Player Prop Bets and Parlays
New strategies to win in 2025-26
Player Props burst onto the scene
One of the surprising changes the sports betting industry has seen since sports betting was decriminalized in the U.S. in 2018 is the exploding popularity of player proposition bets—otherwise known as “player props.” In just the last several years, player props have become the most popular betting category among online bettors.
What are player props and how do they work?
Player prop bets are wagers placed on the performance of individual athletes themselves instead of the outcome of the actual game. Player props include wagers like how many yards a running back will rush for or how many touchdown passes a quarterback will make. Player props are wagered almost exclusively by recreational bettors, and, not surprisingly, the vast majority of these wagers are bet as legs of parlays. A “player prop parlay” is a bundle of bets in which all bets must win in order for any money to be won. The odds of winning a parlay bet compared to a normal straight bet are much lower, but the payoff is much higher. There is often a disconnect between a recreational sports bettor's perceived likelihood of winning a parlay and the actual odds of winning.
This automatically means that player props are popular with sports books, because they love parlays. Parlays are super profitable for sports books. Parlays=profit. Therefore, player props=parlays=profit.
Why are player props so popular with sports bettors?
To professional-level sports bettors and those who have been in the sports betting business since before decriminalization, these wagers never had much appeal. First of all, betting on game outcomes is simpler because final scores of games are much easier to find than individual player stats. There is no obvious mathematical advantage to betting player props, and likely some disadvantages. So, what’s the big deal with player props? Why are they so popular?
Well, as it turns out, player props have roots in the daily fantasy sports business. These wagers are the most similar to DFS. Former DFS-players-turned-sports-bettors describe player props as "like DFS on steroids." We can follow along the historical path of these wagers and clearly see that player props have become the trend because of the initial influx of DFS players following decriminalization. It stands to reason this would be the case. The newly-formed legal sports betting industry had virtually no "sports-betting" followers outside of Las Vegas, but there did exist a population of DFS players all over the world ready to bet on sports on day one. DFS players were the first to jump into the new sports betting market. This explains the popularity of the DFS companies in the very beginning over the brand-name Las Vegas sports books. DFS players already had accounts open at these companies and were familiar with them. It explains the ease at which the DFS companies transitioned from DFS leagues to sports books. Still today, the most popular sports books for online bettors in the U.S. are the original DFS companies.
As new sports bettors arrived on the scene, they learned from the crowd. The crowd was mostly former DFS players. Thus, DFS has made a profound imprint on today’s sports betting market and continues to shape our business.
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Can player props be beaten and can pro bettors make money betting player props?
Player props cannot be beaten long-term by professional sports bettors. But not because they’re not beatable. Personally, I believe player props can be beaten. Player props cannot be beaten long-term because these wagers are not leveraged by the books like regular bets. In other words, a winning player prop bettor will get limited or banned by the sports book.
I do think there is likely an edge based on typical market exploitation coupled with human bias and some subjective factors. In other words, I think there is a very good chance that unsophisticated recreational “sports-betting fans” are over-compensating for the most popular athletes when betting player props, no different than when these bettors overcompensate for popular teams betting typical game outcomes.
It’s the same exact way we do it: when the sports books identify a willingness and tendency by the public to lay too many points or accept unusually unfavorable odds, linemakers will exploit the defect by changing the line against the public bettors systematically until it’s maxed out. And sometimes, public bettors are willing to go to pretty far lengths to support their heroes. Recreational bettors are known for putting their money where their mouth is. They often are willing to invest in the very strong emotions they feel leading up to game time. Recreational bettors’ downfall is usually their confidence. They often strongly believe in their predictions.
These wagers are the ultra-profitable cash-cows that sports books and pro bettors like us long for. The sports books are ninjas when it comes to finding the weak spots and vulnerabilities in the betting public. Our job is to let the books do their thing while we observe quietly and patiently from our perch. And when we see the sports books going in for the kill with one of these exploits, we swoop in and force the books to share a small slice of the profit pie. Note, we don’t swoop in and take out the sports book itself. We could. But we don’t. We just take our small slice and go. We win along side them. We only win when they are winning. This is how and why we do not get banned. To be a professional sports bettor long-term requires you don’t get banned or limited. This requires that the source of your winnings be something other than the sports book’s bottom line. The source of our winnings needs to be the losses of the hobby bettors on the other side of the wagers.
In order for this to work out for us, there needs to be a lot of betting action on the other side of our wagers. We must only win those bets that many others lost. Otherwise, we take money off the sports books’ table. The sports books, contrary to popular belief, are not a bottomless pit of money. But the population of recreational bettors are. Enough recreational action on the other side used to be a challenge. Today, it isn’t.
There are two problems with player props: 1. There are so many options to bet on, the books cannot possibly formulate sharp lines. 2. There is not enough volume of betting sufficient for the books to leverage our winnings with recreational betting action. Sports books are not able to book these bets as sharply as sides as totals. To sports books, there is nothing inherently more profitable about booking player props—remember, it’s the parlaying that makes the books so much money.
If we started betting player props, we’d get banned. Plain and simple. The few people who bet props and win get banned or limited… everyone else is losing money betting props.
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