HOW TO CALCULATE MONEYLINE PARLAYS
Parlays are a clump of wagers called legs that forms a single bet, which predicts that every moneyline it carries wins. Because of its risk, parlays have incredibly high payouts when it wins.
The payouts are such that big bettors often struggle to know how much they can really get from a series of moneylines they plan on making. This struggle can make picking a specific set of moneyline bets challenging when there is no access to a sportsbook platform or a moneyline parlay calculator.
Below are two steps to help you see the payout of your moneyline parlay.
Turn American Odds To Decimal Odds
The first step is for US bettors, where nearly every sportsbook within the jurisdiction uses the American odds format. To simplify the next step, you must turn the American odds of your moneyline parlays into decimal odds.
American odds are centered around a $100 wager, so this type of odds is more than 100. Odds with a minus or (-) symbol next to them indicate a favored team or player. Prices with a plus or (+) are the underdogs.
Favored American odds are the stake amount needed to win $100. If a team has -150 odds to win, you need to wager $150 to get a payout of $250 or a profit of $100. On the other hand, underdog American odds is the amount you will get if you wager $100. Staking $100 for odds of +160 will grant you a payout of $260 or a profit of $160.
- Let us use NBA Sports lines as our example with the following teams:
- Golden State Warriors -125
- Miami Heat +175
- New York Knicks +115
- LA Clippers -130
Multiply The Moneyline Payouts
After getting the parlay decimal odds for your moneylines, we multiply every leg by each other to get the true odds of this wager. The formula for a four-team parlay is: (decimal odd x decimal odd x decimal odd x decimal odd) = parlay odd
- Going back to the four examples before:
- Golden State Warriors 1.80
- Miami Heat 2.75
- New York Knicks 2.15
- LA Clippers -1.77
Your four-team parlay should be (1.80 x 2.75 x 2.15 x 1.77) = 18.84
If you stake $100 for this moneyline parlay wager, your payout should be $1,884.00 with a profit of $1,784.00. On the other hand, a stake of $50 can grant you a payout of $942.00 or a profit of $892.00.
There is another important calculation you will also want to consider once you get the true odds of your moneyline parlay, implied probability. This value tells you the likelihood of your parlay winning.
- The formula is:
- (1/parlay odds) x 100 = implied probability
- (1/18.84) x 100 = 5.31%
Due to the requirement of winning four moneylines, two of which are underdogs, your chances of seeing the parlay payout is only around five percent. Note that this implied probability is for a four-team parlay. You can reduce the risk by making two-team parlays or adding moneyline favorites to your bet and play with your Responsible ( Responsible Gaming )
