How parlays work

How parlay odds multiply

Each leg’s price is turned into decimal odds, and the parlay’s decimal odds are the legs’ multiplied together. The payout is your stake times that number.

A $10 parlay of three legs at −110 is 1.91 × 1.91 × 1.91 = 6.96 in decimal odds, so it pays $69.58: $59.58 profit, or +596 in American odds.

Why a parlay hits less often

Every leg has to win, so the chances multiply too. Three legs that each win half the time all win 12.5% of the time.

Each leg’s price carries the book’s margin, so the margin multiplies as well. A leg at −110 has to win 52.4% of the time to break even; three of them together have to hit 14.4% of the time. More legs pay more, and lose more often.

When a leg pushes or is canceled

At most US sportsbooks, a leg that pushes (lands exactly on the line) or is voided (its game is postponed, or the player does not play) comes out of the parlay, and the rest pays at the remaining legs’ odds. A two-leg parlay with one push becomes a single bet on the other leg.

Rules differ between books and between kinds of bet, same game parlays especially, so read your book’s house rules.

Same game parlays and player props

A same game parlay puts legs from one game together: a quarterback’s passing yards and his receiver’s catches, say. Legs like those tend to win or lose together, so books price a same game parlay with that in mind, and it usually pays less than multiplying the legs’ own odds would.

Most of those legs are player props: one player’s yards, points, shots, strikeouts or touchdowns, over or under a line.

How ParlayHub builds a parlay

We put one number on every priced prop: how confident we are it hits tonight, from the player’s own games and tonight’s matchup, played out 10,000 times. Our number is built from our own data first; on some markets the books’ price is then weighed in as one more input.

Then the whole board is ranked. LOCK is the top quarter of every priced leg on the board, ranked by our number — on NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, the ones our number says pay at their price. EDGE is the next group down: the legs ranked below LOCK, to the top half of the board — on NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, the ones our number says pay at their price. An EDGE parlay is built from that group alone — none of LOCK’s legs, so a bigger payout. Parlay My Way builds from the top 60% of that ranking, from the top down, to exactly the number of legs you ask for. On NBA, NHL and MLB the ranking is of the legs priced −200 or longer, so no group takes a heavier favorite.

Parlay questions