay wager.
Yes, you can parlay multiple moneylines on the same ticket. Bettors tend to mix moneyline favorites and underdogs on their slips. For a bigger payout, parlay underdogs you think can upset the favorites on gamedays.
Yes, but as you can imagine the degree of difficulty in accurately predicting multiple point spreads on the same ticket is quite high. Again, the risk of parlay spread betting is high, but the payout is also much higher than if you individually wagered on each game.
Most online sportsbooks ignore outcomes that push on a parlay slip. For example, if you placed a 3-team parlay bet, and one of the three outcomes pushed, or tied, the sportsbook would slice that wager off the ticket and only count the two other matchups wagered on.
