Round Robin Bet

By
• Learn The Lines
• May 17th, 2022

A round robin bet is a combination of smaller parlays / multis from a larger list of teams or players. Round robins can often look quite confusing to newcomers to betting but fear not as this guide delves into round robin bets, educates you and explores the instances when you might consider placing a round robin bet. 

What is a Round Robin Bet?

A round robin bet is effectively a number of smaller parlay combinations within one larger list of selections, whereby you pick a number of teams or players you think might win and if one or more let you down (depending on the number of selections), you will still be returned a payout from your round robin bet. 

How Does a Round Robin Bet Work? 

The intricacies of a round robin bet depend entirely on how many selections you want to include within your multi/parlay. The more games/players you pick the more round robin multi combinations you will form. 

The easiest example of a round robin bet is a three team selection.

So let’s say I have a good feeling about the chances of the New Orlean Saints, Dallas Cowboys & New England Patriots in their respective NFL games this coming Sunday. I could put them all in a straight up parlay bet but I know that all three would have to win and that parlays are often hard to win, so I decide to put on a round robin bet instead. 

Here is how it would look on the DraftKings bet slip:

You can see DraftKings have offered me a couple of options including a 3 pick parlay and a 2 pick round robin bet. We’re going to go for the 2 pick round robin bet selection. As you can see there is ‘3x’ next to it. This basically means that our 2 pick round robin bet will be placing three separate bets. So if you wanted to wager $1 on the 2 pick round robin you would actually be staking $3. The breakdown looks like this:

$1 on New Orlean Saints & Dallas Cowboys winning (double bet)

$1 on New Orlean Saints & New England Patriots (double bet)

$1 on Dallas Cowboys & New England Patriots (double bet)

This basically means if one team doesn’t win but the other two do, you will still be paid out as 2 pick parlay / double bet. If two teams or all the teams lose, your 2 pick round robin would settle as a loser. 

Of course you don’t have to only stake $1, you can bet as much or as little as you like and the payouts will be adjusted accordingly. 

Is a round robin bet always the best option?

Put simply no, a round robin bet is only a good option to bettors if the round robin combinations pay more than your stake. Using the above example we can see that they are three quite heavy favorites, with short odds, this is how the 2 pick round robin would payout if only 2 of your 3 teams won:

You can see that if only two of the three teams won, you would not be in profit, you would have placed three bets of $1 = $3 in total and the most you can return with two of the teams winning is $2.17. If however all three teams won, you’d win all three of your 2 pick / double bets and would return a total of $5.83:

$1.73 + $2.17 + $1.93 = $5.83

So with this example you can see that the only way you would make profit is if all three teams win, so with those three teams you may opt to place a three team parlay instead of a round robin. 

When should you place a round robin bet? 

As highlighted above you will need to work out all the combinations and their returns when deciding whether it is worthwhile placing a round robin bet or just a straight up parlay. The most sensible scenario in which to place a round robin bet is if you are backing a number of underdogs. 

Let’s take a look at how a 2-pick round robin bet would look with three NBA underdogs included:

We can see that a straight up three pick parlay has massive odds of +10787 and $1 staked would return $108.87. However let’s see how a $1 2 pick round robin on the three teams would payout. 

Remembering we are placing 3x bets of $1 to a total of $3, the 2 pick round robin combinations would look like this:

Above we can see that the 2 pick round robin combinations of the three underdogs is a much more attractive proposition than that of the 2 pick round robin including three favorites as dissected above. 

If any two teams win, then the minimum the bettor will return is $16.75 which is a fair bit above the total stake of $3. If all three teams were to win the bettor would return $71.03.

That is a good example of when to consider using a round robin bet, as you get the protection, knowing that if one team lets you down, you will still receive a profitable payout. 

How many bets are there in a round robin?

There is no exact answer to this question, as it depends on how many selections you make originally and how many individual bet combinations you want to make within your round robin. 

Above we have used examples of the most simplest of forms of a round robin, three teams in a 2 pick round robin, but round robins can include lots of different bet combinations and can ultimately become quite expensive. For example a $1 stake on a six team two and three pick round robin would be 35 separate bets of $1 in total, so you would be laying out $35 just to cover all the combinations. Add a four team and five team pick, you’re up to 56 total bets. 

Round Robin Bet Types

You may also see round robin bet combinations nicknamed as the following:

• Trixie bet – 4x bets: 3x two picks and 1x three picks parlay
• Patent bet – 8x bets: 3x two picks, 1x three picks parlay & 4x single bets
• Yankee bet – 11x bets in total
• Lucky 15 bet – 15x bets in total
• Canadian bet – 26x bets in total
• Lucky 31 bet – 31x bets in total
• Heinz bet – 57x bets in total
• Lucky 63 bet – 63x bets in total
• Super Heinz bet – 120x bets in total
• Lucky 127 bet – 127x bets in total 

As you can see above there are many different combinations of round robin bets you can make. When you group together a number of teams, you will have the option to choose which round robin bet you’d like to make. 

For example; with a 5 team multi you can make up to 26 parlay combinations (a Canadian bet). Add another team to make a 6 team multi and you can make up to 57 parlay combinations (a Heinz bet) and so on.