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There are approximately five billion different variations
of football parlay and teaser cards in the casinos. Mostly, we
suspect that the casinos put out so many different kinds just
to confuse us and force us to make bets we don't understand.
When we set out to examine the payout of different cards, we
had to narrow our search to a single type of card that every
casino carries. By far, the most common parlay card is the half-point
point parlay. Because every casino sports book has a half-point
parlay, and they work the almost exactly the same everywhere,
we used them for our evaluation.
The reasons we did not evaluate teasers, super-teasers,
ties-win parlays, super-bonus-deluxe-teasers or Sunday-Monday
parlays are:
- For teasers, different casinos give different amounts of
points (from +5 to +6) in addition to different payoffs, making
them almost impossible to compare.
- For teasers, each hotel has its own weird variations that
make them too different to compare.
- Not every casino offers all the same teasers or additonal
parlays, making a city-wide comparison impossible.
- The super-bonus-deluxe teaser exists only in our heads.
Regardless, the payoffs on the half-point cards should gve
you an idea as to how good a casino's cards are. The following
table provides the payoff schedules for all evaluated cards for
the 1999 football season, ranked from best to worst. Afterward,
we will discuss other factors that should be used in selecting
yor parlay card.
1999 Half-point
Parlay Card Payouts
So, as you can see, MGM, New York New York and the Rio are
the most eager to take your money (MGM and New York New York
use the same card). The Coast Properties (Gold Coast, Barbary
Coast and Orleans) have the best cards, followed by the sports
books managed by Leroy's (denoted with an *). The Boyd Properties
(Sam's Town, Stardust, Main Street, California, Fremont) all
use the same card. So do the Station Casinos (Palace Station,
Sunset Station, Boulder Station, Texas Station).
Other considerations:
- Not all cards will have the same point spread for each game.
For example, one casino might have the Rams at -5.5 while another
has them at -6.5. This doesn't happen often, but it can happen.
So, if you know what games you want to bet, shop around for the
card that has the best spread for your picks.
- If you know you are going to bet six teams, pick a card with
the best six team payoff, not the overall best card. Who cares
what it pays for ten teams if you are only picking six?
- You can place your bet in one casino and watch the games
somewhere else. Heck, put down your money at the Gold Coast,
then high-tail it over to those comfy chairs at the Bellagio.
- Not all parlay cards are represented here. For 2000, we will
try to cover all casinos. But, if you pick up a card somplace
not shown here, compare it to this table to see if it's any good.
Any
questions comments?
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