The Pros and Cons of Parlay Betting: Is It Worth the Risk?

Parlay betting is a high-risk-high reward betting that allows you to combine multiple bets into a single wager in order to multiply your winnings. However, for the parlay to win, all bets in it must win, a single bet loss will lose your full parlay. You can use as few as 2 and as many as 15 individual wagers in a parlay, and your bets can include moneyline bets, spread bets, and over/unders.

The most common types of parlays are built using straightforward lines; however, some more combinations of picks and parlays are possible, like the below ones:

Teasers: Commonly used in NFL and NBA, your bet for each teaser pick and parlay is focused either on football or basketball. Teaser works by assigning extra points to each spread or over/under.

Round Robins: These are a little safer than other picks and parlays. Round robins require you to select at least three unique lines, before those plays are broken down to form smaller and separate parlays.

Same-game parlays: This bet utilizes correlated wagers for the same event to earn a higher payout. The idea is that the outcome of one bet can increase or decrease the likelihood of another leg cashing. This picks and parlays strategy can also be used for betting players' props.

Pleasers: This picks and parlays bet is among the hardest to win, and works exactly opposite to that of teasers. Some sportsbooks won’t even offer them, but they reward you handsomely if you are able to pull them off. While in a teaser bet, you traditionally get extra six points for each spread, in pleasers, you give away six more points per game.

Pros and cons of parley betting

Pros

· If you could manage a win through picks and parlays, the payout would be enormous.

· You don’t have to be too consistent to make money.

· You have the potential to make a lot of money with minimal stakes.

· It allows bettors to use moneyline favorites that have no value as a single bet.

· Parlay bets are quite exciting, as you are unlikely to win; you get major bragging rights.

Cons

· Even with an excellent betting system, your odds of winning all bets in picks and parlays are very low.

· There is a high potential to go on a very long run without winning any bets.

· In the vast majority of the time, complex bets simply do not pay off.

· Each added selection in picks and parlays makes it harder to win, even if the payout increases.

· It is difficult to implement solid betting strategies using picks and parlays.

Picks and parlays can be a fun way to make sports betting more exciting, but we won’t recommend them as a long-term strategy. This does not mean that you do not make picks and parlays on a weekly basis, all that we are saying that these should not be a large part of your daily wagers.

This is because picks and parlays require all legs to have hit a positive expected value (EV), which is not easy. Generally speaking, picks and parlays have an especially low win rate. Our advice - Only use picks and parlays as a fun bet, not as a serious way to make cash.