Easy Sports Bets To Win Today
Pickswise is the home of free sports picks, news and betting tips. Keeping you up to date with the latest sports news and breaking stories. Our experts give you their best bets and best free betting picks every day on all major US sports. Simply put, easy bets are bets with a high chance of being correct, which means they usually have the lowest odds. You can think of easy bets as bets with low risk, but also low reward. For example, bets with a 50% chance of being correct might have odds of around 2.00. Easy bets often have odds as low as 1.05, which implies a more than 95% chance they are correct! The 5 Easiest Football Bets to Win. Here are five easy football bets.
Parlays are the ultimate big-win chaser’s dream. The combined bets provide massive potential payouts on nominal wagers, and nearly every online sportsbook offers them. Though the odds are low for a given parlay to hit, the possible winnings are huge, and a handful of lucky bettors have cashed in some gargantuan parlay jackpots at legal sportsbooks worldwide.
But before jumping into some of the craziest parlay wins on record, it helps to better understand the betting method, its upsides, and the inherent risk.
How Parlays Work
In simple terms, parlays are “all or nothing” bets. Parlays combine two or more individual bets into a single wager. This ramps up the odds so that a parlay pays much higher than any of the individual bets.
How To Win Bet
For example, I combined four bets with odds of -110, -110, +150, and +115 today on PointsBet, and the parlay payout came in at +1859. A $20 bet would pay more than $390.
Of course, there’s a catch. For a parlay to win, each individual bet must win. If you combine four bets into a parlay and one of them loses, you lose your bet even if the other three bets won. For that reason, parlays are risky bets, and most experts encourage you to steer clear.
On the other hand, casual bettors might enjoy making a weekly parlay every NFL Sunday or while any other league is in the thick of its season. There’s nothing wrong with making the occasional parlay bet as long as you acknowledge that your odds to win are low, similar to playing a slot machine.
Five Crazy Parlay Wins
Some bettors have beat the odds and been lucky enough to nab astronomical parlay wins in the past. Here’s a round-up of five amazing parlay wins.
The Three Sport Combo
Last year brought a huge windfall to one FanDuel sportsbook bettor who won on a $200 parlay combining 15 NBA, NFL, and NHL bets. The bet hit in November 2019 when all of the bettor’s moneyline wagers won for a payout of $229,276.
The moneyline bets boosted this wager over the edge for a massive win, because moneylines tend to offer longer odds if you pick the underdog. Whether it was sheer luck or educated guessing, this bettor came out on top.
The Charcuterie Parlay
In March 2019, sportsbooks were starting to take off in Mississippi on the heels of an August 2018 launch. March brought one noteworthy parlay win that featured a little bit of everything.
Rather than sticking to one type of bet, this bettor wagered $25 on a 20-leg parlay. The parlay was a veritable smorgasbord of bets and sports, including point spreads, moneylines, and totals. The wager covered a slate of Friday-night games across the NBA and NCAA basketball.
According to ESPN, the customer at BetAmerica sportsbook in Vicksburg, Mississippi’s Riverwalk Casino wagered on 14 favorites, three underdogs, and three “over” totals bets.
After a few close calls, the 20-leg bet won, netting the bettor a $104,412 win.
The Homecoming Special
In September 2020, a BetMGM customer raked in a $152,341 win on a $10 parlay.
The 11-leg bet featured five moneyline bets, five totals, and a single point spread wager (Duke +20.5). The majority of the bets predicted college football match-ups, but a few additional professional games sent the bet over the edge. The Rockets-Lakers under and the Yankees moneyline contributed to the win, resulting in a huge payday for the lucky bettor.
The 15-Leg NFL Slate
Amateur sports bettor Tayla Polia’s parlay success story is featured on countless lists just like this one, and for good reason. In 2015, Polia placed a $5, 15-leg parlay that included 14 point spread bets and one totals wager for the Steelers-Broncos matchup.
To her surprise, Polia’s bet won and paid out 20,000-1 for a cool $105,000. She actually thought the bet had failed initially because the Giants lost their match-up. But Polia had bet on the team to cover, which they did, completing her parlay and netting her a huge win.
Root, Root, Root For The Home Team
In 2015, MLB fans worldwide witnessed history. For the first time since the league’s inception, all 15 home teams won their games on a single day.
One lucky bettor cemented his place in the story by predicting the event with a 15-leg parlay bet. The Ireland bettor had plenty of reason to celebrate proverbial Irish luck when his ~$78 bet, placed at William Hill’s sportsbook, won him $100,810.
Should I Place Parlay Bets?
You may see these wins and instantly open your sportsbook app to start placing a few parlays for yourself. Before you do, it’s important to note that these wins are the exception, not the rule. The sage advice from sports betting experts is to stay away from parlays.
However, it’s okay to place a parlay bet once in a while, especially if you feel confident about a select few match-ups. Parlays can be a fun way to get in on the action and invest yourself in the match-ups of the day. Just play responsibly and keep in mind that your chances of winning any parlay are slim.
Parlay Tips
If you’re planning to place parlay bets, there are a few tips to keep in mind.
Less Is More
Sure, a 15-leg parlay is enticing, especially if the payout has four, five, or even six digits. But the more bets you include, the less likely you are to win. IF you’re interested in placing parlays, keep them simple at first. Combine two or three bets and see how they perform. If you’re lucky, you might win a few hundred dollars.
