Thomas Shea-USA TODAY Sports
It might not be the most exciting of games any more, but you can definitely find a way to make it a fun one.
If you are playing in your fantasy football championship this week, congratulations. If not, maybe not year. Regardless, maybe you can still find a way to get excited about Cleveland Browns hosting the New York Jets on Thursday Night Football.
While oddsmakers expect the Browns to walk away Thursday night with a commanding win (currently 7.5-point home favorites), this feels like a great opportunity to place a little money on the line to make your game-watching experience a little more fun, even if you have nothing invested in either team playing.
Currently, DraftKings Sportsbook has the money line for a Browns win at -340, meaning in order to win a $100 payout on the Brownies winning the game, you would have to wager (and risk) $340 on the bet. On the flipside, if you were willing to bet on the Jets shocking the world and upsetting the Browns in the Dog Pound, a measly $100 bet would pay out $270 on the current +270 odds.
But if, like the oddsmakers, you think the Browns are going to win, you can string that bet together with others in what is known as a “parlay” to potentially increase your payout. You can head over to DraftKings Sportsbook for a full definition of what a parlay is, but essentially, a parlay is a string of multiple bets (each individual bet known as a “leg”), where for there to be any payout whatsoever, each leg of the parlay has to be correct. It is all-or-nothing. In a three-leg parlay, if one of the bets misses but the other two hit, there is no “partial payout.” It is simply a loss. But if all three bets hit, that is where there might be opportunity for money to be made.
So consider this four-leg parlay for tonight’s game:
Browns WIN (-340). This goes without saying. The Browns look like a revitalized team with Joe Flacco at the helm, and the Jets offense has struggled of late. Cleveland should roll at home.
Browns OVER 14.5 (-425). The Browns have scored at least 15 points in all but three games this season, with all three of those started by QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson.
Amari Cooper OVER 50 receiving yards (-190). Last week, Flacco connected with WR Amari Cooper for a whopping 265 yards and two touchdowns. But even the week before that he finished with over 100 receiving yards, so 50 should be a breeze.
NO two-point conversion scored by either team (-750). Two-point conversions are a rarity in the NFL, so banking on neither time scoring one Thursday night seems like free money.
The parlay odds for this bet would be +138, meaning a $100 bet would pay out $238 (the original $100 bet plus an extra $138). Again, this takes all four individual legs of the parlay have to come true for this bet to pay out. But look at the odds: Instead of a $100 parlay, if four $25.00 bets were placed on each of these legs individually and all four were to come true, the total payout would be $129.72 (the original $100 bet plus an extra $29.72). By stringing these four bets into a four-leg parlay, a winning bet pays out almost five-times more than the four solo bets by themselves.
Does this mean the parlay is a safe bet to make? Of course not. Every bet also presents risk. But stringing together a series of less-risky bets into a parlay, while the risk is greater because it presents more opportunities for the overall bet to miss, the potential reward is greater. Once a basic parlay bet is understood and made, the feeling of it hitting is like no other, and soon, a novice sports better can eventually start stringing together ultra aggressive parlays for a big-time payday. You can head over to DraftKings Sportsbook to try to make it happen.
If you like this material, make sure you’re subscribed to The SB Nation NFL Show podcast where we cover Thursday Night Football sports bets every week. You can catch us wherever you listen to your podcasts. As always, you can follow me on Twitter/X @ChrisDunnells. Odds/lines subject to change. T&Cs apply. See draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.
