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A parlay combines two or more bets into one ticket, and every leg has to win for it to pay. The payout comes from multiplying the odds of each leg together, which is why a small stake can return a lot. The sportsbook’s edge multiplies as well, so each leg you add raises the share of your money the book keeps on average.
How a parlay pays
Convert each leg to decimal odds, multiply them together, then multiply by your stake. The answer is your total return, stake included. Don’t multiply American odds directly. If you need to convert them first, our guide to money lines shows how.
Here’s a $10 three-leg parlay:
- Leg 1 at -110, which is 1.909 in decimal odds
- Leg 2 at +150, which is 2.50
- Leg 3 at -200, which is 1.50
1.909 × 2.50 × 1.50 = 7.159. The ticket returns $71.59, which is $61.59 profit, or about +616 in American odds.
It helps to picture the money rolling forward. Your $10 on leg 1 becomes $19.09. All of that rides on leg 2 and becomes $47.73, and all of that rides on leg 3 and becomes $71.59. If any leg loses, you lose the $10.
Standard payouts at -110
The usual price on spreads and totals is -110. When every leg is at that price, the payouts work out like this:
| Legs | Parlay pays | Fair payout | Chance all legs win | House edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2.645 to 1 | 3 to 1 | 25% | 8.9% |
| 3 | 5.958 to 1 | 7 to 1 | 12.5% | 13.0% |
| 4 | 12.28 to 1 | 15 to 1 | 6.25% | 17.0% |
| 5 | 24.36 to 1 | 31 to 1 | 3.13% | 20.8% |
| 6 | 47.41 to 1 | 63 to 1 | 1.56% | 24.4% |
| 8 | 175.4 to 1 | 255 to 1 | 0.39% | 31.1% |
| 10 | 642.1 to 1 | 1,023 to 1 | 0.10% | 37.2% |
A $10 two-leg parlay at -110 returns $36.45 when it wins. A $10 five-leg parlay returns $253.59, but if each leg is a coin flip it wins about once in 32 tries.
Why the house edge compounds
A straight bet at -110 on a 50/50 game returns 1.909 times your stake half the time. On average you get back 95.45 cents of every dollar, so the book’s edge is 4.55%.
In a parlay, each leg’s shortfall applies to everything riding on it. Your average return is 0.9545 to the power of the number of legs: 0.911 for two legs, 0.870 for three and 0.628 for ten. Those are house edges of 8.9%, 13.0% and 37.2%.
Each leg carries the same vig it would carry as a straight bet. In a parlay you pay it again on the winnings from the earlier legs, which is how a 10-leg ticket ends up paying about 642 to 1 on a bet whose fair price is 1,023 to 1.
What pushes and voided legs do
At Bovada, a leg that pushes, or that’s graded no action because the game was postponed, drops out. The parlay is then paid as if it had one fewer leg, so a two-team parlay with one push becomes a straight bet on the other team.
If one leg of a $10 three-leg parlay at -110 pushes and the other two win, you’re paid as a two-leg parlay: $36.45 back instead of $69.58.
That’s the usual rule for regular parlays, but teasers and parlay cards can work differently. At Bovada, a push in a sweetheart teaser loses the whole bet, and some parlay cards count a tie as a loss. Our guide to parlay cards explains their tie rules.
Correlated and same-game parlays
Two legs are correlated when one result makes the other more likely. A favorite covering a 7-point spread and the same favorite winning outright is the obvious case: if the first happens, so does the second. Multiplying their odds would overpay, so books block combinations like that.
Bovada won’t let you combine a spread and a money line on the same team in the same game, take both sides of the same bet, combine a first- or second-half line with the matching full-game line, or add an alternate line to any other market from the same game.
Same-game parlays let you combine picks from one game, including related ones. The book prices the ticket as a whole, using its own model of how the picks relate to each other. At Bovada you can add up to 10 selections from one game, and a same-game parlay can’t be combined with another same-game parlay or a standard parlay.
Because the price isn’t a simple multiplication, you can’t check a same-game parlay payout with a calculator, and you can’t easily see how much margin is built into it.
Before you place one
- Keep parlay stakes small next to your straight bets. The more legs you add, the more often the whole ticket loses.
- Each leg’s price matters. A leg at -130 adds less to the payout than one at -110, and a -300 favorite multiplies the ticket by only 1.33.
- Parlay limits vary by book. Bovada takes 2 to 16 legs and caps any single payout at $1,000,000.
Our step-by-step guide shows how to place a parlay on Bovada.
Our parlay calculator works out the payout, the true odds and the house edge for any parlay you build.
Bovada offers standard parlays of up to 16 legs as well as same-game parlays. If your state has legal online sportsbooks, a state-licensed book gives you more protection than an offshore site like Bovada.
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Sources
- Bovada help center: What is a Parlay?, Same Game Parlays: FAQ Guide, What is a Teaser?, Betting limits