Sports Betting Strategy
- One of the best and most basic live sports betting strategies is to wager on the heavy favorite that trails in a game but still has a good opportunity to win straight up. Bettors backing the favorite may have had to lay -300 on the moneyline before the game started, but now you may be able to get that same team at +100 in live betting.
- The zig zag betting theory is a strategy that applies to betting on NHL and NBA playoff series. This is because those leagues use a 2-2-1-1-1 playoff format when it comes to home and away games. The higher seeded team plays at home for the first two games, as well as the 5th and 7th, if necessary. The zig zag theory works on two main concepts.
- Sports Betting Strategy Reddit
- Professional Sports Gambling Strategies
- Sports Betting Strategy Money Line
- Sports Betting Strategy Sites
A parlay bet is a popular form of sports wagering most gamblers are familiar with. In case you’re not, this bet is rather easy to understand. A parlay is simply a combo bet where, rather than betting several teams individually, you group them into a single wager. Using this option, the payout is greater and the risk is less, but you need all teams selected to win.
To give an example, say you’re interested this week in betting Jets -4, Patriots +3, Dolphins +2.5 and Colts -7. If your bankroll is limited to just $100, using straight wagers you’d make four separate bets of $25 to win $22.73. If you we’re feeling both lucky and in the mood to gamble, you might instead bet them all together as a four team parlay. Under the parlay option, the stakes would be $100 to win at least $1,000. To win, you’ll need to go 4-0; if one or more games push while all others win, the payout is reduced, and with any other outcome, the bet is a loss.
What happens if there’s a push in a parlay? That bet will be taken out of the parlay and the payout will be reduced as if there were one fewer team in the parlay. So if you had a 4 team parlay and you got three picks cocrrect and the other was a push, you would be paid out the odds of a 3 team parlay.
Sports Betting Strategy Reddit
Parlay bets can be very tempting as they can offer some big payouts. See a recent parlay Kevin made at 5Dimes.eu and cashed in on!
Are Parlays Sucker Bets?
Arbitrage betting is a very powerful strategy. When executed correctly, it can return GUARANTEED profits. That’s not something that’s easily achievable when betting on sports. This strategy is all about exploiting pricing discrepancies in the betting markets.
There is a general misconception in sports betting that all parlays are sucker bets. This is simply because most sports bettors are not familiar with how they work, or how to bet them properly. In this article, I’ll address parlay betting strategies, but first let’s look at parlay odds and how they are calculated.
The parlay odds at most Las Vegas sportsbooks are:
2 teams 2.6 to 1
3 teams 6-1
4 teams 10-1
5 teams 20-1
6 teams 40-1
7 teams 80-1
8 teams 150-1
Online the odds are similar, though some sites such as BetNow and MyBookie offer better odds starting with three teams and up. What’s important to note is that these are fixed odds based on a 50/50 wagering proposition. If a spread is listed at Home Team -7 / Road Team +7 this is 50/50 proposition. If, instead, the spread was Home Team -7 -105 / Road Team +7 -115, this is no longer a 50/50 proposition, and the payout will be calculated using a method bookmakers refer to as “true odds”. I’ll cover that later in this article, but first let’s take a moment to understand where fixed parlay odds are derived from.
Let’s say you decide for the next eight weeks you’re going to bet the Monday night football game, starting with a $1.00 bankroll and betting your entire bankroll each week until you go 8-0 or bust. The potential win is as follows:
Week 1: $1.00 to win $0.91: If win total profit = $0.91 (Bankroll =$1.91)
Week 2: $1.91 to win $1.74: If win total profit = $2.65 (Bankroll =$3.65)
Week 3: $3.65 to win $3.32: If win total profit = $5.97 (Bankroll =$6.97)
Week 4: $6.97 to win $6.34: If win total profit = $12.31 (Bankroll =$13.31)
Week 5: $13.31 to win $12.10: If win total profit = $24.41 (Bankroll =$25.41)
Week 6: $25.41 to win $23.10: If win total profit = $46.51 (Bankroll =$47.51)
Week 7: $47.51 to win $43.19: If win total profit = $89.70 (Bankroll =$90.70)
Week 8: $90.70 to win $82.45: If win total profit = $172.15 (Bankroll =$173.15)
The reason parlays are often sucker bets shows up in this middle column. Had you bet these in an 8 team parlay, you’d only get paid 150 to one. Essentially, a parlay is no different than betting all in each time, only parlays generally pay much worse. However, you’ll notice the odds are not poor until you get to four teams, where the sportsbook has a whopping 31.25% advantage. Two teams pay a smidgen worse than the manual parlay (all in each time) option, where three team parlays pay a smidgen better. Rarely ever is a 2 or 3 team parlay a true suckers bet.
