You can’t watch a sports betting advertisement or log in to a sportsbook and not have some sort of “Same Game Parlay” offered to you. They’re insanely popular. If you’re new to the terminology — and somehow found your way here, welcome — a parlay is essentially a group of bets linked together, and you don’t win unless all of them hit. The risk is higher, but the payouts, should you win, are too.
Read a more in-depth explanation here.
I don’t dabble too much in parlays, but I understand that sports betting is entertainment for a lot of people, and having a big payout is a draw. And while I consider parlays to be similar to slots in some instances, that doesn’t stop consumers from dipping their toes into the parlay pool.
But when it comes to making smart decisions while betting on sports, it’s key to sort out which parlays have positive expected value vs. the many that do not.
So, for a fun exercise, I’m going to start Football Parlay Fridays where every Friday, I share one parlay that I think has value and is actually worth betting on. Again, these are bets that have a small chance of winning, so risking a lot of money isn’t optimal. This is mostly for a fun little sweat on the weekend and small risk is important here.
This week’s parlay — and honestly, most of the parlays will be like this — will be a round-robin parlay. If you’re unfamiliar with round-robin parlays, it’s where you make a selection of games and parlay them together in multiple ways.
The best way for this to be explained is by giving you the actual bet.
I think these five moneylines all have value according to my College Football Projection model — you can find my projections here — and I am going to place them in a round-robin parlay. These happen to be all underdogs.
The bets:
- Stanford moneyline (+260)
- Florida moneyline (+120)
- UNLV moneyline (+115)
- Wyoming moneyline (+225)
- USC moneyline (+160)
A simple parlay would have all five of these bets together for odds of +14289. That means if you bet $1, you’ll win $142.91. This will be one part of our parlay, but sportsbooks have a feature called round robins that will automatically parlay different combinations.
On BetMGM’s interface, you’ll scroll down your bet slip to see that section. I’ll be selecting “Round Robin 2/5.” This selection parlays each bet with another bet, creating ten two-game parlays (eleven if you include the five-game parlay above). I’m going to be staking $2 on every bet in this process for a grand total of $22.
The round-robin parlays:
- Stanford/Florida/UNLV/Wyoming/USC (+14289) – $2 to win $285.82
- Stanford/Florida (+714) – $2 to win $14.28
- Stanford/UNLV (+674) – $2 to win $13.48
- Stanford/Wyoming (+1102) – $2 to win $22.05
- Stanford/USC (+862) – $2 to win $17.24
- Florida/UNLV (+373) – $2 to win $7.46
- Florida/Wyoming (+615) – $2 to win $12.30
- Florida/USC (+472) – $2 to win $9.44
- UNLV/Wyoming (+599) – $2 to win $11.98
- UNLV/USC (+459) – $2 to win $9.18
- Wyoming/USC (+745) – $2 to win $14.90
(Photo of Tre Wilson and Chimere Dike: Stephen M. Dowell / Orlando Sentinel / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