Favoritism Can Be A Benefit
Underdogs offer better payouts, but that’s only because they are viewed as less likely to win their match-up. If you’re building a parlay of moneyline bets, pay close attention to the odds. If one team is heavily favored to win, that might be the wiser pick.
Today Sure Bet Win
Carefully Consider Home Team Bets
Unless it’s the mid-90s and you’re placing Chicago Bulls bets every week, try to steer clear of home-team bets when you’re building a parlay. I’ve fallen victim to the trap many times–I place a 5-leg parlay bet that includes my Chicago Bears to win only to find a disappointing 4-1 parlay that loses me my initial bet thanks to a crushing Chicago loss.
If you want to bet on your home team, keep that wager out of your parlays or risk disappointment.
Point Spreads Even Out The Odds
Betting on point spreads gives you smaller individual payouts, but combining them into parlays can produce big potential wins. Point spreads even out the odds of a given match-up, giving the predicted underdog a chance to cover the spread even if they lose the match.
If you’re just getting into betting on football, you may be wondering which bets are the easiest to win. Although these bets often have low odds — meaning that you won’t make huge profits — there’s a high likelihood they’ll be correct. As a result, we’ll take this article as an opportunity to look at five of the easiest football bets there are (and some of the difficult ones)!
What Makes an Easy Bet?
Simply put, easy bets are bets with a high chance of being correct, which means they usually have the lowest odds. You can think of easy bets as bets with low risk, but also low reward.
For example, bets with a 50% chance of being correct might have odds of around 2.00. Easy bets often have odds as low as 1.05, which implies a more than 95% chance they are correct!
The 5 Easiest Football Bets to Win
Here are five easy football bets with high likelihoods of being correct:
Over/Under
One of the easiest football bets is Over/Under. This bet allows you to speculate on whether a given match will have more (Over) or less (Under) than a certain number of goals. Over/Under bets can have a high chance of being correct if you choose an Over bet for a low number of goals (e.g. 0.5), or an Under bet for a high number of goals (e.g. 6.5).
For example, a bet for Over 0.5 goals means that at least one goal needs to be scored during the course of an entire 90-minute football match for you to win. For a lot of football teams, this is no tough task, so odds for this bet can be as low as 1.04.
On the flipside, you can place a bet for Under 6.5 goals. That means that as long as less than six goals are scored during the match, you’ll win.
2. First Half Over/Under
A variation on the Over/Under bet is First (or Second) Half Over/Under. As the name suggests, this bet involves speculating on the number of goals that will be scored in the first or second half of the match.
Since these bets impose a specific time limit (one half of the match), they are less likely than full-match Over/Under bets. However, First or Second Half Over bets for low numbers of goals and First or Second Half Under bets for high numbers of goals can still have a high chance of being correct.
3. Double Chance
Another easy football bet is Double Chance, which allows you to bet on two of three possible outcomes for the match. The options for Double Chance are:
- Home or Draw: the home team wins or the match results in a draw
- Draw or Away: the away team wins or the match results in a draw
- Home or Away: the home team wins or the away team wins
Since Double Chance allows you to bet on not one, but two possible outcomes, it’s much more likely to be correct than a straight Home, Away, or Draw bet. Depending on the strengths of the teams, odds for Home or Draw or Draw or Away bets can have odds as low as 1.10 and even lower.
4. Draw No Bet
Draw No Bet allows you to speculate on a given team winning the match while insulating yourself from a draw. In other words, if the outcome of the draw is a match, the bet is cancelled and the money is returned. This makes Draw No Bet an easier bet to win than a regular Home or regular Away bet.
5. Both Teams to Score
For some matches, especially those featuring two aggressive teams, a likely outcome is that both teams will score. This can make Both Teams to Score an easy bet to win.
Hard/Difficult Football Bets to Win
While there are some easy bets to win, there are plenty of difficult bets. Although these bets have a much higher risk, they can have significantly higher odds (and thus a higher reward).
Correct Score
One of the most difficult football bets is Correct Score, where you speculate on the exact, final score of the match. Since Correct Score involves speculating on a very specific outcome, it’s much less likely to be correct and thus has much higher odds.
2. Half Time Score
Another variation on the Correct Score bet is Half Time Score. As you might expect, this involves betting on the exact score of the match at half time, which is often a specific, unlikely outcome.
3. Odd or Even
One bet which is consistently difficult is Odd or Even. This involves speculating on whether the total number of goals scored in the match will be odd or even. If lots of goals are scored in a match, this can be very difficult to predict.
Should You Place Hard or Easy Bets?
We’ve looked at some of the easiest and hardest football bets there are. What you’re probably wondering is whether it’s more profitable to place hard or easy bets.
While easy bets have a higher chance of being correct, they usually have low odds, which means little profit involved. On the other hand, hard bets may be unlikely, but have high odds and thus greater profit.
As a result, there’s no real benefit to strictly placing one type of bet. Instead, you should place bets which have the most favourable odds when compared to their true likelihood.
Final Thoughts
There are plenty of easy bets out there, from Over/Under to Double Chance. Although these bets have a high likelihood of being correct, they usually have very low odds. On the flipside, hard benefits boast high odds, but have a high chance of being incorrect. As a result, you shouldn’t necessarily favour easy or hard bets. Instead, you should place bets that have the most favourable odds, bearing in mind the likelihood you expect for them.