Applying $1 wagers to the MLB parlay combinations

In my previous post I presented data over an 8-year MLB period demonstrating that there was some correlation in parlays combining the money lines and totals. In simply counting winning parlays, you would hit over 28% when betting parlays that included a favorite with either over or under, and over 28% when combining the home team with under. Without bias, these should when at a 25% rate. But the significant question is what would happen when you consider the odds of these parlays and make $1 bets on each combination.

Following are the tables with the results over this data and the various combinations. First, lets consider combining favorites or dogs with totals.

Games	Loc-Total	Bet	Net	Ret/$
19,236	Fav-Over	$19,236	-$1,091	$0.943
19,236	Fav-Under	$19,236	-$1,291	$0.933
19,236	Dog-Over	$19,236	-$1,713	$0.911
19,236	Dog-Under	$19,236	-$460	$0.976
19,236	All	$76,944	-$4,555	$0.941

The results make sense. For instance, when using a favorite, the best return is Fav-Over. But since they are the better team, they will likely score more runs then their opponents, hence when they win, there is a slight bias to over. The converse is true with dogs. They have a better chance in low scoring games. Of all combinations, the Dog-Under is the best. But even betting that always will only return $0.976 per $1.000 bet.

Games	Loc-Total	Bet	Net	Ret/$
19,643	Home-Over	$19,643	-$2,133	$0.891
19,643	Home-Under	$19,643	-$286	$0.985
19,643	Visit-Over	$19,643	-$691	$0.965
19,643	Visit-Under	$19,643	-$1,551	$0.921
19,643	All	$78,572	-$4,661	$0.941

This table looked at the other potential combinations, location and total. In these combinations, Home-Under had the highest win percentage. When combined with $1 bets, it also had the highest return per dollar, $0.985. This is significantly better than all other combinations, but still not enough to make a profit.

In my next post, I’ll look at all 8 possible combinations and finally find some with profit potential. Follow me on Twitter @ole44bill to know when this is posted.