What Is an If Bet?

In his iconic poem "If", Rudyard Kipling extolled the virtues of meeting with triumph and disaster, and treating those two imposters the same.

Losing a bet is not a disaster if you use an appropriate staking plan, but winning a bet — well, that can certainly feel like a triumph, particularly when you’ve put time and effort into its research, analysis, and execution.

Kipling may not have approved of the name of his masterwork being given to a type of sports bet, even if it’s one that looks to maximize the success of a triumphant wager.

In this article, we’re going to look at If bets: What they are, their advantages and disadvantages, and whether applying such a strategy to your own wagering can prove fruitful or not.

How Do If Bets Work?

An If bet is a form of parlay, although the actual mechanics of placing one - and how they work - are different.

Quite simply, you place a bet on a line of your choice, and if it wins the profit from that wager is rolled over to the next bet in the sequence. This second pick then becomes live or action.

You can continue this cycle for as few or as many bets as you want. Generally speaking, If bets last for between two and seven selections.

Like a parlay, all of your picks have to win in order for an If bet to be declared triumphant. However, the advantage of this wager type is that you can adjust your stake after each winning leg, allowing you to risk as much - or as little - of your winnings as you like.

For the most part, bettors place their If bets in chronological order. For example, they have their first selections in the early NFL kickoffs, their next wagers in the sequence during the afternoon games, and then round out their If bet with the night games.

However, the sequencing of your If bet is up to you — the games could, in theory, all kick off at the same time if you wanted.

Types of If Bet

There are a couple of different types of If bet to choose from.

The most straightforward is win only, which - as the name suggests - only rolls over winning wagers. So, if one of your picks loses or is settled as a push, then your If bet comes to an end.

There’s also the "win or push" If bet. If your wager ends in a push, you can still roll your stake over to the next bet in the chain, while wins are also rolled over, too.

The third type of If bet is the "reverse". Here, you bet on all of your selections at the same time rather than choosing the order in which they are settled. So, even if some of your picks lose, your If bet remains live when you have one or more winning (or push) selections.

The thing to remember about win only or win and push If bets is that you stake once to kick off the chain. With the reverse If bet, you actually have to wager on all of your picks at once, and you’ll have to choose whether to up your unit stake or spread your normal stake size across each of the lines you are backing.

Example of an If Bet

To make things a little easier to understand, let’s work through an example of an If bet.

For now, let’s focus on a win only If bet, and let’s assume that the three NFL games listed below are happening in chronological order.

First up is bet one in the chain: Cleveland Browns to beat the New York Jets (moneyline) at odds of -150. You decide to wager $50.

• Cleveland Browns moneyline – $50 to win $33.33 (plus your $50 stake returned)

If this pick wins, we move on to the next selection in our If bet. If it loses, our wager is over.

Let’s imagine that the Browns take care of business and win. You would now have a live stash of $83.33, which you can roll over completely into the next selection, or risk only some of that — maybe you would only use the $33.33 won on bet one, allowing you to free roll into bet two?

Your next selection backs the Indianapolis Colts to beat the New England Patriots at odds of +110. You decide to wager all $83.33.

• Indianapolis Colts moneyline – $83.33 to win $91.66 (plus your $83.33 stake returned)

Good news! The Colts get it done, and you now have a total of $174.99 in your If bet. Next up is your third and final selection, so now you can decide how much you want to stake on the last pick, or let it all roll over.

Your third selection is the Detroit Lions to beat the Arizona Cardinals at odds of -200. You decide to wager your entire pot of $174.99.

• Detroit Lions moneyline – $174.99 to win $87.50 (plus your $174.99 stake returned)

Your luck is in: The Lions win, your If bet is settled as a winner, and you have turned your initial $50 into a grand total of $262.49.

This is, of course, the same amount as if you had placed a three-team parlay using your $50. But the difference with an If bet is that you have the freedom to take some of your profits, or your original stake, back between games, allowing you to hedge your bets and minimize risk, or instead decide on an all-or-nothing approach.

How to Place an If Bet

To place an If bet, you will first need to add your chosen selections to your bet slip.

Simply click on the odds attached to each pick. This could be moneyline, spreads, totals, or any other bet type of your choice. Add two or more selections to your bet slip in this fashion.

Take a look at the bet slip. You should see different options for multiple wagers — parlay, teaser, or If bet. Highlight the latter to place your If bet.

Don’t forget to order your selections too, from most likely to win in your opinion (put that pick first) down to the least probable winner. You can normally use arrow indicators on your bet slip to reorder your If bet selections.

You will also find boxes that allow you to set instructions for your If bets, choosing how much to risk per selection.

Are If Bets a Good Idea?

When you’re operating on a tight budget, or you’re a complete newcomer to sports betting, there’s some sense to placing If bets instead of parlays.

With a parlay, the reward is an enhanced payout, but all selections need to win. This increases your risk and can lead to all of your stake being lost. Sport is unpredictable: Consider how many shock results there are in the average NBA or NFL season. It can be difficult to get a winning parlay over the line.

With If bets, in theory, you only need the first selection on your ticket to win. Then, you can cash out your original stake and just play with the profit of that first bet, if you want to.

If betting affords you more control than parlays, so your personality, appetite for risk, and bankroll size will determine which is the right strategy for you. If you have made a deposit and want to ensure your bankroll lasts for as many weekends of the football season as possible, for example, then If bets let you keep a tighter leash on your stake.

However, if conservative betting really is your bag, you might want to wager on your picks as singles, rather than as If bets. By doing so, you could turn an overall profit — even if one or more of your picks loses.

But remember, if you have complete confidence in each of your picks, a straight parlay will yield a better payout than if you start tinkering with your stake by way of an If bet, so that’s another thing to consider.

If Bet Tips & Strategies

In the example detailed above, we used games played in chronological order, making it easier to understand how If bets work.

But did you know that you don’t necessarily have to order your If bets in this sequence? You can actually choose a later game as your first bet if you want. And this is crucial to If bets: If your first selection loses, then you don’t have a chance to bank any profit or take back any stake. Your ticket is over.

So the most important If betting strategy is to ensure your premier pick, the one you are most confident in, is listed as the first on your ticket. If it wins, you can then start to control your profit as you wish. You can leave your underdog picks until last — by the time their game kicks off you will have hopefully locked in a profit, meaning you can watch your final pick unfold with complete relaxation.

Even though the nature of If bets differs from standard wagers, the same sort of principles apply when it comes to making your selections. Try and do as much research as you can: Sweep the breaking news sites, crunch the stats, and examine where the public money is going before putting your If bet ticket together.