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What Does a Parlay Pay?
As I mentioned earlier, fixed parlay odds vary greatly between online sportsbooks. Here is some info on which sites offer the best fixed parlay odds:
In general two team parlays pay +260, or $260 for every $100 bet. BetNow offers +264.5, and 5Dimes.eu offers +264, which is better than the +260 most betting sites offer.
3 team parlays pay 6/1 or $600 for every $100 bet. BetOnline.ag is the leader in the industry in 3 team parlay payouts.
This is the area where betting sites generally hurt the sports bettor, paying only 10 to 1, which gives them a 31.25% advantage. This can be avoided when betting at BetNow where the payout is +1228.3, or at 5Dimes where it is +1228.
Generally speaking, parlaying 5 teams or more teams is not a good idea; however, for sports gamblers looking for a lotto ticket, 5dimes.eu and Bookmaker.eu each offer up to 15 team parlays and have by far the best odds in the business on these.
How much does a 15 team parlay pay? A 15 team parlay will pay out over +16,000. I just tested this out and a $1 15 team NFL parlay at -110 odds will payout $16,306. Good luck hitting on that!
True Odds Parlays
1 Earlier, I mentioned fixed odds are only given when all selections are 50/50 propositions. If one side of a line requires a greater stake than the other to yield the same payout, this is not a 50/50 proposition, and the bookmaker will now use “true odds”. What’s important to note is that true odds doesn’t actually mean the “true odds” of winning. Rather, true odds pays the same as if you bet each team individually and rolled the profit forward each time, which is what I showed in the example of 8 all in bets starting with a $1.00 stake.
To calculate true odd parlays, each bet first needs to be converted into a multiplier. To do this, take what a winning ticket would return and divide it by the amount risked. For example, at -110 a $110 stake returns $210 ($110 stake + $100 win). Calculating the multiplier as return/risk here, we plug in 210/110, which means the multiplier is 1.91. If we did the same on -115, the multiplier is 215/115=1.87.
Let’s say you’re in the mood to gamble on an 8 team parlay, but the only out available to you is a bookmaker paying 150-1 fixed odds. A trick of the trade here is to include one bet that is priced differently than -110 in order to force the bookmaker to use true odds. So, let’s say you make 7 selections priced at the standard -110 pricing and one at -115. A true parlay calculates by multiplying each modifier together. The math is 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.91 * 1.87, which equals 173.41. This bet returns 173.41 times the stake, which includes the risk amount, so the bet is 1 to win 172.41. Notice this is significantly better than the fixed odds payout of 1 to win 150 on an 8 team parlay. In short, the trick of the trade when dealing with poor fixed odds is to simply add one team to the parlay that is priced differently than the standard -110.
As you can now see, if you know how to bet parlays properly, they are not always sucker bets. There are, however, a few reasons that parlays are generally not a good move. I’ll cover these, and then cover the times it does make sense.
Sports Betting Strategy Money Line
Top Reasons to Avoid Parlays
1) Progressive betting systems are generally regarded as poor strategy for both bankroll management and bankroll growth. Professional bettors make wagers based on their quantified edge per game. While the math can work out, doing the math for proper bet sizing on a parlay is a lot of added work with little to no upside for most sports bettors.
2) Parlay bets have higher variance than straight bets. Here you’re getting the same odds, but your chance of hitting a dry spell is greatly increased. When the odds are the same it is most often better to go with the lower variance option, which in this case is straight wagers.
3) Line Shopping – Sports bettors maximize their profit by always shopping for the best price. For example, finding -4 when other sites are -4.5, and finding reduced vig options such as -104 instead of -110. When betting parlays, you’ll need to find the most favorable odds for each team at a single betting site. This scenario is rare, so generally you’ll end up with better odds by making straight wagers at multiple betting sites.
Parlays That Make the Most Sense:
Reduced Juice – BetOnline.ag offers 6.5 to one on three team parlays. This comes out better than betting sides at the -105 price standard reduced juice sports books offer. In sports such as NFL football where 50/50 wagering propositions are common, a sports bettor gets far superior odds by betting 3 team parlays at BetOnline.
