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 more impressive advantage over you when you play them. That, by itself, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed combined with fear that often lead to betting parlays. People think they are risking less with parlays, but 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 in fact risking more, with less probability of collecting.

A parlay is not a single bet. read more 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 possess 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 of 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 second team, or nothing on that same team, dependant on whether the first game won or lost. That adds some luck to your betting that doesn’t ought to be there. The skilled handicapper is always wanting to make smart investments. He tries to remove the result of luck to the best extent possible in order to make his results as predictable as you possibly can.

As with every rule, however, there are exceptions. The exception to the rule regarding parlays occurs once the two bets are co-dependent.

I knew one bookmaker who was simply taken for tens of thousands because he didn’t understand the co-dependency of certain bets. He allowed a new player to consistently parlay the initial 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 made in the same game. Each and every time the player won he’d win 2.6 times his bet. Betting $100 on each parlay, if one of these won, the player would win $260 and lose $100 on another parlay for a net win of $160. He could never win both parlays. If he lost both parlays he’d lose $200.

At first glance, this appeared to be a great chance for the book. The normal coin-flip odds of winning one parlay out of your two are 50-50. As far as the bookie was concerned the bettor should 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 6 months, and the book started to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.

The problem for the bookmaker was that the two halves of every parlay were co-dependent. By 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 overall game total was 53 and the initial half total was 27. At the end of the first half, the score was 31-21, for a complete of 52 first-half points. The initial 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 probability of winning the “over” for the game. Obviously the odds of winning the “over” in the game weren’t 50-50 but much better than 99% and only the “over.” The ball player only needed 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 try this, be aware that most off-shore books are far too smart to permit you to parlay first half to game. Should they do allow 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 kind of co-dependent parlay may be the parlay of the medial side and total in the same game.

Any game where the total is significantly less than double the spread can give you an edge 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 increase your win with very little increase in risk. Such a bet, however, required that you have an impression on the side or the full total. Parlaying is another solution to boost your potential win on these games, or even to create a potential win when you have no opinion.

There are two games this Saturday that qualify. They are Virigina -25 over Duke with a total 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, they must hold Duke to no more than 11 points or the game will go over the total. The much more likely it becomes during the game that Virginia will cover 25 points, the more likely it becomes that the game will go over 48 �. The wider Virginia’s winning margin, the much more likely the game will review. If you want Virginia to cover the spread, and you also believe that Duke will never be shut out, in that case your probability of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are higher than the standard 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it is less likely that Virginia covers the 25 points. Therefore, the probability a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is greater than the normal 25%.

If you have no opinion on the overall game, you can parlay the favourite 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 complete of 58 — the under has recently won with the underdog for an absolute two-parlay spread.

The closer the posted total would be to the spread on the side, the better win-rate will 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 you will find 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 help you to parlay the side to the total in the same game, because progressively more are realizing that these bets are sometimes co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets for you to 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.