How-To
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How NFL parlay payouts are calculated leg by leg, why a parlay's margin grows with every leg added, how pushes change the payout, and how a prediction market prices a parlay by quote.
Payout: convert each leg to decimal odds, multiply them together, and multiply by the stake. Three legs at -110, +150, and -200 turn $10 into $71.59.
Compounding: at -110 a leg, a sportsbook’s margin is 4.55% on a straight bet, 13.03% on a three-leg parlay, and 24.36% on six legs.
Break-even: every -110 leg still has to win 52.38% of the time for the parlay to break even, however many legs there are.
Pushes: most sportsbooks drop a pushed leg and pay the parlay on the legs left. On Novig, a pushed leg settles at a fair value price that’s multiplied into the payout.
Prediction markets: Novig prices parlays by quote, with its fee already in the price. Its own fee table puts that fee at 0.9 cents on a 10-cent parlay, about 8% of the quoted price.
A parlay pays the product of its legs’ odds. Convert each leg to decimal odds, multiply them together, and multiply the result by the stake. Every parlay calculator runs the same three steps.
Decimal odds are the total return per $1 staked, stake included:
A minus price of -X becomes 1 + 100 / X. So -110 is 1.9091 and -200 is 1.5.
A plus price of +X becomes 1 + X / 100. So +150 is 2.5.
Take a three-leg NFL parlay, with hypothetical prices: a spread at -110, an underdog moneyline at +150, and a favorite moneyline at -200.
Leg | American odds | Decimal odds |
|---|---|---|
Spread | -110 | 1.9091 |
Underdog moneyline | +150 | 2.5000 |
Favorite moneyline | -200 | 1.5000 |
Parlay | About +616 | 7.1591 |
A $10 parlay returns $71.59 if all three legs win, which is $61.59 in profit. To turn decimal odds back into American odds, subtract 1 and multiply by 100: 7.1591 becomes about +616.
Every leg has to win. If one loses, the whole ticket loses, whatever the other legs did. A parlay trades a much smaller chance of collecting for a bigger payout when it does. The beginner’s guide to football betting covers the other bet types a parlay can combine.
A sportsbook builds its margin into each leg’s price, and a parlay multiplies those prices, so it multiplies the margin too. Here are parlays of -110 legs against a fair price for the same number of coin flips:
Legs | Book pays | Fair price for coin flips | $10 returns at the book | $10 returns at a fair price | Book’s margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | -110 | +100 | $19.09 | $20.00 | 4.55% |
2 | +264 | +300 | $36.45 | $40.00 | 8.88% |
3 | +596 | +700 | $69.58 | $80.00 | 13.03% |
4 | +1228 | +1500 | $132.83 | $160.00 | 16.98% |
5 | +2436 | +3100 | $253.59 | $320.00 | 20.75% |
6 | +4741 | +6300 | $484.13 | $640.00 | 24.36% |
10 | +64208 | +102300 | $6,430.82 | $10,240.00 | 37.20% |
The margin column is the share of the fair payout the book keeps: 1 minus the book’s return divided by the fair return. A six-leg ticket gives back almost a quarter of the fair payout, and a 10-leg ticket more than a third.
That shows up in what books keep. New Jersey’s sportsbooks held 17.3% of parlay handle in 2026 through September, against 4.6% on football bets, per the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement.
The compounding cuts both ways. A three-leg -110 parlay at +596 needs to hit 14.37% of the time to break even. That’s 0.5238 to the third power, so each leg still needs a 52.38% win rate, the same as a straight bet at -110.
The per-leg bar stays where it was. A bettor who wins 55% of spread bets clears that bar with room on every leg, and the parlay multiplies that edge the same way it multiplies the book’s. A bettor who wins 50% of spread bets loses 4.55% betting straight and 13.03% on three-leg parlays of the same picks.
A push happens when a spread or total lands exactly on the number, such as a 27-20 final on a -7 spread. Sportsbooks and Novig handle it differently.