Correlated Parlays – If a bookmaker was offering betting lines on both “will it be cloudy today?” and “will it rain today?”, if allowed, you’d be much better off betting either both as no, or both as yes, in a parlay bet as opposed to straight wagers. While this is a simplified example, there are plenty of times when outcomes are correlated in sports betting. For example, a handicapper might determine that if one team covers the spread, the game is more likely to go over or under the posted total. Also, during the final week of the NFL season, a certain team winning or losing the day game might result in a previously important night game now having no meaning in the playoff race.
Free Play Bonuses – Several online betting sites, for example BetNow, offer players free bets based on the size of their initial deposit. Free play bonuses are not the same as cash. The difference is that a bet made with cash returns both stake and win, where a bet made with a free play returns only win. Parlays allow you the chance to use the same free play more than once, because a parlay really is only a wager that continues to place stake+win on the next selection. Remember, fixed odd three team parlays pay a little better than true odds. So when using free plays to bet 3 team parlays, you’re getting slightly better odds, and also a chance to apply that free play stake to three different bets. This is common knowledge that 3 team parlays are a great use of free play bonuses.
Circumventing Betting Limits – I’ll warn you upfront that betting sites do not take kindly to this, and it might get you banned. The basic idea here is, say you find a parlay with monster value in a small market with low betting limits. Let’s say a woman’s field hockey line opens at +150 when it should be +100. Here making ten unique two-team parlays, using the +150 bet with a random -110 each time might be advantageous, as on average you’ll get down 5 times the max bet. At -110 juice the expected ROI is less, but to get the maximum amount down on line of significant value, it might make sense. While personally I rarely use this strategy online, I do attempt to get away with it in Las Vegas from time to time. This takes a little bit of acting, such as starting to walk away from the cage and then saying wait, also give me… Know this: It is a trick of the trade advantage players use that is not for novice bettors.
This concludes our article on parlay betting. As a final tip: if you enjoy using parlays as a lottery ticket, www.Bovada.lv runs a $10,000 weekly parlay jackpot during football season, which is an added bonus on top of what a $5 stake pays on a 10 team parlay win. To learn more, see the promo section at www.Bovada.lv. If nothing else, this article gives you some great conversation material next time someone in the sports bar says, parlays are for suckers. Hopefully, it ends up being much more than that, adding extra winnings to your bankroll. Either way, we wish you the best of luck.
Other Advanced Sports Betting Strategy Articles:
» Teaser Betting Strategy
» Prop Betting Strategy
» How To Get Max Value When Betting
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Do you know what a ‘parlay’ means? Have you heard of Martingale staking? There are lots of online sports betting systems, and before you can start betting, you’ll need to understand the most common ones. There are systems for everything under the sun, but we’ll stick to the four major sports: baseball, basketball, football, and hockey.
We’ll teach you how to use online betting systems to develop a strategy and start making money! Our guide will also show you which system is best for betting wisely and recouping your losses.
What Is an Online Betting System?
These systems give bettors patterns to help them to increase earnings by giving strategies to win. Betting systems may also be known as ‘staking plans’ or ‘staking formulas’. Some work by betting more when you win, while others function well by decreasing wagers as you lose.
Negative Progression Systems
Negative progression systems sound big and fancy, but think about it like this: losing is always negative. In this case, you increase your stake each time you lose. You may be thinking, “Wait! Why would I increase my bet if I lose?” The idea is to make up for your loss with a win on the current bet. This method can be super successful, but be careful: If you start a losing streak, you may get in over your head.
This is a common strategy in casino games, but it’s often applied to the four major sports, too. Three sub-strategies include the Martingale, D’Alembert, and Labouchere plans.
Martingale Staking Plan
The Martingale System involves progressively betting more every time you lose. For example, you started with a $100 bet and lose, will then double your bet. You continue doubling each successive bet until you win ($100, $200, and so on.). By the time you arrive at the fifth bet, you’d be shelling out $1600, so the risk is high. The gain, however, could be quite rewarding.
D’Alembert Betting Theory
While similar to the Martingale strategy, the D’Alembert system works a little differently to increase your bets more slowly. The slower rise in stakes means that it’s less likely that your bets will become impossible to bankroll and won’t let you recover your losses as quickly as the Martingale, but it also mitigates risk.
This method assumes that there’s an equilibrium to be found in even money bets. Statistically speaking, you should always win the same number of bets you lose. Using this assumption, you choose a percentage of your total bankroll to use for each bet. You can select any percentage, but we recommend using 1-5% of your bankroll on every bet.
