Push In A Parlay

May 13, 2009 A correlated parlay is a bet where if one result happens the other result is likely to happen also. For example if you take a -1.5 runline and the over of a baseball game, if the over happens a 2. A 3-team parlay usually pays 6 to 1. If you made a $100 parlay and all three teams covered the spread, you would win $600. All of them need to cover the spread for you to win. If San Diego lost by exactly 6 (push/tie) and you won the other two games, the 3-team parlay would just be knocked down to a 2-teamer.

A four-team parlay with two ties reduces to a two-team parlay. The payout is re-calculated based on the reduced number of teams. A two-team parlay with one push reduces to a straight bet. If a parlay reduces to zero teams, the bet will be graded 'Push' and your risk amount will be refunded. That bet will be taken out of the parlay and the payout will be reduced as if there were one fewer team in the parlay. So if you had a 4 team parlay and you got three picks cocrrect and the other was a push, you would be paid out the odds of a 3 team parlay. Parlay bets can be.

Before we go any further, we need to explain what a parlay is fully.

By definition, a parlay is a group of multiple individual bets (two or more) that are connected together and treated as one big wager.

What Happens To A Push In A Parlay

In order to win the entire bet, you have to win each of the individual bets on your parlay. If you lose one individual bet, then you lose the entire parlay bet.

Why would you ever want to group bets together and force them to be dependent on each other?

The reason is that the sportsbook will pay you out much more money for correctly picking multiple individual bets together.There is more risk in this type of bet so it should be expected that we are offered a higher reward for making this wager.

Let’s compare betting three games individually versus betting them as a parlay.

Push In A Parlay What Happens

Let’s assume that each game is -110 moneyline odds.

A push in a parlay

Let’s also assume that our bankroll for these three games is $300. We’re going to look at the scenarios if we picked all three games correctly and if we only picked two of the games correctly.

If we bet the games individually, we would bet $100 per game.

GameBet AmountOddsOutcomeProfit/Loss
Game 1$100-110Win$90.91
Game 2$100-110Win$90.91
Game 3$100-110Win$90.91

12 Team Parlay Odds

Our total profit would be $272.73 if we bet all three of these games individually.

Now, what would happen if we picked all three games as a parlay bet? This time, we would place a single bet of $300. We will go over how to calculate parlay payouts in the section below here, but for now, we have done the calculations for you.

The profit on this bet as a parlay would be $1787.40! Even if we only bet $100 total, we would see a profit of $595.80. As you can see, you can bet 1/3 of the amount you bet total in the individual games and still make more than double what you would betting the games individually.

At this point, a lot of people are wondering why you would ever bet anything but parlays. You can bet less and make so much more! Well, as you are probably guessing, there is more to the story.

Let’s look at what happens in our same example, except this time we only pick two out of the three games correctly. We bet the same games again for $100 each individually, and we are correct on two out of the three games.

GameBet AmountOddsOutcomeProfit/Loss
Game 1$100-110Win$90.91
Game 2$100-110Win$90.91
Game 3$100-110Loss($100.00)
Gambling push in a parlay

If we bet all three of the games as a parlay for $300 (or $100), our profit is negative $300 or negative $100. If you get even one game wrong in a parlay, you lose the entire bet. You’ve now seen the downside to parlays.

You have to be perfect to cash in, or you lose.

Even if you only get one game correct betting them individually, you’re only going to lose $109. If you bet the same $300 on a parlay, though, you lose the entire $300. The risk is higher for parlays, but the associated reward is also higher.