Glossary / Markets & bet types / Futures
A ParlayAPI glossary entry

Futures

A futures bet is a wager on a long-term outcome - a championship winner, season win total, or award - settled at the end of a season rather than after one game. Soccer, golf, and racing markets usually call the same structure an outright.

In practice

Futures lock up capital for months and carry high overrounds (a 30-team championship market often sums far past 120%), so the effective price of entertainment is steep. Their strategic use is capturing a number before news moves it, then hedging near settlement - holding a +2000 preseason ticket into a final creates a guaranteed-profit hedge on the opponent's moneyline.

Where it shows up in ParlayAPI

Where a sport carries futures/outright markets, they appear under their own market keys in the catalog at /v1/meta/markets, alongside the event-based markets, across ParlayAPI's 90+ covered sports. The same implied-probability math applies - just expect much larger vig than on game lines.

Related terms