The Different Types Of Sports Bet Explained

Photo of Ben Harris

Ben Harris

Passionate Sports enthusiast and history graduate. Writing sports betting content for over 6 years, including handicapping college football, horse racing, and soccer at the UK's top daily betting paper the Racing Post, as well as NFL, Boxing, UFC, and Winter Sports here at Pickswise. Partial to an underdog, player prop, and a longshot parlay!
Read more about Ben Harris

There are many different types of sports bet that you can place at any sportsbook, and understanding these can be a little daunting at first. You may hear someone talking about their Parlay, or Round Robin wager on the football today and be left with more questions than answers as to what they mean. Well, this guide right here has been put together to highlight the different types of sports bets you can wager, what they are, how they work, and even an example of each to show you them in action. Check out the guide below for everything you need to know about the types of sports bets you can place.

Straight Wagers – Single-Selection Bets

Straight wagers are the most common type of way to bet on sports. A straight wager or sometimes referred to as a single wager is just that, a single bet on a single selection. The most popular type of straight wager will be on markets such as the Moneyline, Spreads, Totals, and Futures. For more on those types of betting markets check out our handy Types of Sports Betting Markets guide.

For example, if you take a look at the bet slip below, a $50 on the Illinois Fighting Illini to win March Madness at odds of +1000, you would win $500 on your straight wager if they win the tournament. 

Parlays – Multi-Selection Single bets

A Parlay bet is a combination of anywhere between 2 and 14 straight wagers into one single wager. In order for the bet to win, every selection in your parlay must win. This higher risk will reap greater benefits and a bigger payout as you combine all of the individual odds of the straight wagers to calculate the odds of your parlay.  If one of your selections in the parlay is a push or a tie, or void for any reason the parlay just moves down to the next number so an 8-team parlay becomes a 7-team parlay and the odds are recalculated

In the parlay example below instead of placing three straight wagers on Alabama, Purdue, and Florida on the spread, you can parlay them together, i.e bet that all three teams win, and you’ll get much greater odds. With individual odds of -110, -110, and -116, you multiply these together to get the parlay odds of +579 which would see a $50 parlay return of $289.33 if all three teams cover the spread.

Teasers – Multi-Selection Single Bets

A teaser is a type of parlay of two or more selections but the bettor may alter the spread or the over/under total between four and 10 points depending on the sports, match, and teaser. Winning bets with multiple selections is never easy, but in theory, adjusting the spreads and points in your favor makes it easier. Because of this payouts are much lower on a teaser than a traditional parlay.

In the example below, this 2-team NBA teaser has moved each of the lines in favor of the better by 4 points. The original spread had the Washington Wizards at +3 and the San Antonio Spurs at +4.5. The individual odds of these two spread lines were -106 and -114, to combine for parlay odds of +265.

With the additional four points in your favor, in theory, making the bet easier to win, the 2-team teaser odds drop to +125.

Round Robin – Muti-Selection Multi-Bets

Round Robin bets are also multi selections bets, just like a parlay or a teaser, but with a Round Robin, you are hedging and covering multiple smaller parlays from your picks.

For example, if you have 5 selections, like in the example below, there are 31 different combinations you can wager on. The five straight bets and then 26 different parlay combinations. As the slip below shows, if you do a 5-team Round Robin by 2, i.e 2-team parlays within those five picks, there are 10 combinations, by 3 also has 10 combinations, by 4 has 5 combinations and by 5, is a regular parlay.

Round Robins are great for hedging bets as you can wager 5 selections by 4-teams and if only four of the five win you can still cash a ticket, if they all win you still cash them all. 

The important thing to note with Round Robin betting is your total stake is the number of parlay combinations multiplied by your line stake.

For example, in the instance above where you are wagering by 4-teams from 5 selections, there are five possible 4-team parlay combinations so $20 lines would cost you a total of $100 as you are in effect wagering on 5 x $20 4-team parlays.

Pickswise
*
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy