If that bet won he’d have $12 of which $2 represented his initial stake and $10 represented his winnings. If that bet won he’d have $4 which he’d then be risking at 2/1 odds on New York. In order to partially overcome this difficulty a player might tell his bookie, “Put $2 on the Brooklyn Dodgers at even odds and if that bet wins parlay it all on tomorrow’s New York Highlanders game at 2/1.” (In this example the player would be risking $2 on Brooklyn. (Non-parlay bets are known as singles, emphasizing the fact that these “normal” bets are really just one-team parlays.)īack in the old days of street-corner betting, making a bet occasionally be a difficult process as it could require physically finding the bookie in order to make a bet. In the UK and Ireland 2-team parlays are known as doubles, and 3-team parlays are known as trebles.

Parlays offer a bettor a greater possible return for greater risk. If any of the underlying bets lose, the entire parlay is graded as a loss (if an underlying bet pushes then the parlay is treated as if the pushed leg never existed – so a 4-team parlay would become a 3-team, a 3-team a 2-team, and a 2-team a single bet).

Each of the underlying bets must win for the parlay to win. A parlay (often referred to as an accumulator in the UK) is a single bet whose outcome is determined by two or more underlying bets.