While getting married and witnessing the birth of a child are definitely thrills of a lifetime, having a large amount of money riding on the outcome of a sporting event surely cannot be far behind. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to experience this thrill with a larger than normal parlay beting on college basketball games. For those that are not familiar with the term, a parlay is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers and is dependent on each of those wagers winning.

The benefit of the parlay is that the payoff is much higher than if one were playing a straight bet, while the downside is that the odds of winning are not high since if just one of the sides you have chosen loses the entire bet is lost. On this particular Saturday in February, while studying the college basketball lines for the day, three games jumped out at me.

In fact, I was so confident in Florida State, Purdue and Wake Forest winning by the given spreads that I decided to parlay the three together. Now most experts will tell you that parlay bets are for suckers. And while much of the time that is true, I was so confident in my research on those games that I decided a parlay was well worth the risk. And risk it I did as I laid down $1,000 with the chance to win $3,500. That night I went to bed $3,500 richer which goes to show that a winning parlay is definitely the thrill of a lifetime.