What Does Parlay Betting Mean? – A Step by Step Guide
If you are opening multiple sportsbook accounts, you will come across some of the US-facing bookies talking about parlay betting.
Many punters from the UK simply don’t bother with sports betting parlay for the main reason that they don’t know what it means which is a shame, because if someone asks you what is a parlay, the simple answer is that it is an accumulator.
Most UK punters will be familiar with placing an accumulator bet so let’s look at the different types of accumulator options and for the sake of this article, we will refer to these bets as Parlay betting.
The Safest Types of Parlay Betting
Whilst there is no doubt that parlay betting can provide some astonishing pay-outs, the odds of these pay-outs will give you a good indication of the chances that an average punter has of landing a successful parlay bet.
As an example, if you have placed a parlay bet on seven football teams to win and the odds are 1729/1, you should realise that the chances of winning are quite remote but on saying that, if you are someone who puts time into studying which selections you are going to include in your sports betting parlay, those odds could turn out to be very generous indeed.
The fact of the matter is though that the smaller the number of selections which you use in your parlay bet will give you the greater chance of seeing a return on your investment.
Therefore, a double (two selections) will obviously give you a better chance of winning than the 1729/1 example which we gave earlier.
When you take into consideration that a successful £10 double with both selections priced at 6/1 will give a profit of £480 you can see that even this smallest example of sports betting parlay can pay the punter dividends.
The main problem with parlay betting is that punters get greedy, the sportsbook where they are placing their bet will display how much they will win if the parlay is successful, so they are tempted to keep on adding a selection in order to increase the potential returns into a life-changing amount of money.
It should also be noted that bookies love parlay betting, where, as many selections as possible are included because it is a very good earner for them, and you will often see the sportsbook press departments go into overdrive when a punter wins a large amount from a small stakes parlay.
The national press and every social media outlet that you can think of will be full of stories about the big win because the sportsbook knows only too well that stories like these will tempt other punters into parlay betting.
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Parlay Betting Secrets
Perhaps one of the best parlay betting secrets is the accumulator promotions which are now offered by many of the top sportsbooks.
The terms and conditions of these promotions can vary, but the most popular one is where you will get a refund of your stake if one selection lets you down.
Most punters will see an offer like this and just carry on betting as normal, but the more astute punters who have discovered the delight of matched betting will know only too well that they will be able to use a betting exchange in tandem with the offer to guarantee a return on the bet.
The returns will obviously be a lot smaller than if you bet in a traditional way and the bet won, but the beauty of the best parlay betting secrets is that you could quite literally take advantage of ten or more of these promotions each day and make a small profit from each.
The trick is to choose selections in a football match where all of the matches finish at different times. This will enable you to lay each bet off at your betting exchange of choice according to the match result.
There will be a lot of work involved with regards to money management and tracking the football matches as they finish and if you take a look at a few of the bookies that are out there, you will see that many of them offer these accumulator promotions which you can take advantage of.
The Future of Parlay Betting
Most experts within the gambling industry will agree that the future of parlay betting is very bright indeed.
Bookies profit from parlay betting so you can rest assured that they will continue to come up with as many offers as they possibly can in order to tempt punters to carry out their parlay betting with them.
As soon as one bookie comes up with a new parlay betting promotion, the other bookies will try and come up with something better and fortunately for the punter, the cycle goes on and on.
It is therefore highly advisable that you take some time and look into the parlay betting secrets of matched betting but on saying that, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a speculative accumulator bet every now and again for a bit of fun.
A football accumulator on a Saturday afternoon has now become something of a UK obsession, and if you go into any pub or bookie on the high street, you will see punters of all ages eagerly watching Gillette Soccer Saturday on Sky Sports in anticipation that this particular Saturday might be the day when their accumulator bet comes in.
If you are looking for guaranteed profits though, you now know how to win parlays and if you are ever asked to explain how does a parlay work, you will know exactly what to say!