How Much Does a Parlay Pay? The Payout Chart for 2 to 12 Legs, With the Math
At the standard −110 price, a 2-leg parlay pays about +264, a 3-leg +596, a 4-leg +1228, a 5-leg +2436, a 6-leg +4741, and a 10-leg about +64208. On a $50 ticket that is $182.23, $347.90, $664.17, $1,267.95, $2,420.64, and $32,154.08 back, stake included. Those are the numbers on your slip. The numbers not on your slip: if every leg were a true coin flip, fair payouts would be +300, +700, +1500, +3100, +6300, and +102300. The gap is the sportsbook’s margin, charged once per leg and multiplied. This page has the whole chart, the arithmetic, what happens on a push, where the payout cap sits, and what the number is actually worth.
Put your stake and each leg’s price in. You get what the book pays, and what it keeps out of this exact ticket, in dollars, not a generic table.
The payout is exact: it is just the prices multiplied. The margin figure assumes each leg carries the margin of a standard −110 market, which is exact at −110 and an estimate at other prices. Research and education, not betting advice.
The parlay payout chart, 2 to 12 legs
Every row assumes each leg is −110, the standard price on spreads and totals. “Fair” is what the ticket would pay if each leg were a true 50/50 with no margin. “Cashes” is how often a ticket of coin-flip legs wins. “Margin” is the share of the fair payout the book’s price removes, which over many tickets is what you lose per dollar wagered.
| Legs | Book pays | $10 → | $50 → | $100 → | Fair | Cashes | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | +264 | $36.45 | $182.23 | $364.46 | +300 | 1 in 4 | 8.9% |
| 3 | +596 | $69.58 | $347.90 | $695.79 | +700 | 1 in 8 | 13.0% |
| 4 | +1228 | $132.83 | $664.17 | $1,328.33 | +1500 | 1 in 16 | 17.0% |
| 5 | +2436 | $253.59 | $1,267.95 | $2,535.91 | +3100 | 1 in 32 | 20.8% |
| 6 | +4741 | $484.13 | $2,420.64 | $4,841.27 | +6300 | 1 in 64 | 24.4% |
| 7 | +9142 | $924.24 | $4,621.22 | $9,242.43 | +12700 | 1 in 128 | 27.8% |
| 8 | +17545 | $1,764.46 | $8,822.32 | $17,644.64 | +25500 | 1 in 256 | 31.1% |
| 9 | +33585 | $3,368.52 | $16,842.61 | $33,685.23 | +51100 | 1 in 512 | 34.2% |
| 10 | +64208 | $6,430.82 | $32,154.08 | $64,308.16 | +102300 | 1 in 1,024 | 37.2% |
| 11 | +122670 | $12,277.01 | $61,385.06 | $122,770.13 | +204700 | 1 in 2,048 | 40.1% |
| 12 | +234279 | $23,437.93 | $117,189.67 | $234,379.33 | +409500 | 1 in 4,096 | 42.8% |
Real legs are not coin flips and are not always independent. That changes how often the ticket cashes, never what it pays. More on that below.
A 2-team parlay pays about +264
$10 returns $36.45, $50 returns $182.23, $100 returns $364.46. Fair would be +300. About 1 coin-flip ticket in 4 cashes. Margin about 9%.
A 3-team parlay pays about +596
$10 returns $69.58, $50 returns $347.90, $100 returns $695.79. Fair would be +700. About 1 coin-flip ticket in 8 cashes. Margin about 13%.
A 4-team parlay pays about +1228
$10 returns $132.83, $50 returns $664.17, $100 returns $1,328.33. Fair would be +1500. About 1 coin-flip ticket in 16 cashes. Margin about 17%.
A 5-team parlay pays about +2436
$10 returns $253.59, $50 returns $1,267.95, $100 returns $2,535.91. Fair would be +3100. About 1 coin-flip ticket in 32 cashes. Margin about 21%.
A 6-team parlay pays about +4741
$10 returns $484.13, $50 returns $2,420.64, $100 returns $4,841.27. Fair would be +6300. About 1 coin-flip ticket in 64 cashes. Margin about 24%.
A 7-team parlay pays about +9142
$10 returns $924.24, $50 returns $4,621.22, $100 returns $9,242.43. Fair would be +12700. About 1 coin-flip ticket in 128 cashes. Margin about 28%.
An 8-team parlay pays about +17545
$10 returns $1,764.46, $50 returns $8,822.32, $100 returns $17,644.64. Fair would be +25500. About 1 coin-flip ticket in 256 cashes. Margin about 31%.
A 10-team parlay pays about +64208
$10 returns $6,430.82, $50 returns $32,154.08, $100 returns $64,308.16. Fair would be +102300. About 1 coin-flip ticket in 1,024 cashes. Margin about 37%.
A 12-team parlay pays about +234279
$10 returns $23,437.93, $50 returns $117,189.67, $100 returns $234,379.33. Fair would be +409500. About 1 coin-flip ticket in 4,096 cashes. Margin about 43%. At this size the payout cap can matter; see below.
