Proline Strategy: Try Three-Game Rotations

Punch ‘Proline’ into Google and you’ll notice there’s quite a few theories out there about how to beat Proline.

That’s because it’s really difficult to win.

Before Proline and the other provincial sports lotteries came into existence in the early 1990s, there was an amendment to the Canadian Criminal Code that stated they could only offer sports betting in a lottery format. That’s why you have to parlay (combine) multiple outcomes onto one ticket, instead of being able to bet one game at a time the way you can with online sportsbooks or illegal bookmakers.

It’s hard enough to pick winners at a 53% rate, which is the minimum you need to hit in order to profit when betting one point spread or Over/Under at a time (assuming the standard -110 odds).

Having to go 3-for-3 in order to get paid seriously reduces your chances of winning. Betting on four, five or six games on one ticket stacks the odds against you that much more.

So what do you do if you want to bet on four, five or even six games on the Proline card?

The Proline Rotation Strategy


Well, a good Proline strategy is to bet all of those games in three-game rotations so that if one of those games loses, you’ve still got a chance to win some money back.

Some provinces will figure out the rotations for you, but you’ll need to do it manually if you live in Ontario.

Here’s how it works:

1. Four-team rotation

Let’s say you like the Leafs, Senators, Flames and Oilers on Saturday night in NHL hockey. Rather than betting them all on a $20 ticket, you can bet different combinations of the four teams on four different $5 tickets.

Your tickets would look like this:

Leafs, Senators, Flames
Leafs, Senators, Oilers
Leafs, Flames, Oilers
Senators, Flames Oilers

If all four teams win, you win all four of your tickets. If one of the four teams loses, you still win one of your tickets and probably make your money back. And if two or more of your teams lose, you lose all your tickets – but you would have lost anyway if you’d bet them all on one ticket.

2. Five-team rotation

With five teams, there are 10 different three-game combinations. Instead of one $20 bet, you can make 10 $2 bets.

Using the above example and adding the Penguins, here are your tickets:

Leafs, Senators, Flames
Leafs, Senators, Oilers
Leafs, Flames, Oilers
Leafs, Senators, Penguins
Leafs, Oilers, Penguins
Leafs, Flames Penguins
Senators, Flames, Oilers
Senators, Flames, Penguins
Flames, Oilers, Penguins
Senators, Oilers, Penguins

If one team loses, you still win three out of your 10 tickets. If two teams lose, you still win one ticket. If three or more teams lose, you lose all of your tickets — but, again, you would have lost anyway if you’d bet them all on one ticket.

3. Six-team rotation

With six teams, there are 20 different combinations.

Let’s throw the Canadiens into the rotation:

Leafs, Senators, Flames
Leafs, Senators, Oilers
Leafs, Flames, Oilers
Leafs, Senators, Penguins
Leafs, Oilers, Penguins
Leafs, Flames Penguins
Leafs, Senators, Canadiens
Leafs, Flames, Canadiens,
Leafs, Oilers, Canadiens
Leafs, Penguins, Canadiens
Senators, Flames, Oilers
Senators, Flames, Penguins
Senators, Oilers, Penguins
Flames, Oilers, Penguins
Senators, Flames, Canadiens
Senators, Oilers, Canadiens
Senators, Penguins, Canadiens
Flames, Oilers, Canadiens
Flames, Penguins, Canadiens
Oilers, Penguins, Canadiens

That makes for a lot of tickets, but even if you get four out of six right, you’ll win three of the 20 tickets. Five out of six would produce 10 winning tickets, and nailing all six games would mean 20 winning tickets. That might be worth betting $40 instead of one $20 ticket.

 

Conclusion

Read enough articles on this site (such as 13 reasons why sportsbooks are better than Proline) and you’ll see how we feel about parlays. They’re really tough to win consistently, since so many things need to go right in order for you to go 3-for-3 or better on your picks.

But if you’re not intimidated by the challenge of being perfect on multiple outcomes in order to get paid, you should at least consider the Proline rotation strategy to reduce your risk. It’ll allow you to be wrong on one or two of your six picks on our parlay and still get paid, since you’re diversifying your risk across multiple smaller tickets.