Betting Guide Extra: Parlays

Last Updated on March 27, 2024

Parlay bets can also be known as accumulator bets, and it gives players a great chance of multiplying their winnings. The basic premise is that you are selecting a bet from one game, and combining it with a bet from another game. You can combine this with more and more bets from different matches to further multiply your potential profits. Usually, you will need all of those selections to win for you to win your parlay bet, but there are times that even if some selections don’t win, you can still make a profit.

Straight Parlays

The simplest type of parlay is called a double, and this is where you combine two different selections from two different matches to make a bet. We will use the 1×2 prices in a football match to make this simple:

Let’s say we want to place a bet on Team A to win AND also Team C to win. We can add both of these selections to our betslip, and you will have the option of being to place a ‘Double’. This is considered one bet, and if both of them to end up winning their matches, you your bet will win.

To work out the odds of the parlay bet, you only need to multiply the Decimal odds of both of these. Thankfully, the above are already in decimal odds, so if we multiply 1.90 x 1.50, we get odds of 2.85 for the new bet.

Both of them have to win for your bet to win, if either one of them loses, or both of them loses, your bet will be a loser.

Lets say we find another game, and we want to bet on Team F in this game also in a parlay along with Team A and Team C again. Team F’s odds are at 14.5, so now we can place a bet called a ‘Treble’ and the new odds will be 1.90 x 1.50 x 14.5 = 41.325. If you bet $100 and all three selections win, your returns would be $ 4132.50, or a profit of $4032.50.

So the more selections you add, the bigger your price. You can bet on any market across any sport, and even live bets are allowed in this bet type, but you can only ever choose 1 bet from 1 single game.

The names of the types of straight parlay bets are:

• Double: Combination of 2 bets
• Treble: Combination of 3 bets
• 4-fold: Combination of 4 bets
• 5-fold: Combination of 5 bets
• 6-fold: Combination of 6 bets
• 7-fold: Combination of 7 bets
• 8-fold: Combination of 8 bets and so on

Different bookmakers will have different limits to the number of selections you can add, and the more you add, the lower the maximum bet is likely to become because more bookmakers employ a system where you can only win a certain amount for a certain bet.

Full Cover Parlays

There is another type of parlay bet, and it can get quite fun to place bets like this. You can choose a number of different selections, and you can place a multitude of different combinations that mean that even if a few of the selection lose, you could still receive some returns from the bet.

Lets use the same example as before:

We want to combine bets from 3 selections, and we want to be on Team A to win, Team C to win and Team F to win.

As well as the treble, you can also bet on a combination of doubles. Lets rename the selections:

• Team A to win = Selection X (@1.90)
• Team C to win = Selection Y (@1.50)
• Team F to win = Selection Z (@14.5)

We can call the Treble à Bet XYZ, but there is also a combination of 3x Doubles that we can place here, namely XY, XZ and YZ. So, we can actually place a bet called a TRIXIE, and a Trixie is when we place 4 individual bets from 3 different selections. And, as we discussed above, the odds for each one are the multiplied decimal odds.

So, the 4 bets look like this:

Lets say that you bet $10 on each of these bets, and Selection X and selection Z wins, but selection Y loses.

Bets 1, 2 and 4 will all lose, because ‘Selection Y’ has lost, but Bet 3, which combines only ‘Selections X and Z’, both of which won, will be a winner. Overall, you have staked $40, and got returns of $275.50, meaning you still make a profit of $235.50!

We can do the same thing with 4 selections, where the numbers of bets and combinations will start to increase! There is another football match going on, and here are the odds:

Here, we want to bet on the draw, so that is at odds of 3.75, and we’re going to call this one ‘Selection W, so now we have:

• Team G+H draw = Selection W (@3.75)
• Team A to win = Selection X (@1.90)
• Team C to win = Selection Y (@1.50)
• Team F to win = Selection Z (@14.5)

We can place a 4-fold, which is a straight parlay of WXYZ, the combined odds of which would be 154.97 (Dec), which is all the odds multiplied together. But from 4 selections, we can also make a series of other bets, doubles and trebles combined, in fact, 4x Trebles, and 6x Doubles:

Lets say that selections W, X and Z win, but Selection Y loses, and we stake $10 on each again, we get a table like this:

In total, we stake $110, receive returns of $1,923.63, and therefore make a profit of $1,813.63. This bet is called a ‘Yankee’, so you are placing 11 bets of equal stake on 4 different selections.

In this way, you can place all kinds of combinations of bets depending on the number of selections you choose. For example, if you look at the table below, you will see that if you choose 8 selections, you are able to place a bet called a ‘Goliath’ that comprises of a total of 247 separate bets: 28x doubles, 56x trebles, 70x 4-folds, 56x 5-folds, 28x 6-folds, 8x 7-folds and 1x 8-fold.

If you’re selecting a bet type like this, you will be inputting into the betslip that you want to stake per bet. So if you want to bet on a goliath, and you want to bet $10 per bet, make sure you have $2470 in your balance to place it successfully.

Finally, it is also possible to place the above bets and also combine with the singles of each selection. So in the case of the Trixie, on top of the 1x treble and 3x doubles, you can also place 3x singles on X, Y, Z individually.

The names of the full cover bet will change slightly if you do choose to add singles: