By Katherine Sayre and Isabella Simonetti
Alix Haberkern knew her sports bet on DraftKings was a long shot.
The football fan decided to make 14 predictions on NFL players’ performances over several games one Sunday in December, including touchdowns, receiving yards and rushing yards. She used a $10 credit from the betting company to place a multileg bet. If every player lived up to her expectations, she would win $22,000.
As the NFL games unfolded, 13 of her picks hit. Only one player stood between her and the cash: Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp, who needed 70 or more receiving yards.
He got 17, and she lost it all. “Getting so close, it’s a little heartbreaking,” she said.
Call it the new American lottery ticket—exciting for potentially big jackpots but with painfully slim chances to win.
America’s biggest gambling companies, however, are making a killing. The multileg bets, called parlays, deliver a bigger cut of money to sportsbooks after paying out winners than single bets. And they are a growing portion of bets overall—especially among casual sports fans, who are part of a new and fast-growing segment of the world of online sports betting.
Sports-betting companies are raking in cash in one of their busiest times of the year, in the lead-up to the Super Bowl. Flashy ads highlight special offers for bonus bets on parlays and other offers for newbies.
Parlays accounted for about 27% of the money wagered on all sports bets last year through October in Illinois, New Jersey and Colorado, states in which gambling regulators report data by bet type. That’s up from 22% of all sports bets in 2021. The multileg bets delivered about 56% of sports-betting revenue after payouts for companies in the three states during that period, up from 50% in the same stretch of 2021.
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