Calculating parlay odds is simple when using decimal odds: Simply multiply the odds from each leg together to get the parlay odds. But it gets a little trickier if you’re using American odds. To get the parlay odds for our three-leg wager we now need to multiply these odds together. 3.00 x 3.50 x 1.63 = 17.12. To discover what the American odds for this parlay would be we need to convert it back by multiplying by 100 and then subtracting 100.
A parlay bet is a common way for sports bettors to increase their odds and payoffs. Instead of making multiple, single bets, a parlay bet combines 2 or more bets into one bet. Each bet within the parlay must win in order for the parlay to win. If any bet within the parlay loses, the bet loses. The more teams put into a parlay bet, the higher the odds.
Parlay bets should be used by one type of bettor, casual bettors doing it for occasional fun. Serious and professional sports bettors should only place parlay bets on very limited occasions, if ever. Since it only takes one loss within a parlay to lose the entire bet, the risk is very high. On a 6 team parlay, you could go 5-1 and lose your entire bet. Had these been straight bets, you’d be a happy camper.
Recommended Sportsbook for Parlay Bets:
Higher than normal parlay payout odds
Parlay Betting Odds
Two types of parlay bets can be made – those that use a point spread, and those that use a money line. Point spread parlay bets have somewhat standard odds, being very close at most sportsbooks. While there can be some slight variation from one sportsbook to another, in order to be competitive they’re generally pretty similar.
Typical Point Spread Parlay Betting Odds
- 2 Teams: 2.6:1
- 3 Teams: 6:1
- 4 Teams: 10:1
- 5 Teams: 20:1
- 6 Teams: 40:1
- 7 Teams: 80:1
- 8 Teams: 100:1
- 9 Teams: 150:1
- 10 Teams: 300:1
- 11 Teams: 450:1
- 12 Teams: 600:1
- 13 Teams: 750:1
- 14 Teams: 900:1
- 15 Teams: 1500:1
Money Line Parlay Betting Odds
Odds for parlay bets when using a money line are relative to the odds of each pick within the parlay. If you’ve chosen a number of underdogs, your odds will go up. If you’ve chosen big favorites, the odds will be lower. Money line parlays are great for an annual trip to Vegas where the idea is to go big or go home. However, for people who take their sports betting seriously, they’re too high risk to be a reasonable betting strategy.
Benefits of Parlay Betting
Parlay bets allow sports bettors to make small bets with the possibility of large wins. They also allow bettors who have a limited bankroll to bet on multiple games, instead of waiting for games to end and time to collect their winnings. If multiple games are going on at the same time and you don’t have enough money to make straight bets on each game, a parlay bet is a way to get action on each game.
To put a parlay win into perspective, lets use a 5 game parlay as an example. If you made 5 straight bets for $22 each ($110 total wagered) and won all of them, you would win $20 per game for a $100 total profit. However that same $110 wagered on a successful 5 team parlay would pay $2200. But wait, before you go place your bet, keep reading.
Negatives of Parlay Betting
The major problem with parlay betting is that they don’t offer true odds. For example, the true odds of hitting an 8 team parlay is 255:1, while the payoff is only 100:1. This is a big disadvantage to the bettor. Similar to Roulette, when you split your chips across 2 numbers, you get slightly worse odds. When you split them across four numbers, the odds get worse again. The same can be said for parlay bets in sports betting.
Think of it this way. If you want to bet $100 on each of 5 games, but can’t afford to risk the full $500, you probably shouldn’t be betting at all. If you can afford the full $500, you will get a better payout with less risk of losing all your money by making straight bets.
Parlay Betting Tips
There are all sorts of little tips for improving your ROI on parlay bets, but there are a couple of tips that everyone needs to know. To improve your chances and win more on your parlay bets, follow these tips.
Bet on Fewer Teams, Raise Your Bets
Parlays are often used the wrong way. Instead of placing a $20, 5 team parlay, it’s better to make a 3 team parlay for more money. While the odds are lower, the win-rate is much higher, relying on only 3 wins instead of 5. By increasing the bet size, you can make up for the lower odds. This gives you a better chance at a win and a nice payday.
If you have more teams you want to bet on, split your parlays into multiple, smaller parlay bets.
Protect Your Bets
If you have a 5 team parlay that is 4-0 going into the fifth game, you stand to win $1000 on a $50 wager. A loss in the fifth game pays you nothing. To guarantee a win, place a straight bet for $525 on the team opposing your parlay pick. This will guarantee you a minimum win of $425 no matter what the result of the fifth game is. While expert bettors don’t bet a lot of parlays, when they do, this is a strategy they often employ.
If your parlay wins, you collect $1000. This is a $950 profit from your $50 bet, minus the $525 side bet, for a guaranteed win of $425.
