The Ins and Outs of
Payoffs
24 October 2005
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
My son hit a $20 seven-team parlay that paid
$3,900.00. The next week he hit another one for
$10.00 that got him $1,900.00. What were his
odds of hitting a seven-team parlay? How about
14 teams in a row? Rich J.
A parlay is a combination of bets in which you
win only if every one of your selections is a
winner. Casino payouts vary, but the
mathematical odds of hitting a seven-team parlay
are 127-to-1. A casino will typically pay off at
about 80-to-1, give or take. A 14-team parlay
payoff is usually 900 to 1 and the true odds of
hitting it are 16,384 to 1.
I'm sure readers are going to be a bit curious
as to the payouts your son received based on the
amount he bet. For a $20 wager, most sportsbooks
pay anywhere from $1,500 to $1,800 on a
seven-team parlay wager. Your son's $3,900
payoff was well over the true odds of 127 to 1.
The explanation would be either 1) that he was
making single, money line wagers linked together
into a parlay, that included some underdogs, or
2) that he bet the Dime Line, which is the money
line difference --10 cents -- between what a
bettor would lay with the favorite or take back
with the underdog. If he was betting a ten-cent
line, all seven teams he parlayed had to be
underdogs.
Just for clarification, Rich, money line
wagering is simply wagering based on a given
price rather than on a pointspread. And, betting
the Dime line isn't to be confused with a Dime
bet, which is $1,000.
Dear Mark,
You told Doug last week that when a player
exposes his own cards at Texas Hold'em, it is
not a misdeal. Could you give me an example of
what is? Martin J.
Sure, Marty, what constitute the most common
misdeals in most card rooms are cards dealt
without being cut or cards being dealt out of
order.
Dear Mark,
Who invented the Roulette wheel? Bob S.
The mechanical component of the roulette wheel,
that is, its rotating flywheel and its
thirty-six black and red slots, came from
medieval monks in Venice, a fact which some
think resulted in molto prayer. Pascal is
credited with the present-day sequence of
figures on the roulette wheel.
Dear Mark,
Can you ever make a wager on a sporting bet
before the official line is set? David P.
That’s a neat two-pronged query, Dave. You
either meant a "futures" bet, a wager on the
outcome of a future event, or something seldom
used in the sports betting world called the
"outlaw line".
Futures bets are made on odds posted on who will
win any of various major sporting events well in
advance of the contest. Wagers on the winner of
the Super Bowl, NBA Championship, the Stanley
Cup and the World Series would be examples of
futures bets. They are odds of a specific event
outcome in the future, not a betting line set a
week or so before an event.
An outlaw line exists when a linemaker allows
selected bettors to make a wager before the
general public gets in on it. It is the input
from these selected individuals that sometimes
helps create a final opening number. Other names
for this manipulative process are "ironing" or
"flattening" the line.
Gambling Wisdom if the Week: "Some people are
actually paranoid about giving their names and
addresses to a casino." -- "Gambling For
Dummies"
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