MLB Correlated Odds Betting Strategy

Working at BestOdds has a lot of perks. Obviously, we get to talk sports betting all day, every day, and for those of us who love this industry, we feel very fortunate to come to work.

Another huge perk for us is getting to meet, talk with and learn from those who are incredibly knowledgeable about betting on sports. One such person is Harley Redlick, and we were very excited to collaborate with him on our article below.

Part of the enjoyment that comes from betting on sports is trying to out Vegas, Vegas.

Every day, every hour – sports bettors are working hard to develop a strategy or an edge that will give them an advantage over the sportsbooks.

Sometimes we can spot a trend that has not yet been corrected in the market, and sometimes our homework doesn’t pay off, but always there are gamblers who are crunching numbers looking for an advantage play.

What Is Correlated Parlay Betting?

In simple terms, correlated parlay betting is a wager where the two outcomes of your parlay bet are somehow tied together. An easy example of a correlated parlay bet from the NFL could be:

NFL Correlated Parlay Bet Example

• Aaron Rodgers to go OVER 280 Passing Yards
• Green Bay Packers to go OVER their team total of 23.5 points

The theory behind this parlay bet is that if Aaron Rodgers has a very good day passing the football (Over 280 Yards), the Packers will score many points.

You could flip it around and bet Rodgers UNDER his passing yards and the Packers to go UNDER their team total.

Unfortunately for bettors, these parlay bets are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Sportsbooks are aware of correlated odds obviously and recognize the advantage they give a player over the house.

MLB Correlated Parlay Betting Strategy

As part of this article, we wanted to put into practice a strategy we were excited to analyze. This is an MLB correlated odds strategy involving Home Underdogs + The Under.

Let’s explain why.

Our graphic above simply shows us the number of times a Home Underdog occurs during an MLB season. Generally, there are somewhere close to 800 home ‘dawgs each year, with numbers varying annually.

We believe that the betting market is often a little reluctant to take underdogs when it comes to MLB odds betting and that the lines can be slightly shaded in their favor.

As our graphic below shows us, maybe it’s because Home Underdogs only win on average 40-44% of the time.

What we do know for a fact is that when a home team wins a baseball game, barring a walk-off victory, they don’t have to take their at-bats in the bottom of the 9th inning.

This situation, where a home team wins after having only eight at-bats, is an advantage for those betting the under, even if it is only slight.

When the home team doesn’t have to come to bat in the 9th inning, that means only 95% of the game was played.

Typically in a 9-inning game, each team bats once per inning, which is a total of 18 at-bats.

In our scenario, we are hoping that only 17 at-bats are required to declare the home team victorious, and when that happens, we now have a 5% advantage.

That advantage over time should impact the O/U, tilting it slightly in our favor.

We also need to recognize that an underdog has a greater chance of success in a low-scoring game than in a high-scoring one. If the favorite can be held to only two or three runs in a game, an underdog only needs to put up four runs to win.

However, if a favorite scores five or six runs in a game, the task of scoring enough runs to win becomes much more difficult for the underdog.

Parlaying Home Underdogs And The Under

So far, we have recognized that:

• In a “typical” MLB season, there are somewhere close to 800 games where the home team is the underdog.
• On average, home underdogs will win somewhere between 40-44% of the time.
• We have recognized that an underdog has a greater chance of success if a game is low scoring as opposed to high scoring.

But what happens when we parlay those home ‘dawgs with the under?

At a glance, it doesn’t appear to be all that promising. For each of the five years we tested our theory, we typically won close to 25% of our parlay bets.

However, the news definitely gets better.

Our graphic above is really the most important visual of them all. This tells us our annual profit each year if we had blindly bet every home underdog + the under.

You can see that in four of the five years, our correlated parlay strategy would have been profitable for us and that overall a $100 bettor would be up over $12,000 in profit.

What’s The Catch?

For many years, correlated betting in sports existed, but most of us had not yet figured out what it was and what type of advantage it provided for a bettor.

Once strategies and the concept of results being tied together became more popular amongst the betting community, many operators started taking them off their menu.

A couple of years ago, FanDuel launched a product called Same Game Parlays or SGPs. These SGPs once again allowed bettors to wager on outcomes that could be correlated. However, the odds on SGPs are significantly reduced (IE – Worse) than a standard parlay bet.

That said, many legal, certified sportsbooks operate across North America. Most sportsbooks don’t offer correlated parlay betting options or offer SGPs at a reduced payout.

But some sportsbooks still have them on their menu. For this article, we looked into many legalized operators across Canada and the US. We found that Caesars and Bet365 allowed us to make our Home ‘Dawgs + The Under parlay bets without charging us a premium for betting correlated odds.

Betting MLB Home Underdogs And The Under

We love playing home ‘dawgs and the under where we can get them down. We believe that over the long term, there is an advantage with this bet for the general public.

However, we do stress that this strategy is a long-term play.

Above, we have posted some visuals on how our strategy played out over 2021 and 2020. What jumps off the page is that our path to annual profit is not a linear line.

There are peaks and valleys with this strategy, which is to be expected when you are winning only around 25% of the actual bets you place.

We recommend searching some sportsbooks that are operating and certified in your area and finding some that allow you to parlay these two MLB outcomes together. As we mentioned, Caesars and Bet365 are two sportsbooks allowing this correlated odds parlay for MLB.

Add this strategy to your betting portfolio and have fun playing it over the long term, but just remember that any time we play a system that hits 25% of the time, you will have some peaks and valleys.

Editors Note:

It’s important to note that we used 20cent lines for our O/U historical odds. This means we used the standard -110 odds for our Under bets.

Our Moneyline odds were provided to us from BetIQ. Their historical odds averaged slightly more than a 10cent line, meaning both teams would be -105 in a pick ’em game.

About Harley Redlick

Harley Redlick is a successful sports bettor and media personality with a passion for improving knowledge in the gambling space. He’s a regular contributor for The Parleh and runs his website www.sharpedgepicks.com.

Harley does a weekly sports betting podcast with Jorey Middlestadt, a legend of Toronto sports radio, where he provides value wagers and explains betting concepts. He has a law degree from Osgoode Hall and an MBA from Rotman.

Harley has been limited (virtually cutoff) by a number of sportsbooks for winning too much and cashed millions in prize money wagering against the OLG. He co-created and served as Co-Program Director for the Osgoode Hall Professional Development Gaming Law certificate,

He also lectured on sports betting for the program and then served as an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, where he co-taught Gambling Law.

Harley has written for Yardbarker and Sun Media on issues related to sports betting and published a case study on successful betting arbitrage for the Ivey School of business. He was a panelist at the inaugural Betting on Sports in America conference, sat on the Canadian Gaming Summit’s sports betting panel twice, and served as a guest on-air expert for both TSN Edge and Roger’s Inside the Lines.

His Twitter handle is @sharpedgepicks