At first glance, If Bets might seem like overly complicated wagers. However, experienced gamblers know that If Bets can be some of the most useful and effective wagers to make in terms of managing their bankrolls. These types of bets are alternatives for people who want to make bets on multiple games but don’t like the “all or nothing” concept of reward and risk associated with parlay bets.

If Bets are a series of straight bets that are dependent on the previous bet in the string winning. They are called If Bets because action is placed on the next bet in the series only if the bettor wins the previous bet. A similar type of If Bet is an If Win, Tie or Cancel Bet, which allows the next bet to take place if the previous bet was a win, a tie or if the event was canceled (such as a rain out in baseball).

As an example, a bettor might place a If Bet on Milwaukee to win an afternoon baseball game and Seattle to win a different game played in the evening. If Milwaukee wins, the bettor can bet an amount up to his total payout on the Seattle game (an amount set ahead of time). If Milwaukee loses, there is no action on the Seattle game. This allows a bettor to only wager his potential winnings from the first game on the second one, essentially “playing with house money.”

The number of If Bets you can have on one wager are determined by each individual sportsbook. Sportsbook.ag allows you to choose up to seven teams on a single If Bet, while TopBet will allow you to choose eight teams.

There is a bit of luck involved with If Bets and that is in regards to the order in which you list your plays. If you have a five-team $110 If Bet sequence and win the win the first four and lose the last game, you will have won $400 and lost $110 for a net profit of $290. Should you lose your first game and win the next four, you will still end up losing $110 because you lost the first game in the sequence. so two bettors both going 4-1 on the same five plays in an If Bet sequence can have drastically different results.