Parlay Cards, Futures and Totals

In a previous article, we discussed the two most popular sports betting options, the money line and the point spread, now we focusing on parlay cards, futures and totals.

There are few more options that professional gamblers use to pad their winnings, but the options are used sparingly and only with some confidence; making them a steady part of your sports betting diet will lead to too many losses to make it worth while.

Futures: Betting on futures can be a fun for those who are true fans of a sport. Most of the time you want to avoid betting on a sport as a strict fan, because betting can be counter intuitive to your knowledge of the game and because it’s hard to bet against your favorite team. Future bets require a certain amount of knowledge; the concept of the future bet is really what fantasy sports pools are built on.

A future bet is placed on anything that may happen by the end of a season in a given sport. General bets include picking a winner of a division or conference, picking the winner of the League Championship (the World Series, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, and so one). Futures may also include picking a player to score the most points or run the most yards during the season, the first coach to get fired, and so on. There’s limitless combinations here, and futures are common bets among friends as well as with the odds makers.

Totals: Totals bets are also called over under bets, and the numbers prove that they are one of the least likely types of bet for any gambler to make. This is somewhat misleading, because betting totals can be a great way to pick up some extra money, and the odds of winning are certainly higher than more popular options, such as the parlay.

Totals bets occur when an odds maker quotes a final combined score for both teams at the end of a game. They work in much the same way as money bets when it comes to money down and money paid; picking the right option may earn you $100 for every $120 bet. The options are for a game to result in a combined score that is either over or under the total combined score posted by the bookmaker.

Parlays: There is no sports betting option with longer odds than the parlay. In order to win a parlay bet, you must accurately predict the winner of not one, but several games. Parlay cards can include up to ten different games, and the payout is much higher the more teams you choose on the card.

Parlay cards are a sucker’s bet. There is always one sure thing on the card but the balance of the games or spreads are just to close to call, and it only takes one wrong prediction to lose the money you put in. One way to increase the value is to choose the teaser option of a card, but in doing this you will be lengthening the odds as every team on the card will have to beat the spread.

Marshall

Published on 07/03/2007