Question of the Day - 27 July 2019

Happy to.

With sports betting in the incipient phases of exploding throughout the land, a lot of the jargon will enter the lexicon. Our recently published sports-betting memoir Then One Day, and our upcoming Win at Sports Betting, provide major lessons in the lingo. 

To answer your question, a "parlay" is a wager that involves two or more events. For example, I'll bet you that I can get my golf ball onto the green from the tee in two shots, then hole it in two (more) shots. To win, I have to be successful in both propositions and I have to win as specified -- I can't get onto the green in one shot and sink the ball in three or get on in three and sink it in one.

"Parlay" is also a verb. When you parlay, you use the winnings from one wager to make another. One advantage of a parlay is being able to roll the winnings from one bet into a second bet that's taking place simultaneously, as in betting the Yankees and over in the same game.

You can create and bet parlays in a sports book by combining wagers "off the board" (meaning taken from the odds board) or by using a parlay card, which is (usually) a rectangular piece of thin card stock pre-printed with the eligible betting options that you're allowed to combine. For example, a football parlay card might have bets on sides, totals, and some propositions.

The attraction of parlay cards to players is the big payoffs they offer for small bets -- 10-teamers, for example, might pay 850-to-1. But they're no gambling bargain. Parlay cards in Nevada sports books require at least three bets and pay winners at odds in the area of 6.5-for-1 (which is the same as 5.5-to-1). The fair payoff for correctly predicting three independent events is 7-1, so a sports book ostensibly has an 18.75% edge on this bet.

Why "ostensibly"? Because the pre-printing of the pointspreads can yield opportunities when the current line moves away from the line on the printed card that can't be changed. So players can lock in a number that's better than what the market is offering. Also, skilled gamblers sometimes find correlations in the betting options, which can also erase the book's advantage.

For the most part, though, the casinos have a big edge on parlay cards and continue to profit handily from them every year.