How the payout is calculated
Three steps. The calculator does them for you. You should be able to do them on a napkin.
- Turn each leg into a multiplier (its decimal odds). Minus odds: 1 + 100 ÷ the number. So −110 is 1 + 100/110 = 1.909. Plus odds: 1 + the number ÷ 100. So +150 is 2.50.
- Multiply the multipliers. Three −110 legs: 1.909 × 1.909 × 1.909 = 6.96.
- Multiply by your stake. $50 × 6.96 = $347.90 back, $297.90 profit. The book writes that ticket as +596.
Mixed prices work the same way. A −110 spread, a +150 underdog, and a −200 favorite: 1.909 × 2.50 × 1.50 = 7.16, so $50 returns $357.95, about +616. The major online apps multiply the leg prices this way, with some rounding. Same-game parlays and boosted prices are priced differently and are covered on their own pages.
If −110 and +150 still read like hieroglyphics, two minutes here first: how to read American odds.
Where the missing money goes
Two coin-flip legs really do have a 1-in-4 chance of both hitting, so fair pay is 3-to-1, +300. The book offers +264. On one ticket that is trivia. Over every 2-leg you ever bet, it means the book keeps about 9 cents of every dollar, double the toll on a single bet.
Here is the mechanism. −110 means you risk $110 to win $100, an implied 52.4% chance. When both sides of a spread are −110, the two sides add up to 104.8%, not 100%. That extra 4.8 points is the margin, and it lives inside every leg. Multiply legs and you multiply margins. One leg keeps about 4.5 cents of your dollar. Two keep about 9. Five keep about 21. Ten keep about 37.
This is not a fee the book adds to parlays. It is the same margin you pay on a single bet, charged once per leg and compounded. New Jersey’s regulator publishes the result. In 2025 the state’s sportsbooks kept 19.2% of every dollar wagered on parlays against 4.9% on everything else, and parlays were 32% of the money wagered but 65% of what the books kept. Those figures are compiled from the state’s monthly reports in Karl Whelan’s 2026 paper, “The Parlay Puzzle”. The full table by year is on our page about why the vig stacks on every leg.
The margin is bigger on player props
The chart assumes −110 legs. Most parlays built today are not spreads and totals. They are player props, and props cost more per leg.
We measured it. Across 73,872 two-sided prop prices captured from May 27, 2026 to August 25, 2026, the median margin (add up both sides’ implied chances, subtract 100%) ran from 5.98% on pitcher strikeouts to 7.02% on pitcher outs recorded. Call it 7%. The table by market is on the Parlay Tax Index.
What a 7% per-leg margin does to a parlay:
| Legs | Margin at −110 (4.8% per leg) | Margin at 7% per leg |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 8.9% | 12.7% |
| 3 | 13.0% | 18.4% |
| 5 | 20.8% | 28.7% |
| 10 | 37.2% | 49.2% |
A 5-leg prop parlay gives up close to 29 cents of every dollar to margin before anything happens on the field. Same-game parlays add a further adjustment on top, because the book reprices legs that tend to move together. That is the SGP tax, and it has its own page.
Is that a good payout?
The question is never “is +2436 a lot?” It is “is +2436 enough for the real chance this ticket cashes?”
To break even on a parlay of −110 legs, every leg has to win 52.4% of the time, and that number does not change with the number of legs. Two legs, five legs, twelve legs: 52.4% each. Adding a leg never improves the deal. It multiplies whatever deal you already had, good or bad.
At a 7% prop margin the break-even is 53.5% per leg. So a parlay is exactly as good as its legs, and legs are usually worse than they look. Whelan matched 174,891 anytime-touchdown prices from 14 US sportsbooks across the 2023-25 NFL seasons to the official scoring. Even the shortest-priced tenth of those bets, priced near even money, won 45% of the time.
We can add our own number. Before launch, from late May to early September 2026, the parlay lanes in our own Lab built 348 slips in internal testing, and we graded every one. If the model’s own leg probabilities had been right, about 100 of the 348 should have cashed. 25 did. Across the 1,416 legs, the model said 70.9% would hit; 50.4% did. The payout arithmetic was exact on every ticket. The probability we multiplied against was twenty points too high, and no payout survives that. At 348 parlays we cannot cleanly separate “the legs were overrated” from “the legs moved together,” and we are not going to pretend we can.
That is why the payout is the wrong place to look for value. The right place is each leg’s price against what you actually believe its chance is. Three checks before any ticket:
- Every leg earns its spot alone. A parlay dies with its worst leg. See why parlays lose on one leg.
- Price the ticket against fair. Multiply the legs, compare with the offer. That is what the calculator’s margin line does on your inputs.
- Fewer legs. In Whelan’s model, even a bettor with a real advantage on coin-flip legs does best combining at most two of them. The average American parlay has five. The full pre-bet routine is here: how to check a parlay before you bet it.
Pushes, voids, and the maximum payout
A pushed leg is removed and the ticket is re-priced. From DraftKings’ filed house rules:
In the event a Parlay contains a selection which is settled as void or push, then the individual selection will be excluded from the Parlay, and the odds of the Parlay will be recalculated to reflect the remaining selections.