Say that you have a $1000 bankroll. At 2%, your first bet is $20. If you lose, you’ll increase your gamble by one base unit ($20), so it’s $40. Each time you lose, increase your bet by one base unit until you win. Every time you win, you’ll decrease your bet by one base unit.
Labouchere Betting System
The Labouchere splits your bet into several wager amounts. Think about it like you have a pile of M&Ms that you divvy up to avoid eating all at once.
Wager amounts are units totaling the value you’d like to win. So, if you’d like to win $100, you break this number into a bunch of smaller ones, like the following: $10, $20, $40, $20, $10. After placing your first wager, your potential winnings will need to be your first unit plus your last unit, or $20.
We’ll say you won your first wager and made the $20 required. You will cross off the $10 at the beginning and the $10 at the end. If you lost, you’d add the $20 you lost to the last $10. Add the $10 and $20 – the first and last units again. Your wager will be $30.
If you keep losing, you’ll keep adding your wager to the end. If you win, you’ll cross off both the first and last units.
Experts don’t really recommend this betting pattern if you’ve got a small bankroll. It can become costly quickly, which can leave you out of pocket and frustrated.
Insurance Betting System
This is exactly what it sounds like. Start with a bet, like $50. To keep numbers easy, we’ve chosen $5 as your unit. With each sequential bet you lose, simply reduce your bet by a unit ($45, $40, $35). As you can see, it’ll protect you from losses but won’t allow you to win your losses back.
Positive Progression Systems
Positive progression systems are the exact opposite of negative ones. Raise your stake for each win, rather than each loss. If you’re on a losing streak, this system probably won’t let you win back your losses. A few strategies that fall under this system are the Paroli and parlay systems. Be careful about using a progression system if you have a limited wallet.
Paroli Formula
The Paroli formula is used in ‘even wager betting’. Experts suggest that a 2% base stake is a good place to start. Double your bet each time you win and, after winning 3 times in a row, drop your bet back down to the base stake. If you lost, simply cut your bet to the base stake and use it until you win again.
Parlay System
In essence, a parlay is multiple wagers in one, and the system allows you to reinvest winnings from one wager to the next. To successfully use this method, you’ll need to choose the winning team for every option you’ve selected. This makes the odds higher and you’re definitely increasing your chances of losing, but winning makes the profits much sweeter.
Other Types of Sports Betting Systems
In the end, most systems boil down to fixed, variable, and proportionate systems like the Fibonacci, unit, and Oscar’s Grind.
Fixed systems are simply systems where you place a fixed amount on each wager. Variable staking, however, works the opposite way. You have to calculate your wagers based on a variety of criteria (eg. confidence level, odds).
Proportionate systems require betting a portion of your bankroll (or balance) and then increasing by that same percentage after each win. For example, if you had a $100 bankroll and bet 10%, you’d bet $10 the first time.
If you won, you’d add your winnings and find 10% of your new total for the next wager. For instance, if you won $20 you would add this to the $100. You then find 10% of $120, which is $12.
Fibonacci System
Using this methodology, you’ll increase your bets based on the Fibonacci sequence. Start by choosing your betting unit. We always recommend 2-3%.
The Fibonacci sequence starts with zero, but ignore that number and start with the second number (1). The sequence is as follows, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 and so on. Chose a unit to use. We’ll use $5 to make the math easy. The Fibonacci numbers tell you how many units to use.
Your first bet is – $5 or 1 unit. You lose. Place your second bet, also $5 or 1 unit. You lose again. Place your third bet, $10 or 2 units. Now you win. Move down 1 unit to $5 or 1 unit.
The Unit System
As we’ve seen in other strategies, the unit system uses a range assigned by the bettor. These typically fall between 1 and 10, and are based on the confidence a bettor has in the wager. You reserve a 10 for that very rare wager that stands out. The 1 is for your most certain stakes. Each unit will be a percent of your wallet. Most often, each is valued at 1% of your balance.
Successful Betting Strategies
Choose staking formulas that are successful rather than complicated or trending. We’ve discussed the most common and widely used, but you should find one that works for you. It really comes down to choosing a system that’s easy to use and calculate, and sticking to that system. If you’re constantly switching things up, you’ll never learn what works best for you.
If you’re looking for even more success as a sports better, apply these simple sports betting strategies!