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Overcoming Long Betting Odds for Huge Parlay Payouts

by Dave Schwab - 6/13/2022

New York Mets celebration

Professional sports bettors tend to stay away from parlay plays given the longer odds for cashing a winning play. The pros know and understand how hard it can be to pick just one winner in a series of selections.

Avid recreational sports bettors turn to parlay plays in an effort to earn a much higher return on investment. A two-team parlay pays more than doubles your money. Moving to three teams in a parlay bet pays 6-to-1 odds.

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At the end of the day, sportsbooks make a killing on parlays because they are so hard to cash in. However, every once and awhile, lady luck comes through in a big way with an unlikely massive payout. Some of the biggest parlay wins in recent memory have defied staggering odds with an even more staggering return on investment.

The American team of professional golfers in the 2021 Ryder Cup cruised to an easy victory over their European counterparts. As the action wore on and the US team built on their lead, one bettor decided to parlay the winner of all 12 matches on Sunday’s slate. This 12-team parlay came with odds close to 150,000-1 as the potential return.

The actual results of those 12 matches were varied with six favorites beating their opponent while four underdogs pulled off the upset. Making things even trickier to predict, two of 12 matches ended as a tie.

Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau were two of the easier plays as favorites. Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood came through as underdogs. After that, luck started to come into play. Putting $8 down on this 12-team play, this bettor correctly picked a tie between Jordan Spieth and Tommy Fleetwood. The other tie was between Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland. Betting Ian Poulter as a +200 underdog took some guts but it paid off.

In the end, this incredible run turned an $8 wager into a $966,290 payday

In June of 2021, a UK sports bettor at Betfair combined golf with soccer in a six-team parlay play. That lucky guy was able to successfully pick the winner of four golf tournaments. Anyone who does bet on golf already knows just how hard it is to pick just one outright winner of any golf tournament.

The other two plays were on soccer matches. The odds attached to win this six-team play were calculated at 90,396-1. Steve Stricker won the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship and Nelly Korda went on to win the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Once again, Viktor Hovland had a hand in a big parlay payout by winning the BMW International Open.

With both Croatia and England winning their soccer matches, the $15.50 bet in US dollars returned $1.36 million.

One of the most incredible parlay runs was won by a bettor in New York at Caesars Sportsbook earlier in May. The 16-leg combination of MLB, NHL and NBA games fell into place at betting odds of 31,847-1.

The MLB picks on the money line featured five underdogs. The lone winning pick on the MLB run line paid off with Milwaukee covering the 1.5 runs against Cincinnati.

The parlay also included three wins on the NHL money line and two NBA spreads with Miami covering against Philadelphia and Phoenix covering against Dallas. When the smoke cleared and all 16 plays were graded, the $6.90 wager returned $219,746.19.

These are just a few of the biggest parlay wins in recent memory. As mentioned, the books love parlay plays given their overall hold on these types of bets. However, every once and awhile bettors have defied those long odds to win big.

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