Parlay math: why 5 legs is almost always a lottery ticket

At 55% per leg, a 5-team parlay hits 5% of the time. The math makes the argument so you do not have to.

"You don't understand how a parlay works." That comment appeared 240 times in one Reddit thread. The people saying it were not wrong. Most bettors who play parlays every week cannot tell you what the combined probability of their ticket actually is. Here is the math.