There aren’t many bets more exciting than a parlay. There’s nothing like the rush of boosting your payout by hitting on two or more bets at once. Parlays are tough to hit, and you have to be careful to understand your edges, variance and risk tolerance. But it if you play parlays right, they can become an important part of your sports betting strategy. Likewise, they can be incorporated to avoid limitations on online sportsbooks. That’s why new players at FanDuel Sportsbook often ask if they can bet parlays on the site? The answer is yes, but there’s still plenty to review about how to parlay on FanDuel.
Readers that are getting started on FanDuel can find the best bets on the site using OddsShopper Premium. The market-based betting model tracks the sharpest sportsbook in the industry and then identifies where to bet to find the most value. It’s the perfect way to find positive expected value wagers in every bet type and sport. And those looking for +EV parlays should check out OddsShopper’s Parlay Builder!.
FanDuel How to Parlay?
The simple and straightforward way to understand parlays on FanDuel is that you can make those bets as you would on any other online sportsbook. You can also do the same with FanDuel’s Same Game Parlays, although SGPs are often a riskier proposition with negative edges. Traditional parlays have similar risks associated, although if you are truly confident in the expected value of every wager in your parlay, it will at least have a long-term edge.
Before digressing into the nuances of parlays, a bit about FanDuel’s offerings. Their Same Game Parlays are located immediately on the home screen and in the “Promos” section. It’s best to stay away from Same Game Parlays unless you can confirm there’s an edge. Sportsbooks typically change the odds on these bets or adjust the vig so that they can ensure the house has a long-term advantage. Over time, you will be bleeding money by blindly betting into these. Once in a blue moon, you can find an advantage if sportsbooks improperly account for the correlation between players and teams in a single game. However, those cases are rare.
The next best option on FanDuel is a traditional parlay. The way to parlay like this on FanDuel is just like any other sportsbook. Choose your preferred bet and enter it into the bet slip. Continue by adding another bet or two until you’ve reached the parlay that you want. You can then choose one stake price for your parlay. Like most online sportsbooks, FanDuel also offers Round Robins.
That’s the “how to” of FanDuel parlays. The question is, should you parlay? That’s not a FanDuel-specific question. But as we discussed above, there are benefits and risks to parlays. For the casual bettor, the biggest advantage to parlays — same-game or otherwise — is that they are exciting. You can score big, and sometimes the entertainment value is just fine.
Making parlays a part of your overall betting strategy if you are looking to grow a bankroll is more complicated. There’s plenty to think about, but two key factors in favor of parlays whether they be on FanDuel or at any sportsbook is that you can avoid limitation, and that you can boost your bankroll exponentially. Those are topics to consider at another time.
The downsides to betting parlays are important to consider as well. For one, they are high risk, even if you are making good bets. If all the bets in your parlay have a positive expectation, then stringing them together will compound your edge over the house. That’s a good thing, but it still takes hitting all those bets at once to win. It’s a lot less likely and will be pretty taxing on your bankroll. Try lowering your stakes or considering the Kelly Criterion staking method for parlay bets.
Finally, you also have to remember that sports projections are fragile and that even the best tools like OddsShopper’s top-down market tracking model have flaws. If one bet in your parlay doesn’t have the expectation you think it does, it can change the edge, or even make it negative EV. The more you are betting parlays, the more confident you have to be in the tools you have. OddsShopper’s Parlay Builder tool can help with that, but nothing is 100% certain, and in a game with small edges, any flaw in your parlay card can hurt.
Keep those positives and negatives in mind before betting parlays on FanDuel, or any other site. The important thing is that you know just how to do so, when it might be right or wrong and how to access the best tools and analysis in the industry to make it easier.
