Glossary / API integration / Rate limit
A ParlayAPI glossary entry

Rate limit

A rate limit is the maximum number of API requests a client may make per time window. When exceeded, well-behaved APIs return HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) with a Retry-After header indicating how long to wait before trying again.

In practice

# The canonical handling loop
        resp = GET /v1/sports/{sport_key}/odds
        if resp.status == 429:
            wait(resp.headers["Retry-After"])   # then retry once
        # Otherwise: exponential backoff with jitter

Good clients treat rate limits as a budget: cache responses that haven't changed, prefer bulk endpoints over per-event loops, and reserve headroom for bursts (game start, injury news). Hammering after a 429 gets integrations blocked at most providers.

Where it shows up in ParlayAPI

ParlayAPI meters usage in credits - the free tier includes 1,000 credits/month with no card required, and paid tiers scale from there (see pricing and limits). For high-frequency use cases, streaming (Business tier and up) replaces polling entirely, which is kinder to both your credit budget and your latency.

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