If your parlay loses, you lose $50 there but make $477 profit (11/10 odds) on the $525 side bet, for $427 guaranteed profit.
Either way, you can grab a beer and enjoy that last game, knowing you’re a winner no matter what.
Parlay Betting Rules in Event of a Tie
Before placing a parlay bet at a live or online sportsbook, find out the rules in the event of a tie. At some sportsbooks a tie will remove one team from the parlay, moving it down one level. For example, if you have a 5 team parlay with one tie, the parlay will automatically become a 4 team parlay, essentially removing one team from the bet.
At other sportsbooks, a tie results in a loss. This is bad for the bettor, so make sure you know the rules before placing your bet. This is especially important for betting on soccer or hockey where ties are common. Expert sports bettors never place a parlay bet without knowing these rules.
NFL & NCAA Football Parlay Betting
Parlay bets are extremely popular with NFL and NCAA football bettors. Parlay bets for football combine multiple straight bets, meaning the point spread is used. A bettors job is to pick teams that will cover the spread. If any team within the parlay does not cover the spread, the entire parlay bet loses.
While we don’t like parlay bets for serious bettors, they’re a great way to add tons of excitement to a weekend of football. Just remember how hard it is to go 3 for 3 in your fantasy league before you place a 10 team parlay.
Before you can learn how to make parlay cards, you need to have a good understanding of what a parlay is and how it works. I cover parlay bets, especially football parlays, in detail in the beginning of this post.
I offer advice about how to actually make the parlay cards later in this post, too.
(By the way, parlays are also often called accumulator or combination bets, but parlay is the most common term used in American sports betting.)
What Is a Parlay Card and How Do Parlay Bets Work?
A parlay bet is a single bet on multiple outcomes. It’s basically a combination of bets, and the parlay only wins if all the outcomes win. Those bets are listed on a parlay card.
Having multiple bets in play at one time provides you with a bigger payout, but you also have a smaller probability of winning.
I like to think of things in terms of casino bets, so I think of a parlay as being like a bet that you’ll win black twice in a row on the roulette table. If you win, you might get paid off at 3 to 1 instead of the usual even money action. But your probability of winning 2 bets in a row is obviously much lower.
But parlays are usually thought of in terms of sports. And most sports parlays consist of 2 to 10 different bets on the same card.
For example, you might choose 4 football teams to win their games this Sunday:
- Dallas Cowboys
- New Orleans Saints
- New England Patriots
- Tennessee Titans
You COULD just place a single bet on each of those games, and that would be fun.
But if you place a bet on all 4 of them on a parlay, you’ll win more than you would even if you won the 4 individual bets.
And you only win the parlay bet if you’re right about all 4 teams. If even one team on your parlay loses, you’ve lost the bet.
You could also face a situation where one of the games tie. That’s called a “push.” If that happens, you don’t lose your parlay, but you’re only paid off as if you’d placed a smaller parlay—it’s as if that game didn’t exist on your card.
In the example above, where you’re betting on 4 games at the same time, if one of the games resulted in a tie, you’d get paid off as if you’d bet on a 3-game parlay. It’s a smaller payoff, but that’s better than a loss.
Parlay Odds, Probability, and Payouts
It should go without saying that the more games on the parlay card, the lower your odds of winning are. That’s because the odds of multiple things happening get multiplied by each other.
Let’s say that each of the teams on your 4-game parlay above have a 50% probability of winning. The probability that all 4 of them will win is:
50% X 50% X 50% X 50%, or 6.25%. That’s the same thing as 16 to 1 odds.
A 4-team parlay bet usually pays off at 13 to 1. If you bet $100 on that parlay and won, you’d win $1300.
The payouts are correspondingly higher, too.
Notice the discrepancy between the odds on the payout and the odds of winning. That difference is the vigorish, or “vig,” which is where the sports book makes its money.
Here’s how that amounts to a profit for the book:
- Take 17 parlays with those odds. The book collects $100 X 17 bets, or $1700.
- Since the odds are 16 to 1, they only expect to pay off a player once, for $1300.
- The other $400 is profit. Divide that $400 by 17 bets, and the book makes an average profit of $23.52.
5 Leg Parlay Payout
That’s not a bad profit margin.
In most gambling businesses, the company makes its money by offering payout odds that are lower than the odds of winning. If you think of the odds as being similar to a fraction, you’ll understand why 1 in 16 is smaller than 1 in 13, even though 13 is smaller than 16. (It’s the same thing as saying 1/14 or 1/17.)
A 10-team parlay can make for a huge payout, by the way. A payout of 825 to 1 wouldn’t be unusual for such a bet, but the probability of winning that bet are bigger than that—1023 to 1.
Bet $100 on a 10-parlay, and you’re looking at winnings of $82,500.
