What is a parlay?

The short answer

A parlay is one bet made of several selections, called legs. You place one stake at one combined price. If every leg wins, the ticket pays at that price. If a single leg loses, the whole ticket loses, however well the others did. Some other countries call the same thing an accumulator.

People play parlays because the payout grows quickly with each leg. A stake that would win a modest amount on one game can win several times its size on four games, as long as all four come in. The same feature is the reason parlays lose more often than almost any other bet: winning four times in a row is much harder than winning once.

A simple example

Say you like two teams to win their spread bets, and each bet is priced at -110. That price means you stake $110 to win $100. Placed separately, a $100 stake on each would win about $90.91 per bet that wins.

Joined as a parlay, the two legs are priced together at +264. A $100 stake pays $364.46 in total if both win, which is $264.46 in profit plus your stake back. If only one wins, you lose the whole $100. Two separate $100 bets in the same case would win $90.91 on one and lose $100 on the other, a net loss of $9.09.

How the payout is worked out

The sportsbook multiplies the decimal odds of each leg, and the result is the decimal odds of the parlay. Decimal odds are the total return per dollar staked, stake included. Converting from American odds takes one step: for a plus price, divide by 100 and add 1, and for a minus price, divide 100 by the number without its sign and add 1.

1. Convert each leg to decimal odds. A price of -110 is 1.909, and +150 is 2.50.
2. Multiply the decimal odds of all the legs together.
3. Multiply your stake by the result to get the total payout.
4. Subtract your stake to get the profit.

A mixed ticket shows how it works with different prices. Take legs at -150, +120 and -110 with a $20 stake. Their decimal odds multiply to 7.00, so the total payout is $140.00 and the profit is $120.00. In American odds the parlay is priced at +600. The parlay calculator does the same arithmetic for up to 12 legs.

How fast the chance of winning falls

The chance that every leg wins is the product of the chances of each leg. If one leg has a 60% chance, two legs of the same strength win together 36% of the time, because 0.6 times 0.6 is 0.36. Each added leg multiplies the chance by another fraction, so the total shrinks fast.

Even legs that each win four times in five, which is a strong bet, give a parlay that wins about one time in four with six legs. A ticket full of favorites feels safe, and it is much less safe than it looks.

Reading a parlay slip

When you tap a second selection in the app, the bet slip switches to a parlay view. It lists each leg with its own price, shows the combined price at the bottom, and asks for one stake. The line marked "to win" or "potential payout" is the figure to check, and it is worth confirming whether it includes your stake. If a leg's price changes while the slip is open, the combined price changes with it, and most apps ask you to accept the new number before the bet is placed.

Take a minute with the slip before you confirm. Count the legs, read each selection and its line, and check that the combined price matches what you expected from the calculation above. A slip is easy to build quickly, and the legs you tapped last are the ones most often misread.

Why a parlay costs more than separate bets

Every price includes a margin, the share the sportsbook keeps on average. On a single bet at -110 the margin is small. In a parlay the margins multiply along with the prices, so the cost grows with every leg. If each leg is a true coin flip, the average result per $100 staked gets steadily worse as legs are added.

The break-even chance is the share of tickets you would need to win to come out even, and the real chance is what the legs actually have. The gap between them is the cost. The article on how the margin grows in a parlay follows these numbers step by step with a chart.

What a losing streak looks like

Because a parlay wins rarely, losing runs are normal and not a sign that something is wrong. Take four-leg tickets at -110 where each leg is a fair coin flip. Each ticket has a 6.25% chance of winning, which is about 6.3 winners in every 100 tickets. The chance of losing ten tickets in a row is 52%, so more than half of ten-ticket runs end without a single win.

That pattern is a property of the bet, not of bad luck. A ticket priced to pay +1228 is meant to hit seldom, and the wins have to pay for the many losses before them. Anyone who bets parlays regularly should plan for long dry stretches and keep stakes small enough that a dry stretch does not matter.

One parlay or separate bets

Neither choice beats the margin, but they feel different. Separate bets win more often and pay less each time. A parlay wins rarely and pays a lot when it lands. If you stake the same total either way, the parlay has a lower average result and larger swings. Which one suits you depends on what you want from the bet, so decide before you build the ticket and not after.

Legs that depend on each other

The multiplication above assumes the legs are independent, so one result tells you nothing about another. Bets on different games are close to that. Bets inside the same game are not, because the legs often move together. A team that wins by a wide margin can make its own spread bet and the over more likely at the same time.

A same-game parlay joins several bets from one game into one ticket. Sportsbooks price these with their own models, and the combined price can differ from a plain multiplication of the legs. The price on the ticket is what pays, so read it as the final word.

When a leg pushes or is voided

A leg can end in a push, when the result lands exactly on the line, or be voided, for example if a game is canceled. Each sportsbook writes its own rule for this. Many remove the leg and price the rest of the ticket again, but the details differ, and the payout shown before the game may not hold. Read the parlay rules in the app before you place the bet.

Related bets you may see

Apps offer several bets that look like parlays but work differently. A teaser is a multi-leg bet where you move the point spread or total in your favor on every leg, in exchange for a lower payout. A round robin turns a set of picks into a group of smaller parlays, so one lost leg does not end every ticket. Rules and prices differ between apps, and each one explains its own versions in its help pages.

A short checklist before you place one

• Does each leg stand on its own, or are you adding legs only to make the payout bigger?
• What is the break-even chance of the whole ticket, and do you believe the legs reach it?
• Are any legs in the same game, and does the price match the legs taken one by one?
• What does the app do with a pushed or voided leg?
• Is the stake an amount you could lose without it mattering?

Words you will meet

• Leg: one selection inside the parlay.
• Ticket: the whole bet as placed.
• Push: a result that lands exactly on the line, so the stake on that leg is returned.
• Void: a leg canceled by the rules, for example when a game is not played.
• Correlated legs: legs whose results tend to move together.
• Break-even chance: the share of tickets you must win to come out even at the price.

Keeping parlays in proportion

A parlay is a bet where the most likely result is losing the stake, so it fits money you can afford to lose and a small share of your betting. A big payout on screen is a figure for the rare day everything lands; most tickets lose. Set a limit before you bet, and do not build a bigger ticket to win back a loss. If betting stops being fun, the responsible gambling page lists tools and help, and you can call 1-800-GAMBLER at any time.

To test your own numbers, open the parlay calculator, and to check any single price, use the odds calculator. The odds course teaches the underlying ideas in five short lessons.

Frequently asked questions