A 4-leg with one push pays as a 3-leg: $50 that would have returned $664.17 returns $347.90. FanDuel’s filed rules say the same in different words: “a treble including one void leg will become a double,” and “the wager odds will be re-calculated using the remaining legs.”
Same-game parlays can follow different rules, and the two biggest apps differ. FanDuel’s filed rules settle SGPs the same way, dropping the leg and re-pricing. DraftKings settles SGPs under sport-specific rules, and in some sports a pushed or voided leg voids the whole SGP instead of dropping the leg. Read the rules for your book and your sport before assuming a push is harmless.
There is a cap. DraftKings’ filed rules set the maximum payout at $1,000,000 per bet on NFL, MLB, and NBA games, $250,000 on the NHL, and less elsewhere; other limits can apply on top. FanDuel’s filed rules set maximum winnings at $1 million per bet for every bet type, parlays and SGPs included. At −110, $1,000 on a 12-leg parlay computes to about $2.34 million. The cap pays $1 million. Some books cap the ratio instead of the dollars: Circa’s Nevada rules say “the maximum win ratio is 2,000 to 1,” and a 12-leg parlay at −110 is already 2,343 to 1. Every app shows the maximum on the slip before you confirm. Read it.
Fixed odds or true odds? Check which one you’re getting
Not every parlay is priced by multiplying. Nevada’s paper parlay cards pay a set table on −110 legs. The version VegasInsider publishes runs 13/5 on two teams, 6/1 on three, 10/1 on four, 20/1 on five. Against true multiplication, four and five teams are short-paid: +1000 instead of +1228, +2000 instead of +2436. Nevada’s regulator reports what that costs. In the twelve months to May 2026, parlay cards held 31.8% of every dollar wagered on them, against 7.2% to 7.3% on straight football, basketball, and baseball bets. Circa’s Nevada house rules put it plainly: parlay cards “have unique rules that are printed on each card, independent of the House Rules.” Read the card.
Standard parlays are a different product, and the counters multiply too. Circa’s Nevada house rules state that “parlay payouts are calculated using true odds” and publish the table for −110 legs: 2.64 to 1 on two legs through 2,342.79 to 1 on twelve. That is the chart above, to the decimal. The major online apps do the same. If you want to know which you are getting, type your legs into the calculator above and compare with your slip. If the numbers match, you are on true odds. If your slip is lower, you are on a fixed card or a same-game parlay, and the difference is the price you are paying. And the same five legs can pay a different total at different books, which is the whole point of line shopping.
What would change our mind
The −110 chart is arithmetic and will not change. Three things on this page are evidence, and evidence can move.
- If our cross-book price capture, running since August 25, 2026, shows prop margins converging toward −110 levels, the props section gets weaker and we will say so.
- If a larger sample of our own graded parlays shows the leg probabilities calibrated and the shortfall still there, correlation becomes the first-order problem and this page changes.
- If a major online book is shown to pay a fixed table on standard parlays, the sentence “the major online apps use true odds” goes.
Before you place it
The calculator tells you what your slip pays. It cannot tell you whether the slip is worth placing. Slip Check prices every leg against fair, flags the ones that move together, and shows the gap before the money moves. It lives inside the Lab, so it takes an account.
Research and education, not a promise of profit. 21+. Only bet what you can walk away from.
FAQ
How much does a 5-team parlay pay?
About +2436 at −110. $50 returns $1,267.95 and $100 returns $2,535.91, stake included. Fair for five coin flips is +3100, so the book’s price removes about 21% of the ticket’s value.
What does a $50 parlay pay?
It depends on the legs. At −110: 2 legs $182.23, 3 legs $347.90, 4 legs $664.17, 5 legs $1,267.95, 6 legs $2,420.64, all including the $50 back. Use the calculator for your exact prices.
How do sportsbooks calculate parlay payouts?
Convert each leg to a multiplier (−110 is 1.909, +150 is 2.50), multiply the multipliers together, and multiply by the stake. That is the total return. Subtract the stake for profit.
What is the house edge on a parlay?
It compounds per leg. At −110: about 4.5% on one bet, 9% on two legs, 13% on three, 17% on four, 21% on five, 37% on ten. On player props the per-leg margin is closer to 7%, so a 5-leg prop parlay gives up about 29%.
Why is a parlay payout less than the true odds?
Because each leg’s price already contains the book’s margin, and multiplying legs multiplies margins. Five coin flips are 31-to-1 (+3100). Five −110 legs multiply to +2436.
Does a push change what my parlay pays?
Yes. At the major online books the pushed leg is removed and the ticket is re-priced on the remaining legs, so a 4-leg with a push pays as a 3-leg. Same-game parlays can follow different rules, including voiding the whole ticket in some sports.
Is there a maximum parlay payout?
Yes. DraftKings’ filed house rules cap NFL, MLB, and NBA payouts at $1,000,000 per bet, and FanDuel’s filed rules set the same $1 million limit for every bet type. The maximum shows on your slip before you confirm.