The Scenario
It happens to every new bettor. Someone you trust for betting picks gives their top 4 picks and you make a bet slip with all of the picks on it. The first prop hits, then the next, and the 3rd prop hits as well. You’re sitting there staring at your phone begging for that last one to hit and it ends up busting. Your play is dead and you lose everything for the night even though you got 3/4 correct. If you mix and match correctly, you should not lose money when your picks are correct at least 60% of the time. Below, I will outline how to successfully mix and match player props on Prizepicks and Underdog so that you can reduce your risk and maximize your earnings.
If you have any questions on some terms used in this article, please visit this article as a great reference guide.
The Payouts
Before we begin, it is important to establish the contests we can enter and their payouts. On Prizepicks, we will be looking only at Power plays, or plays that require all plays to be correct for them to cash. For 2 props, Prizepicks pays 3x(or +2 units). For 3 props, they pay 5x(+4 units), and for 4 props, they pay 10x(+9 units). On Underdog, it varies just slightly. They pay out the same for 2 prop and 4 prop contests but in 3 prop contests, they pay 6x(+5 units). They also have an option to pick 5 props for a 20x payout.
How to Mix and Match 4 Plays
Four-player lines seem to be the most popular betting advice given on Twitter so we will begin with that one. The power of mixing and matching comes from 2 prop plays being great values. As I explained in this article, you only need to be correct 57.7% of the time to break even with 2 prop plays.
The Math
With 4 picks, there are 6 different ways to mix and match them in a pick 2. With a pick 2 paying out +2 units, you have a maximum of +12 units if all 4 picks hit. Compare that to a single pick 4 on Prizepicks, the six pick 2s payout 3 more units(12 units versus 9 units).
While that is extremely advantageous, you have to remember that you are risking 6 units instead of 1. What makes up for that massive risk is your safety from not needing every pick to hit. If 3 picks hit, you’re still up 3 units(3 picks mean 3/6 of your pick 2 contests cash), and if only 2 hits, you’re still winning 1 contest, which means you’re down 3 units.
If you do end up going 0/4, you will lose everything and are down 6 units. That might be confusing for you here is an example that brings win percentage into the equation.
60% Win Percentage
Let’s start with a 60% win percentage for our example. Here’s the probability of each of these options occurring with a 60% win percentage:
4 picks correct: 13.0%
3 picks correct: 34.6%
2 picks correct: 34.6%
1 pick correct: 15.4%
0 picks correct: 2.6%
You will be getting 2 or 3 picks correct most of the time. While that doesn’t sound great, let’s add in the payouts. We are going to multiply the payout by the number of units won. To make this easier, we are going to use $10 as our unit size and convert units won into the amount of money won:
4 picks correct: 13% x $120 = $15.60
3 picks correct: 34.6% x $30 = $10.38
2 picks correct: 34.6% x -$30 = -$10.38
1 pick correct: 15.4% x -$60 = -$9.24
0 picks correct: 2.6% x -$60 = -$1.56
If you add all those results up, you will be up to $4.80 on average for every $60 you bet. Doing the same math for a single pick 4 contest (13% x $90 = 11.7), you would be up only $1.7.
70% Win Percentage
While there is an advantage when you bet correctly 60% of the time, this method starts to become exponentially more profitable with a higher win percentage. I will do the same exercise as above for a 70% win rate:
4 picks correct: 24% x $120 = $28.80
3 picks correct: 41.2% x $30 = $12.36
2 picks correct: 26.5% x -$30 = -$7.95
1 pick correct: 7.6% x -$60 = -$4.56
0 picks correct: 0.8% x -$60 = -$0.48
A 70% win rate gives you an average $28.17 profit on $60 of bets. I can give you another way to look at this that isn’t nearly as math-heavy. As an example, let us assume we have 4 props to bet on for 10 nights in a row. We will use both the mix and match method(M & M) and play them as a single pick 4 contest and see which comes out with the most money. I will be using a random number generator to decide how many picks win every night:
Night one: 1 correct. -$60 for M&M, -$10 for single play.
Night two: 3 correct. $30 for M&M, -$10 for single play.
Night three: 2 correct. -$30 for M&M, -$10 for single play.
Night four: 4 correct. $120 for M&M, $90 for single play.
Night five: 3 correct. $30 for M&M, -$10 for single play.
Night six: 1 correct. -$60 for M&M, -$10 for single play.
Night seven: 3 correct. $30 for M&M, -$10 for single play.
Night eight: 4 correct. $120 for M&M, $90 for single play.
Night nine: 3 correct. $30 for M&M, -$10 for single play.
Night ten: 2 correct. -$30 for M&M, -$10 for single play.
Totals: $180 for M&M, $110 for single play.
Conclusion
As this example shows, the mix and match method is more profitable in the long run. I would strongly recommend it as a strategy going forward on PrizePicks. If you need any help with the math or the concepts described above, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter. We post some of our plays from PrizePicks on our betting Twitter @UN_Bets and for access to all of our betting content, join our betting Patreon!.
