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Calculating Odds

There are two considerations when determining how your wager will be calculated.  If there are no money lines or points bought, your wager is based on Fixed Odds calculations.  Fixed odds are the odds that your book has supplied to you for any given parlay, teaser, or pleaser.  They are very straightforward and are calculated simply by taking the amount you wagered times the Win amount divided by the Bet amount.  For example, if the fixed odds given to you for a 2 play parlay are Win 13 and Bet 5 and you placed a $50 wager, it would be calculated as follows:  $50 x 13 / 5 = $130

For multi-play wagers (parlay, teasers, or pleasers) in which there are money lines or points bought, it is required that True Odds be used for calculating purposes.  Calculating true odds requires you to find the odds of each individual play within the multi-play wager.  The formula to find the individual odds is based on the following: (1 + IO)^NP = MPO whereby IO = Individual Odds; NP = The number of plays for that particular multi-play wager; MPO = Multi-Play Odds.  Viewing the table below, Parlays would calculate out like this for each Individual Odds.













Column A is the number of plays
Column B represents the actual statistical odds of winning that parlay without juice or line considerations
Column C is what the payout would be if each play was given a 10% juice, which translates to a -110 line or a .91 payout
Column D are standard parlay odds offered by many sportsbooks
Column E represents what that translates into as a payout for each individual play (.91 standard) using (1 + IO) ^ NP = MPO
Column F represents what that translates into as a line (-110 standard)
Column G represents what that translates into as juice (10% standard)

You can see that as the number of plays in a parlay exceeds 5, you are typically paying a premium to place that wager.  With that being said, the foundation is now in place to be able to calculate multi-play wagers involving money lines or points bought.

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT D, E, F, AND G ARE BASED ON TYPICAL PARLAY ODDS.  YOUR BOOK MAY BE OFFERING YOU DIFFERENT ODDS.  THE EXAMPLE BELOW WILL ONLY WORK FOR THESE ODDS.  TO ARRIVE AT YOUR BOOKS INDIVIDUAL ODDS BASED ON HIS PARLAY ODDS, YOU MUST USE THE FORMULA PROVIDED ABOVE.  ALSO, POINTS BOUGHT AND MONEY LINES WILL NEVER BE IN THE SAME PLAY.

Example:
6 Play Parlay with the following:
1st Play = -135
2nd Play = +150
3rd Play = over 42
4th Play = spread -7 with buying a half point at 5% juice
5th Play = -210
6th Play = over 41 with buying 2 points for a total of 20% juice

What is the Payout?

As stated, the Individual Odds (IO) for each play within the parlay need to be determined.  Money lines are straightforward, while spreads and totals become a bit more complicated especially when buying points with them.  Evaluating each play within the parlay will help you arrive at the payout.

1st Play:  to translate a negative money line into odds you divide 100 by it and make it positive.  Therefore 100 / -135 x -1 = 0.74074 for IO
2nd Play:  to translate a positive money line into odds you simply divide it by 100.  Therefore 150 / 100 = 1.5 for IO
3rd Play:  using the chart above, the individual odds for a non money line straight bet with no points bought would be 0.81782
4th Play:  5% juice for the point bought is -105 or 100 / -105 x -1 = 0.95238.  Now multiply that times the basis of 0.81782 to arrive at 0.77888 for the IO
5th Play:  same as the first play.  Therefore 100 / -210 x -1 = 0.47619 for IO
6th Play:  much like the 4th play.  20% juice for the point bought is -120 or 100 / -120 x -1 = 0.83333.  Now multiply that times the basis of 0.81782 to arrive at 0.68152 for the IO

Now that we have the individual odds for each play in the parlay, we need to apply our formula to arrive at the MPO (or multi-play odds).  Again, using (1 + IO) ^ NP = MPO.
(1 + 1st Play) x (1 + 2nd Play) x (1 + 3rd Play) x (1 + 4th Play) x (1 + 5th Play) x (1 + 6th Play) - 1 = MPO
(1 + 0.74074) x (1 + 1.5) x (1 + 0.81782) x (1 + 0.77888) x (1 + 0.47619) x (1 + 0.68152) - 1 = MPO
(1.74074) x (2.5) x (1.81782) x (1.77888) x (1.47619) x (1.68152) - 1 = MPO
MPO = 33.93138

To sum up True Odds calculations:  
1)  Take the multi-play odds provided by your Book and calculate the Individual Odds Basis by using the formula: (1 + IO) ^ NP = MPO
2)  Then evaluate each play for what it's new individual odds will be based on that basis.
3)  Take the newly calculated separate individual odds and then apply them back into the formula (1 + IO) ^ NP = MPO to figure out the odds for the multi-play wager.