How about them Warhawks? UL Monroe took down UAB as a big underdog, and that win completed an eventful but profitable Football Parlay Friday for us during Week 2 of the college football season.
It didn’t come without theatrics, though. Pitt finished off a crazy comeback to beat Cincinnati, and Tulsa had a lead in the second half against Arkansas State. Except for Michigan, every game was entertaining.
But that’s what really matters here. Entertainment. Yes, these bets are considered to have positive expected value — but this is a small-risk, fun bet on a Saturday. But when you parlay — see what I did there — good value with a big payout, you’re going to have a good time despite not expecting to win these all that often.
Season record: 4-18, +$17.24, +39.2% ROI
This week, again, will be an underdog moneyline round-robin parlay. There might be a week this year when I deviate to a Same Game Parlay but right now, I’m having fun rooting for the underdogs.
I think these five moneylines all have value — or close to it — according to my college football projection model and I am going to place them in a round-robin parlay. (You can find all of my CFB projections here.)
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The bets:
- UMass moneyline (+150)
- Georgia State moneyline (+333)
- Southern Miss moneyline (+340)
- East Carolina moneyline (+100)
- Rice moneyline (+165)
A simple parlay would have all five of these bets together for odds of +25143. That means if you bet $1, you’ll win $251.43. This will be one part of our parlay, but sportsbooks have a feature called round robins that will automatically parlay different combinations.
On BetMGM’s interface, you’ll scroll down your bet slip to see that section. I’ll be selecting “Round Robin 2/5.” This selection parlays each bet with another bet, creating 10 two-game parlays (11 parlays total if you include the five-game parlay above). I’m going to be staking $2 on every bet in this process for a grand total of $22.
The round-robin parlays:
- UMass/Georgia State/Southern Miss/ECU/Rice (+25143) — $2 to win $502.88
- UMass/Georgia State (+982) — $2 to win $19.65
- UMass/Southern Miss (+1000) — $2 to win $20.00
- UMass/ECU (+400) — $2 to win $8.00
- UMass/Rice (+562) — $2 to win $11.25
- Georgia State/Southern Miss (+1805) — $2 to win $36.10
- Georgia State/ECU (+766) — $2 to win $15.32
- Georgia State/Rice (+1047) — $2 to win $20.95
- Southern Miss/ECU (+780) — $2 to win $15.60
- Southern Miss/Rice (+1066) — $2 to win $21.32
- ECU/Rice (+430) — $2 to win $8.60
(Photo of Anthony Simpson: Michael Chang / Getty Images)