How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in Sports

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.2 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you’ve watched any professional sports this year, chances are you’ve seen ad after ad pushing parlay bets. WSJ’s Katherine Sayre explains how parlays became big business for sports betting companies. Further Listening: - How a Psychiatrist Lost $400,000 on Gambling Apps - Disney Gets Into Gambling Further Reading: - America Has Fallen in Love With Long-Shot Sports Bets - This Year’s Big NFL Winners: Fans, Not Sportsbooks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Alex Habercern is 29 years old. She tends barred a casino in Atlantic City. And despite being
0:12.2	surrounded by gambling, or maybe because of it, she doesn't consider herself a big gambler.
0:18.2	When you work in the industry, it's kind of hard to want to go back and just
0:22.2	like be there casually too. Like I do go to the casino occasionally, but I wouldn't say that
0:27.7	gambling would be my favorite thing just because I see it every day. There is one thing she really
0:32.9	loves betting on though, football games using apps likeuel and Draft Kings. And one Sunday last
0:40.3	December, Alex made a particularly wild bet. It was before I was going to work, and I had like a
0:48.4	free $10 bonus. It was like a last minute thing that I was like, it expired if you didn't use it.
0:53.6	So I was like, okay.
0:55.8	Alex started stringing together a complicated sequence of bets.
1:00.0	She bet that Justin Jefferson of the Minnesota Vikings would get 80 receiving yards,
1:04.8	that James Cook of the Buffalo Bills would score a touchdown.
1:09.0	In the Steelers' Bengals game,
1:11.4	she bet that both Jamar Chase and Najee Harris
1:14.1	would find the end zone.
1:16.3	And then the rest just kind of kept going.
1:18.1	Most of them were just scorers.
1:20.0	Derek Henry needed 80 yards.
1:21.3	Sequin Barclayette needed 80 yards.
1:22.6	Jalen Hertz had to score.
1:24.0	Kairn Williams had to score.
1:25.4	And then, of course, Cooper Cup needed 70 yards.
	...

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