In response to a recent poster here, here is an old article that I wrote a few years ago that shows that there is nothing wrong with a good hadicapper playing 2-team parlays:
We have always felt that one way for a 55 percent handicapper to build up a bankroll rather quickly is by playing 3-team 2-way round robins. This is simply defined as three 2-team parlays boxing all combinations among three plays, i.e. AB, AC, and BC.
Now many people, including so-called professional bettors, have scoffed at the prospect of playing just ONE parlay, as they consider them 'sucker bets'. Well, we have always maintained that if a handicapper can consistently win 55 percent of his plays in the 11/10 sports, namely football and basketball, then round robins are not only considered an acceptable betting mechanism, but we would actually RECOMMEND them!
We feel that people that look at parlays as strictly recreational bets are missing the point. These players assume that every play has a 50 percent probability of winning. Therefore, they contend, the true chances of hitting a 2-team parlay are 25 percent (.50 x .50), which is not enough to overcome the standard 13/5 payoff, which has a breakeven point of 27.78 percent. Our thinking is that if a handicapper has a long-term 55 percent (or better) success rate, then it would be proper to assume a 55 percent expectation on each play instead of 50 percent.
Using this criteria, the expected odds of hitting a 2-team parlay would now be 30.25 percent (.55 x .55), which would show a long-term profit at 13/5 odds. To illustrate, let us say a 55 percent handicapper played 100 $10 parlays. The total investment of these parlays would be $1,000. With a 30.25 percent win rate, this handicapper should hit around 30 of these parlays. Since each winning $10 parlay would have a return of $36, the total return on the 30 winning parlays would be $1,080, translating into an $80 profit and an 8 percent ROI! If the handicapper has a proven long term win rate of 56 percent, 57 percent or higher, his ROI would be exponentially higher.
Now, let's say that a 55 percent handicapper likes 3 games on a particular day. If he had $300 to invest, should he play each game for $100 straight, or would it be more profitable to play a $100 round robin, investing the same $300? To illustrate this, let us take a look at a series of 300 games, comparing the expectation of playing 300 straight bets with that of playing 300 parlays.
If he played 300 straight bets with a 55 percent win rate, he would win 165 of those bets. With a profit of $91 for each $100 bet, his profit for the series would be (165 x 91) - (135 x 100) = $1,515. Now if he instead played 300 2-team parlays with a 30.25 percent expectation as discussed earlier, he would be expected to hit about 90 of those parlays. His profit for the series would be (90 x 260) - (210 x 100) = $2,400. As you can see, he would have made a significantly better profit playing parlays ($2,400 profit/$30,000 invested = 8 percent ROI) than he would have playing straight bets ($1,515/$30,000 = 5.05 percent ROI).
The moral of all this is that if you are a 55 percent or better handicapper, then round robins can be very lucrative. Now it is understandable that even the best of handicappers may be a bit squeamish about relying entirely on round robins to come out ahead of the game. Our advice then is to start out by playing 70 percent of your units on straight bets and 30 percent on round robins. Therefore, the $100 bettor would start out by playing $70 straight on each game and a $30 3-team 2-way round robin, investing the same $300 that he would have invested if he played all the games straight. As the bankroll grows larger, only then consider raising the round robin percentage to 35 or even 40 percent of a normal unit.
We have always felt that one way for a 55 percent handicapper to build up a bankroll rather quickly is by playing 3-team 2-way round robins. This is simply defined as three 2-team parlays boxing all combinations among three plays, i.e. AB, AC, and BC.
Now many people, including so-called professional bettors, have scoffed at the prospect of playing just ONE parlay, as they consider them 'sucker bets'. Well, we have always maintained that if a handicapper can consistently win 55 percent of his plays in the 11/10 sports, namely football and basketball, then round robins are not only considered an acceptable betting mechanism, but we would actually RECOMMEND them!
We feel that people that look at parlays as strictly recreational bets are missing the point. These players assume that every play has a 50 percent probability of winning. Therefore, they contend, the true chances of hitting a 2-team parlay are 25 percent (.50 x .50), which is not enough to overcome the standard 13/5 payoff, which has a breakeven point of 27.78 percent. Our thinking is that if a handicapper has a long-term 55 percent (or better) success rate, then it would be proper to assume a 55 percent expectation on each play instead of 50 percent.
Using this criteria, the expected odds of hitting a 2-team parlay would now be 30.25 percent (.55 x .55), which would show a long-term profit at 13/5 odds. To illustrate, let us say a 55 percent handicapper played 100 $10 parlays. The total investment of these parlays would be $1,000. With a 30.25 percent win rate, this handicapper should hit around 30 of these parlays. Since each winning $10 parlay would have a return of $36, the total return on the 30 winning parlays would be $1,080, translating into an $80 profit and an 8 percent ROI! If the handicapper has a proven long term win rate of 56 percent, 57 percent or higher, his ROI would be exponentially higher.
Now, let's say that a 55 percent handicapper likes 3 games on a particular day. If he had $300 to invest, should he play each game for $100 straight, or would it be more profitable to play a $100 round robin, investing the same $300? To illustrate this, let us take a look at a series of 300 games, comparing the expectation of playing 300 straight bets with that of playing 300 parlays.
If he played 300 straight bets with a 55 percent win rate, he would win 165 of those bets. With a profit of $91 for each $100 bet, his profit for the series would be (165 x 91) - (135 x 100) = $1,515. Now if he instead played 300 2-team parlays with a 30.25 percent expectation as discussed earlier, he would be expected to hit about 90 of those parlays. His profit for the series would be (90 x 260) - (210 x 100) = $2,400. As you can see, he would have made a significantly better profit playing parlays ($2,400 profit/$30,000 invested = 8 percent ROI) than he would have playing straight bets ($1,515/$30,000 = 5.05 percent ROI).
The moral of all this is that if you are a 55 percent or better handicapper, then round robins can be very lucrative. Now it is understandable that even the best of handicappers may be a bit squeamish about relying entirely on round robins to come out ahead of the game. Our advice then is to start out by playing 70 percent of your units on straight bets and 30 percent on round robins. Therefore, the $100 bettor would start out by playing $70 straight on each game and a $30 3-team 2-way round robin, investing the same $300 that he would have invested if he played all the games straight. As the bankroll grows larger, only then consider raising the round robin percentage to 35 or even 40 percent of a normal unit.
