"It's déjà vu all over again," to quote Yogi Berra, this and every football season in the Las Vegas sports books and bars. You see him everywhere, looking up at the board or the television, and then looking down at the stack of dead tickets that he holds in his cold, clammy hands. He grunts and groans unintelligibly, and then he makes a circle with his thumb and middle finger and flicks the tickets, hard, with his finger as he shakes his head and sighs.

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He looks to his left, then to his right. He needs to whine. He's aching to tell somebody that he missed "the nuts" seven-teamer because some freshman out of Des Moines missed a 32-yard field goal. Or he needs to tell you how he just loved Nebraska, who covered by three touchdowns, but he parlayed it with Notre Dame who lost outright laying 13, because, of course, he had to "put it with something."

Who am I referring to, you ask? I'm talking about the sports book's best friend: the Parlay Guy.

It is very hard to pick a winner against the spread. It takes a lot of research and the ability to isolate those few situations where you detect a weakness in the line. The oddsmakers know what they're doing. That's why there are all of those fancy casinos out there. It's harder still to pick two winners, or three, and on and on.

Everybody would like to get maximum return for minimum investment. But things just don't work that way. If you want to bet on football and turn a profit, you need to take the word parlay out of your betting vocabulary. Parlay bets are sucker bets.

You know, winning is great. And losing, well, losing sucks. But breaking even on a couple of straight bets when you would have otherwise lost with a parlay is one of the keys to giving yourself a fighting chance at becoming a profitable sports bettor.

Not only is it very difficult to pick multiple winners without a loser, but you don't even get true odds on parlays.

Here are your typical odds for parlay bets:

2 Teams - 13/5
3 Teams - 6/1
4 Teams -11/1
5 Teams - 20/1
6 Teams - 40/1
7 Teams - 75/1
8 Teams - 150/1
9 Teams - 300/1
10 Teams - 700/1

Say you bet $110 to win a $100 on an early college game and you win and collect $210. If you put that $210 on a late game and you win, you collect almost $401. But if you play a 2-team parlay for $110, and you win, you collect $396.

The difference gets worse the more teams you play. If you took your $401 and put that on a pro game the next day and win, you collect about $795. But if you had played a three-team parlay for $110 you collect $770. Do the math.

Parlay Guy is snickering right now. He thinks that kind of money is "chump change" (but the casino sees it as pure profit).

When you get into four teams and above, you are getting horrendous odds. Games like Keno provide far better odds if you want to throw darts at 10 teamers.

All of the above is true, but the biggest reason not to bet parlays is that you don't lose the whole enchilada when you pick a loser. Straight bets consistent with your bankroll units ensure good money management. And over the course of a season that difference is profound and it adds up to a lot of money.

Parlay Guy is always trying to "get out" with a nice three or four-teamer. But it was his nice two and three-teamers that got him "in" in the first place.

Of course, you already knew all of this. But you do it anyway. This year, don't be Parlay Guy. Be the informed and disciplined straight bettor who sidesteps him before he can chew your ear.