Sportsbooks Want To Increase Their Chances of Winning

Published on September 27th, 2020 11:31 am EST
Written By: Dave Manuel


Let's say that the New Orleans Saints are playing at home against the Green Bay Packers.

You think that Alvin Kamara is going to have over 4.5 catches, plus you think that he will have over 70.5 rushing yards.

You decide to parlay these two bets, though the sportsbook won't allow you to.

Instead, they will only allow you to place two separate wagers on Alvin Kamara receptions and Alvin Kamara rushing yards.

Instead of doing this bet, you decide to bet the over on Kamara catches (4.5), and you also decide to bet on the Saints to win the game straight up. You want to parlay these two wagers.

Once again, the sportsbook won't allow you to parlay these wagers. Instead, you would have to do two separate bets.

You decide to bet the over on Kamara catches while also betting on the San Francisco 49ers to defeat the New York Jets.

The sportsbook allows you to parlay these two wagers.

What gives? Why won't the sportsbook let you include two bets on the same game in the same parlay?

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The answer? The sportsbooks want to make money.

In the eyes of the sportsbook, the two Kamara wagers and the Kamara/Saints bets are both linked.

If Kamara catches over 4 passes, there is a better chance that the Saints will win the game, as Kamara is one of the team's best players.

So, for the sportsbook, they need to only allow wagers in a parlay that are completely unrelated to each other.

By doing this, the sportsbook will greatly increase their chance of winning the parlay. Guessing the results of five completely separate outcomes is much tougher than guessing the results of outcomes that are linked in some way.

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So, if your sportsbook isn't allowing you to create a parlay in which two or more of the selections are from the same game, this is why.