At most US sportsbooks, a pushed leg comes off the ticket and the parlay pays on the legs that are left. In the example above, if the -200 leg pushes and the other two win, the ticket becomes a two-leg parlay at 1.9091 x 2.5 = 4.7727, and $10 returns $47.73. Some apps grade promotional parlays differently, so the house rules on the bet slip govern.
On Novig, a pushed leg settles to a fair market value price, and Novig recalculates the parlay by multiplying the settled price of every leg. Its help center uses a three-leg example where one leg settles at 50 cents and the other two win: $1.00 x $1.00 x $0.50 = $0.50 per contract. A leg on a half-point line, such as -2.5 or -6.5, can’t push. The point spread guide covers how often NFL games land on each number.
A same-game parlay combines legs from one game, such as a quarterback’s passing yards and his team’s total. Those legs are often correlated, since a 300-yard passing day makes the over more likely. The book prices the correlation into the ticket, so a same-game parlay’s payout isn’t the product of its legs’ listed odds, and its margin can’t be read off the leg prices. The leg-by-leg math above applies to parlays of separate games.
On a prediction market, a single game is a contract that pays $1, and a parlay is a contract that pays $1 if every leg wins. The fair price of a parlay is the product of the legs’ fair prices: two legs at 50 cents make a 25-cent parlay, and three make 12.5 cents.
Novig prices parlays by quote rather than on its order book. A user builds the parlay, Novig checks its liquidity providers for a price, and it returns the best one. Under its published fee schedule, parlays carry a taker fee that’s already included in the quote, so the price shown is the total cost and nothing is added at checkout. Novig’s fee table gives these examples:
Fair parlay price | Quoted price with fee | Fee as a share of the quote | Converts to |
|---|---|---|---|
30 cents (+233) | 32.10 cents | 6.5% | About +212 |
20 cents (+400) | 21.60 cents | 7.4% | About +363 |
10 cents (+900) | 10.90 cents | 8.3% | About +817 |
The fee takes a larger share as the parlay gets longer and the price falls, but on Novig’s published examples it stays under 10% of the quote. A three-leg -110 sportsbook parlay gives up 13.03% of the fair payout and a four-leg one 16.98%. The quote also depends on the liquidity provider’s view of each leg, so it’s worth comparing the quoted payout with the same parlay at a sportsbook.
Novig parlays differ from straights in two more ways. They can’t be sold before they settle, while a straight trade can be. Pre-game straight trades on Novig carry no fee at all, so betting the same legs as separate straights costs nothing extra, and each leg is graded on its own. Kalshi and Polymarket also list parlay-style combo contracts, and both charge takers a fee on them.
Novig requires users to be 21 and isn’t available in Arizona, Michigan, or Nevada. Its status in Ohio is unsettled after the state’s casino regulator sent it a cease-and-desist letter in October 2026. The lowest juice NFL betting apps guide compares parlay costs with every other NFL bet type.
Convert each leg to decimal odds, multiply them together, and multiply by your stake. Two -110 legs are 1.9091 x 1.9091 = 3.6446, so $10 returns $36.45.
About +596. A $10 bet returns $69.58 if all three legs win. Three fair coin flips would pay +700, or $80.
They cost more than straight bets on the same picks. A three-leg parlay at -110 a leg carries a 13.03% margin, against 4.55% on each straight bet, and New Jersey’s books held 17.3% of parlay handle in 2026 through September.
Most sportsbooks remove the pushed leg and pay the parlay on the remaining legs. On Novig, the pushed leg settles at a fair value price, which is multiplied into the payout.
Yes. The fee is built into the quoted price, so what the app shows is the full cost. Novig’s fee table puts it at 0.9 cents on a parlay with a 10-cent fair price.
Bettors must be 21 or older in most states. Gamble responsibly: if betting stops being fun, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), and ncpgambling.org has more resources.
