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 once you play them. That, alone, is reason enough to suppress the misplaced feelings of greed coupled with fear that often lead to betting parlays. People think they’re risking less with parlays, however they aren’t. They believe they are able to win more with parlays, however they cannot. The bigger win with parlays is far outweighed by the bigger probability of losing. Parlay bettors are in fact risking more, with less possibility of collecting.

A parlay is not an individual bet. It really 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 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 have been on the loser. How smart is that for the bettor? Go ahead, 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 would still make the bet?

A parlay is also bad money management. In a parlay you either bet double on the next team, or nothing on that same team, dependant on if the first game won or lost. That adds an element of luck to your betting that doesn’t should be there. The skilled handicapper is definitely wanting to make smart investments. He tries to get rid of the result of luck to the greatest extent possible in order to make his results as predictable as possible.

Much like 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 thousands because he didn’t understand the co-dependency of certain bets. tylekeonhacai.asia allowed a new player to consistently parlay the initial half with the overall game. The ball player parlayed totals by combining the over in the first half with the over in the overall game, and the under in the initial half with under in the overall 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 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 opportunity for the book. The standard coin-flip odds of winning one parlay out of the two are 50-50. As far as the bookie was concerned the bettor ought to be winning $160 half enough time, and losing $200 half the time. The bettor, however, making $500 parlays, was ahead more than $20,000 after six months, and the book began to look at what the bettor was doing more carefully.

The issue for the bookmaker was that both halves of each parlay were co-dependent. At 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 first half total was 27. By the end of the first half, the score was 31-21, for a complete of 52 first-half points. The first half of one of many parlays, the “over” in the initial half was successful. For the parlay probability to be correct, there should now be a 50-50 probability of winning the “over” for the overall game. Obviously the odds of winning the “over” in the overall game were not 50-50 but better than 99% and only the “over.” The ball player only had a need 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 much too smart to enable you to parlay first half to game. If they do enable you to do this, start fretting about collecting because that book will be taken to the cleaners.

There are, however, some less obvious co-dependent parlays that may be made at many books. One type of co-dependent parlay is the parlay of the side and total in exactly the same game.

Any game where the total is less than double the spread can give 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 very little increase in risk. Such a bet, however, needed that you have an opinion privately or the full total. Parlaying is another method to boost your potential win on these games, or even to develop a potential win if you have no opinion.

There are two games this Saturday that qualify. They’re Virigina -25 over Duke with a complete of 48 �, and Kansas St. -24 � vs. North Texas with a complete 46 �).

In the Virginia game, if you believe that Virginia will cover the 25 points, they must hold Duke to only 11 points or the overall game will go over the total. The much more likely it becomes through 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 believe that Duke will not be shut out, then your probability of winning a parlay on Virginia and the over are greater than the standard 25%. Likewise, if the scoring stays low, it is less likely that Virginia will cover the 25 points. Due to this fact, the probability that a parlay of the under with the underdog will win is higher than the normal 25%.

In case you have no opinion on the overall 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 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 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 would not allow such bets), but there exists 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 a growing number of are realizing these bets are sometimes co-dependent. But, enough books still do allow such bets that you can consider including such bets in your professional betting arsenal.

If your bookmaker provides “if/reverse” bets, it is possible to replace the parlay bet with an “if/reverse” bet and achieve greater success.