Parlaymint Wants to Turn Parlays Into a Team Sport

In mid-September, five friends were watching a hotly contested NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants.

The action ratcheted up a notch as they neared a five-leg parlay worth nearly $700 in profit. Instead of just watching the games, the friends were debating adding a separate $100 hedge to protect their profit.

While sports betting is usually a solitary act, the group was using a new app called Parlaymint to collaborate on a parlay. It just so happens that one of the friends, Thomas Leone, co-founded the app.

A group debating the value of adding a hedge is exactly the kind of social connection that Leone envisioned when he helped create Parlaymint.

“The group chat was going crazy,” laughed Leone.

Bettors hedge final legs all the time. Here, though, five people owned the ticket, and every leg had somebody’s name on it. Whoever misses ends up paying.

How Parlaymint puts one person on every leg

Parlaymint is a new social sports app that launched just as another season of betting on the NFL got going.

The current version is free to play on iPhone and Android. Users join either an open Public Parlay or an invitation-only Parlay Pals group and contribute one selection each. Once all the required picks are in, the group gets a 15-minute Lock Preview before the ticket goes live and, after the games are graded, eventually settles.

Different from how traditional sportsbooks work, nobody is building the whole parlay themselves. Each person has one leg and answers for whether it gets home or not.

Parlaymint co-founders Thomas Leone and Tanya Seidel had been working on the concept well ahead of launch, filing a provisional application in January 2021 before securing two United States patents the following year.

Parlaymint currently uses virtual coins, so Leone’s group, wanting the same experience with money riding on it, recreated the setup at a conventional sportsbook.

“Five of us had a parlay going, one pick each,” Leone said. “We had $50 on the five-leg parlay at +1399, with $699.56 in potential profit.”

They then agreed to settle everything afterward by Parlaymint’s rules.

Back to Leone’s NFL Week 1 parlay, here’s what they had on the card:

1. Minnesota Vikings moneyline, -125 ✅
2. Falcons-Steelers under 41.5, -117 ✅
3. Dallas Cowboys moneyline, -155 ❌
4. Dolphins-Raiders under 41, -122 ✅
5. Cincinnati Bengals moneyline, -200 ✅

Five people, five $10 contributions, one $50 parlay. As Leone explained, 

The Giants won, so the five-leg parlay went down. Under Parlaymint’s only losers pay structure, Matt covered the full $50 parlay cost because his was the only losing pick, while the other four guys broke even on the parlay itself.

Now consider the other scenario, should the parlay win. Unlike the stake, where everyone is in for the same amount, Parlaymint weighs all payouts against the odds of the selection that person brought. Therefore, the longer-priced picks get a bigger share.

In Leone’s Week 1 example:

• Vikings -125: 1.80² = 3.2400
• Falcons-Steelers Under -117: 1.8547² = 3.4399
• Cowboys -155: 1.6452² = 2.7066
• Dolphins-Raiders Under -122: 1.8197² = 3.3112
• Bengals -200: 1.50² = 2.2500

Add it all up and you get 14.9477. From there, the payout math goes like this:

Player payout = Total Returns × (player’s squared decimal odds ÷ total squared decimal odds)

Which would have produced:

• Vikings -125: $162.47
• Falcons-Steelers Under -117: $172.50
• Cowboys -155: $135.72
• Dolphins-Raiders Under -122: $166.04
• Bengals -200: $112.83

“The key is that we square each player’s decimal odds,” Leone explained. “That gives the riskier pick more weight.”

In this case, the -117 under climbed to the top of the payout order, while the -200 Bengals favorite finished at the other end.

I found collaborative sportsbook parlays elsewhere, but not this combination of one-pick ownership and loser-only settlement. FanDuel’s 2025 Pass The Leg, for example, let people contribute selections, but the finished card then broke back into individual bet slips. Each bettor could then choose a stake and whether or not to put the wager down.

Protecting the other side

Leone and his friends got lucky in one respect, given that the first four picks on the schedule all went their way. The only leg left was Matt’s Dallas Cowboys moneyline at -155 against the Giants. At this point, they could have simply watched the game and lived with whatever result came.

“Instead of just sitting there hoping Dallas would win, the five of us started scrambling together to decide whether we should hedge, how much to put on the Giants, and what everyone was comfortable risking. We ultimately put $100 on the Giants at +145,” said Leone.

The group was now looking at two possible outcomes. 

1. A Giants win would sink the parlay and cash the hedge, like so:

Matt would still be responsible for the full $50 under Parlaymint’s rules, but his share of the hedge profit would offset part of that loss.

2. Now consider a Cowboys win:

Unfortunately for the group, the Giants won 28-20. On the bright side, the hedge proved to be a smart play, and the group eked out a small $95 profit (outside of Matt who was still on the hook for a minor -$21 for his failed leg).

The basic idea behind hedging is buying yourself some protection on the other outcome. And it goes beyond sports betting, like when, earlier this year, Manhattan bar The Jeffrey offered free food and drinks if the Knicks won, then backed that liability with a Kalshi position on the same result. What's interesting is that you can choose how much protection you want. Leone’s group only partially hedged. To wipe out Matt’s full $50 exposure, they needed roughly $172.41 on the Giants, not $100. I guess most of their confidence was still leaning toward Dallas getting home.

The social side outlives the bet

Asked about the experience, Leone pointed to Parlaymint’s social dynamics. 

“It felt much more like five guys managing something together in a group chat than five people independently placing bets at a sportsbook.” 

On reflection, the app never proposed the hedge. It was the shared ownership that got them talking about how they could put everyone in a potentially better position.

As word got around about what Leone and his friends were doing, more people wanted in, and the group eventually reached 10. From here, the plan is two five-person parlays each week, with everyone contributing one pick. 

They have also added a rule of their own, separate from Parlaymint, that carries those individual results across the 18-week NFL season.

“Losing picks put $10 into the Championship pot for the one guy with the best winning percentage,” Leone said.

Sounds like that group chat will be heating up again at the end of the season.