What is a Parlay Bet

Parlays are one of the most popular ways to bet in sports today. Essentially, a parlay wager is multiple bets grouped into a single one. For example, instead of choosing the Cleveland Browns to win on a particular Sunday, you might choose the Browns, the Detroit Lions and the New England Patriots to win.

This means you need all three teams to indeed win – or one could also wager on all three to cover the point spread -- in order to win your bet, and if a single team loses than you lose your bet. This does increase your chance of losing a bet, but it comes with a much higher reward when you do win. This is a popular way to bet because it requires a smaller initial bet to win big. The more bets you include in your parlay the higher your reward is when you win.

Parlay Strategy

There are multiple strategies to approaching a parlay bet. Parlays are really fun for this exact reason: They allow the bettor to customize their bets in unique ways. For example, you could parlay an NBA bet with an NFL bet with an NHL bet with a UFC fight.

First thing to consider is how many bets you want to include in your parlay. If you are certain that a few teams are going to win this week in, say, football, then including just a few teams in a parlay can be a safe way to increase your winnings. If you like the lottery approach, you can include many teams and if you get them all right win big. This is all about your preference and the great thing about betting online is that you can usually customize your parlay exactly how you like it. Another thing to consider when betting on parlays is which sort of bets you want to include. You could focus on home underdogs, for instance, or just underdogs in general to increase your risk and reward. You could play it safer and go with the favorites and try to minimize risk while still getting a good payout due to the parlay.

Alternative Parlays

Round Robin: A Round Robin bet is a variation on the normal parlay that essentially groups multiple parlay bets together. This means you have to select three or more teams or totals to be in your Round Robin. Then you must choose how many teams or totals you would like to group together for your Round Robin. You do not have to tie all your bets together, so you are allowed to pick and choose which ones you want to be combined to increase your payout. This is basically a way to bet on multiple parlays at once as well as increasing some risk and reward if you so choose. Similar to “boxing” a horse in a trifecta or exacta in a horse race.

Teaser Parlay: A teaser parlay acts very similar to a traditional parlay, except that it involves more personal customization when it comes to the spread. There are no moneyline picks in a teaser parlay, you must pick with a spread – however, you are able to adjust the spread to your preference. This of course changes the odds involved, but can be a fun or creative way to personalize your parlay to something you are more comfortable with. For example, if you want to choose the Detroit Lions to cover the spread against the Green Bay Packers but do not think the 3-point spread is reasonable, you can bump the spread up to +5 in favor of the Lions for that particular bet in your parlay.