Parlay Betting | What is a Parlay in Betting?

A parlay bet allows you to combine the odds on two or more sports betting outcomes to create a larger wager that will ultimately pay out more, whether they occur in the same game, on the same day, or the same week, month, or even year if you’re patient enough.

A parlay combines the odds for multiple wagers to create one big bet. You will link all your wagers together, combine the odds, and only win your wager if all bets are correct.

Your parlay can include all different types of bets: moneylines, point spreads, totals, and even props and specials. 

You usually won’t be able to bet on conflicting outcomes—rightfully so, as you would lose your parlay because all legs of your bet have to win.

For optimal parlay betting, many sports bettors will bet on a few games in a single night. You don’t have to wait days to find out if your bet cashes, and you can place one each night. There are a few games on the sports schedule. During the peak fall/winter season, you could bet on an NFL moneyline, an NBA total, and an NHL point spread on the same ticket.

NFL Sundays are a huge opportunity for sports bettors to use primetime parlay betting. Each NFL Sunday has plenty of games to choose from, so you don’t have to bet games for the sake of betting – but you have plenty of options to build a decent parlay each week during this year’s 18-week season.

We want to build a parlay ticket that we are confident will win but also has great odds that will turn a profit. If you’re taking the risk, you will want the reward. Let’s look at a simple three-game parlay bet for our example.

After doing your research, you decide you want to bet on these games:

1. Green Bay Packers point spread set at -5.5 (-110)
2. Brooklyn Nets moneyline set at +120
3. Las Vegas Golden Knights vs. Vancouver Canucks total set at 6.5 (-110)

If you bet $15 on all three of these games separately, you would win:

• Packers = $28.64
• Nets = $33.00
• Golden Knights vs Canucks total = $28.64

That's a total of $90.28.

If you bet $50 on these three games in a parlay wager, you would win $400.89.

Whether you’re a fan of betting on the NFL, MLB, or NBA betting, you can cover them all with a parlay bet. Parlays combine all three games into one, increasing the odds, and you’re betting on that new, larger number. By betting $5 more and combining the odds, you win four times as much as you would have won by betting all those single games.

Now, imagine if you bet and won on a 10-game parlay!

While there is never a perfect system for calculating a parlay bet because all sportsbooks have different odds, we will teach you the most basic way.

Many spreads and totals bets will have -110 odds, which is fairly standard across the board – it’s the moneyline bets that will be the big movers in your parlay. Let’s look at a three-leg moneyline parlay to keep things simple.

• Dallas Cowboys -140
• Montreal Canadiens +200
• Toronto Raptors -110

First, we will determine the multipliers: the winnings minus the stake.

1. A standard single-game wager on -140 would win $240, so you would follow this calculation: 240/140 = 1.71
2. A $100 wager on +200 odds would result in $300 in winnings, so: 300/100 = 3
3. And our standard -110 will look like this: 210/110 = 1.90
4. Now, you need to multiply these to get the odds for this particular parlay: 1.71 x 3 x 1.90 = 9.747

This translates to about +875 in American odds.

While calculating parlay odds can seem a little redundant, as sportsbooks all do this for you with a built-in parlay calculator as you add wagers to your bet slip, it can be a great learning experience if you aren’t overly familiar with true odds and how they can combine together.

Depending on which odds format you use, the odds will show you how likely your bet might win. In North America, it’s customary to use American odds, so we will use that as our example, but we recommend checking out other odds formats like Decimal and Fractional.

The odds for each game will be pretty clear cut: The negative numbers mean the team is favored, and the positive numbers mean the team is an underdog. The underdog (+) odds will drive your bet slip’s value up and increase the risk of the wager.

The odds are pooled together; the heavy favorites will level out the big underdogs.

A push on a parlay bet does not void the bet. If one game results in a push, that game will simply be eliminated from your bet slip, which will be recalculated based on the remaining game’s odds.

If you only had a two-game parlay, your bet slip will have dropped the pushed game, and you will only receive winnings based on that one remaining game. The same thing will likely happen in the event that a game is canceled or rescheduled.

A push occurs in sports betting when the result is equal to the line set by the oddsmakers. If a point spread in football is 9 points, and the spread is equal to 9, you would receive a push on your wager. If the total number of points scored by both teams equals the oddsmaker’s line, you would also receive a push.

Many online sportsbooks offer these wagers in half-point increments to eliminate the push. An 11.5-point spread would make a push impossible. The underdog would need to lose by less than 11 points, and the favorite would need to win by 12.

If you are betting on spreads or totals, you can buy points to swing the parlay bet more in your favor. Buying points will allow you to move the line more in your favor or make a bet more profitable. You can buy up to ten points on most sites.

When do you buy points on a parlay? When you believe that the game will result in a push. The push can affect your parlay payout, as we mentioned above, and you can easily move the line on that game to benefit your parlay. You usually pay a few cents per point, so buying the points is better than missing out on the benefit of having that outcome on your parlay slip.