There are many ways to make a parlay wager, and the payouts can be enormous for serious bettors and recreational players alike. Knowing when and where to build a college football parlay at top sportsbooks can be the difference in a successful Saturday playing the NCAAF odds.
Imagine sitting there late on a Saturday afternoon with two winners in your back pocket. Penn State covered a double-digit spread on the road at West Virginia, and Florida pulled off a mild upset of Miami as a small home ‘dog.
You’re already in the black for the day, and if Arizona State can cover as a TD favorite at home that evening, it’s a clean sweep and you’re feeling pretty good.
There would still be plenty of anxiety left in the last game if all three bets were tied together in a parlay, and that is a huge reason why so many bettors shy away from those wagers. But are those bettors passing up ways to increase winnings, and if so, when are parlays a smart route to take playing at the NCAAF betting sites?
What Is a Parlay?
In its simplest definition, a parlay wager is a single bet combining two or more individual bets. All of the individual bets, also called legs, within a single parlay must win to return to the pay window, and when that happens, the payout is larger than what the individual bets would have paid on their own.
While the payoff is larger, so is the risk since each leg must come home a winner. And just as no two individual wagers in college football are the same, no two parlays are created equally.
Parlays are not the type of wager that newcomers to college football betting want to dive headfirst into, but with a little experience, they are a viable source for experienced bettors who have built high levels of discipline when it comes to bankroll management.
Along with understanding and proficiency gained by experience, the seasoned NCAAF gambler knows that just like there are multiple legs to a parlay, having multiple sportsbooks at one’s disposal always helps maximize profit through shopping for the best prices.
Ranking Confidence a Must for Parlay Bettors
After securing multiple sportsbooks to make wagers and holding fast to bankroll discipline, bettors need to be able to relate their wagers in terms of confidence for a given college football week.
Yes, we all make bets expecting them to win, but our confidence from one game to the next is not always the same. It’s no different than handicappers releasing 5-star and 4-star plays.
Maybe Penn State whipping West Virginia is the game we have the most confidence in for Week 1, and Arizona State covering by at least a touchdown ranks a close second. Bettors may want to budget a unit per week to parlay the top 2-3 games in their systems instead of betting those games individually in order to increase the payout.
Correlated Parlays Can Be a Smart Way To Go
While there are two or more legs to a parlay, that doesn’t necessarily mean more than one game has to be involved. When a bettor wagers on the spread and the total, for example, in the same game, this is known as a correlated parlay.
It should be noted that not every sportsbook offers correlated parlays and those that do almost always decrease the payout for them when compared to the payout for parlays involving several different games.
Some of the favorites laying big spreads on the college football betting card could present a winning edge for a correlated parlay. State U is favored by 28 to beat Podunk Tech, and if you’re convinced it will be a wipeout, parlaying an ‘over’ on the total with the -28 is a possibility.
Moneyline vs. Spread Parlays
We all know that winning with a moneyline favorite is easier than that favorite covering the spread, and that holds true when it comes to parlay betting as well.
It’s just simple math: Picking three favorites to cover spreads of 7-10 points is going to be more difficult in a parlay than mixing those same three teams as moneyline favorites in a parlay. It should also be simple math to understand the payout on a 3-legged spread parlay is going to be much larger than a 3-legged moneyline parlay.
Parlays & Hedging: A Profitable Partnership
If Forrest Gump’s name was in the byline, he might tell you that parlay wagers and hedging your bets go together like peas and carrots. Regardless of the simile that might come to mind, savvy bettors understand there is a profitable harmony between parlays and hedging.
Hedging allows bettors to reduce their exposure to loss, and generally only makes sense when used with parlays of three legs or more
Using our earlier games – Penn State -10 on the road, Florida +2 and Arizona State -6½ on their home field –, hedging the parlay by taking Wyoming +6½ in that third leg should be a strong consideration. A Wyoming cover gets your original unit on the parlay back, and Arizona State making the parlay a winner more than covers the Wyoming hedge.
