Biblical scholars, through the examination of found footage of Moses (see below), have long pondered the content of the additional five commandments that he infamously dropped and shattered.

And while we’ll never know for sure what that third tablet of commandments contained, it seems reasonable — maybe +160? — that one of them was “Thou shalt not parlay.”

Again, impossible to say, but reasonable. After all, “Thou shall not covet” made the list at #10, and who among us hasn’t coveted? I usually start coveting before my morning coffee.

Anyway, parlays: If it were a commandment, American bettors are doing a lousy job keeping the faith, as it were, much to the delight of America’s sportsbooks.

Consider: According to a JMP report using numbers provided by Juice Reel and cited by the Earnings & More newsletter, not only are bettors parlaying, they’re busy adding legs to these bets. The study noted a “steady increase in the number of legs,” which has “supported gaming margin expansion.”

The report states that over the last two years, the average number of legs in a parlay has increased from 4.2 to 5, and there is a notable uptick in 10+ leg parlays. And as can be deduced, two- and three-leg parlays are on the downswing.

This news, while helping the bottom lines of sportsbooks, is clearly not doing bettors any favors.

A five-leg parlay – which looks awesome every single time I build one – has, assuming 50/50 odds on each leg, a mere 3.1% chance of hitting. And of course, you start adding non-coin flips to the parlay, the chances decrease dramatically. Add in the vig, the way parlays are priced, and the fact we’re probably being generous with the 50/50 business in the first place, and … well, and it’s clear to see these long-shot bets are just that: long shots.

But they’re fun.

So what’s a gambler to do?

Perhaps a 10 Commandments of parlay betting is in order? Why not.

In other words: Stick to two-teamers.

“If you must bet parlays, do that,” said noted gambler Gadoon “Spanky” Kyrollos. “The vig gets higher as more teams are added.”

If you must bet two (or more) leg parlays, ScoresAndOdds lead analyst Grant Neiffer notes the importance of line shopping.

“The longer the odds, the more you should shop,” he said. “I’ve seen +800 on FanDuel, and the same bet at +2000 on DraftKings, as an example.”

Worth noting: There seems to be little rhyme or reason to the pricing across sites. One site might offer better odds on this bet, another better odds on that bet, despite the base odds of each bet being the same (or close enough).

This is just good sense. No need to go chasing your parlay losses, especially because there will be a lot of parlay losses.

“Set the RG tools max daily deposit size as low as possible,” said noted gambler and co-founder of Unabated, Capt. Jack Andrews.

“I would stay away from single game parlays until the pricing is better,” said longtime bookmaker Robert Walker. “They are very high hold wagers for the book and difficult for the books to price, so they err on their side.”

Putting together a bunch of -1500s in hopes of hitting a +175er or whatever never works. Immutable law of the universe.

“However many legs of your parlay? That’s also however many times more likely you are to lose by just one leg compared to winning the parlay,” Andrews said. “So if you bet a 3-team parlay, you are three times more likely to hit two of three than you are to hit three of three. Bet an 8-leg parlay? Eight times more likely to “just miss” than to win it.”

All of a sudden, makes those “near-misses” more like “misses.”

Another way to look at this: If you think you might cash out, leave legs off.

“What people don’t realize is if you bet some 10-leg parlay and cash out if the first eight legs hit, you’re sacrificing a lot of money,” Neiffer said.

And he’s not talking about the obvious by not letting it ride; what he means is that if you just bet the eight-leg parlay to begin with, you would’ve had better odds than whatever the cash-out option will be on the 10-team parlay after winning the first eight legs. 

In short: If the pricing is off, leave it off.

“If you like a team and they are -3.5 on your site, but -3 everywhere else, consider leaving them off of this particular parlay,” Walker said.

Neiffer notes some sportsbooks which shall not be named really need to work on their pricing algorithms.

“For instance, let’s say the Bucks are 3.5-point favorites, and the moneyline is -165,” he offered. “If you put them together, you’re likely to get worse odds than if you just bet the spread by itself.” 

As a corollary here, sometimes adding legs don’t move the odds, so if building a big SGP, it’s worth dropping the legs one by one to see what effect it has on the pricing.

Yeah, but what fun is that? A little parlay, a little coveting, everything is fine.