This is a profitable parlay for the sportsbook, too, if you look at it statistically:
The book makes a smaller percentage profit, but on that kind of action, they can afford a smaller percentage profit.
If you think of it in terms of “the house edge,” like you would a casino game, you’re talking about a house edge that’s still 19.43%.
If you’re good at picking winners, you could theoretically make a profitable bet on a parlay. If, for example, you’re right 55% of the time instead of 50% of the time, your probability of winning the 4-game parlay skyrockets:
55% X 55% X 55% X 55% is 9.15%, or about 11 to 1.
With a 13 to 1 payout, it’s easy to see how a bettor comes out ahead, statistically.
You place 12 bets, and you win 1 of them. You have $1200 invested, but on the one bet you win, you win $1300. That’s a profit of $100 over 12 bets, or $8.33 per bet.
Getting an edge of 8.33% when you’re gambling is huge, by the way. You can’t get an edge like that even if you’re counting cards professionally (unless you’re also doing things like shuffle tracking, edge sorting, and/or hole carding, but that’s an entirely different blog post.)
What Kind of Parlay Cards Can You Make?
So far, the only examples I’ve used have been for bets on who’s going to win a football game. Parlay cards aren’t limited to the most basic bets, though. You can also place any of the following parlays at various sportsbooks:
- Moneyline
- Over/under
- Pleasers
- Point spread
- Teasers
A moneyline bet is one that doesn’t account for the point spread. You bet on who’s going to win, regardless of the strength of the teams. The payouts for bets on the favorite in a moneyline bet are smaller—sometimes MUCH smaller.
But if you can find an underdog or 2 that are going to pull off an upset, you can get a big payout on a parlay made up of moneyline bets.
An over/under bet is a bet on the total points scored in a game. The over/under is set by the handicappers at the sportsbooks, who project the final scores of each game. To get the total, you just add the scores for both teams together.
If the handicappers expect a high scoring game, the over/under will be a higher number than if they expect a low scoring game. Theoretically, the over/under number is set in such a way to give you a 50/50 probability of winning.
Combining multiple bets on the over/under can be a fun way to place a parlay bet.
A pleaser is a point spread bet where you’re given the opportunity to move the point spread to make it more likely that the book will win. You get a higher payout if you win, though.
A point spread bet is a bet on who’s going to win the game, but the strength of the teams are accounted for by giving the underdog points. This is the most common way to place a football bet, and if you’re making a single wager, you get an even money payout.
The point spread is set (theoretically) so that you get a 50/50 probability of winning.
A teaser is like a pleaser, only instead of moving the point spread to favor the book, you get to move the point spread to favor you. You get a lower payout if you win, though.
Teasers and pleasers are also available for over/under bets.
How to Make and Print Your Own Parlay Cards
You can find various websites where you can create your own parlay cards and print them. It would be best to print them on cardstock if you go this route.
Some of these sites even offer you parlay cards that already have all the numbers on them, but you can also choose to create your own numbers with their software.
ParlayCardsNow.com is one site which offers either option. You just input how you want the header to read, the name and date you want printed on the card, and your organization’s logo.
Then you have multiple lines where you can input the favorite and the underdog for each game in the parlay. You can also include the line (the point spread) and the over/under. Finally, you would include a section for the rules of the parlay and the payouts for the winners.
The parlay cards come out as PDF’s when you use the software on this site to create your parlay cards. They suggest that you uncheck the box that reads “fit to printable area,” as different printers have different parameters.
For their standard cards, this site uses Vegas odds, and the payoffs are as follows:
Of course, websites like this are in business to make money. They charge fees to access these cards, which can be bought on a weekly, 4-week, or season basis for $20, $60, or $140, respectively.
Another option would be to just find someone who has a little knowledge of how to create printable forms in Excel and have them design printable parlay cards for you. You’d probably need to give them an example to work from, but it wouldn’t be hard for them to create something you could use and re-use.
Odds Parlay Calculator Payout
You’d be responsible for finding the point spreads for the games on the parlay card, though. This might be more trouble than you want to go to, but if you’re doing a lot of business taking action on parlays—maybe you’re getting your own bookmaking operation going—it’s probably worth the investment.
Conclusion
Odds Parlay Calculator
A parlay bet is one of the most entertaining bets a sports bettor can make, so if you’re running a bookmaking operation—even on a small basis—it’s probably worth offering these. It’s a combination bet that only pays off if the bettors gets all the bets in the combination right.
If you’re an individual sports bettor, you don’t have to worry about printing your parlay cards. The bookie you’re doing business with should be able to provide you with them. The trick is to beat the odds and win the payout.
4 Team Parlay Payout Odds
The easiest way to make parlay cards is to use a subscription-based site that offers such functionality. Failing that, you just need to find a spreadsheet guru who can create fillable forms for you to use.