Talk to any bettor who dabbles in the world of parlays, and they'll tell you it's always a single leg that dooms their bets and leaves them short of a pile of money. It doesn't matter the sport, parlay bettors are convinced they'd be profitable if not for that one leg that always trips them up.

One sportsbook is letting NFL bettors test that theory.

For the first Sunday of the season, DraftKings rolled out something called the "Ghost Leg" promotion, which paid out losing NFL parlays of at least three legs that lost by a single leg. As part of the promo, the sportsbook ghosted those losing legs and paid out the parlays at odds of the remaining legs. It's apparently been successful, because DraftKings extended the promo to Week 2.

Now, who exactly the promo has been successful for isn't clear. According to DraftKings, over 160,000 customers won a parlay last Sunday because of Ghost Leg, which sounds like a lot, but that number probably pales in comparison to the number of people who actually placed parlays -- and the number of parlays each of those people placed. I'm willing to bet the "ghost" leg isn't as prevalent as people make it seem.

Regardless, if the promo is generating new customers for DraftKings, it will have been well worth the extra payouts in the short term. And it's only a bonus for the bettors who it actually works out for.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: 1 sportsbook is grading losing parlays as winners. Here's why.

Reporting by Prince J. Grimes, For The Win / For The Win

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