In terms of global popularity, tennis is second only to football when it comes to betting with billions of dollars bet on the sport each year. And with tournaments taking place across the world virtually every day, sometimes several at the same time, there are no shortage of opportunities for gamblers to wager.

In fact, from the point of view of betting, tennis is actually a better sport than football on which to wager. This is because it is a higher scoring game which has much more varied live odds, and where there is a greater combination of outcomes on which to bet.

Another factor to be considered is that, unlike football, tennis is an individual sport, which means that mental factors can play an important part. Even the best players are liable to lose a set during a match and, sometimes, during Grand Slam tournaments, they can even lose two sets over a match and still win in the end. This makes it important for bettors to know a player’s history, their statistics and their mental strengths. Multi-tournament winners like Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and Serena Williams have not got to the top through sheer talent alone – they also know how to win, and dig deep, even when they are not playing well.

One popular form of gambling is parlay betting – also known as accumulator or combo betting. A parlay bet combines two or more wagers within one, and is dependent for success on all the individual wagers succeeding. For example, you might bet on Grigor Dimitrov, Maran Cilic and Venus Williams all winning their quarter-final matches in a tournament. If all three win their matches, then the bet succeeds, but even if just one of them loses, then the bet fails.

Parlay bets offer very high returns, which makes them attractive, but, at the same time, there is a high risk that a bet will fail, especially if there are too many combinations and possible outcomes.

If you are considering making a parlay bet on tennis, then do some analysis in advance. Based on history, form, fitness, weather conditions and the surface – many players have a favourite surface and perform poorly on ones with which they are not so familiar - how likely is the predicted events to occur? It is better to place a series of bets with low odds than risk the whole wager on a player with underdog or outsider status beforehand.

It is also important to stay away from parlays which involve too many selections. Put simply, the more bets you include in your parlay, the greater the scope there is for something to go wrong. Experienced gamblers will seldom go for any parlay with more than three or four elements to it, because the odds of it succeeding are just too long.

Another strategy is to include different betting markets in a single parlay. Rather than wager everything on the match winner – which, where there is a heavy favourite offer very limited odds – diversify instead. There are a number of possible options.

For example, you can bet on the number of sets in the match, the winner of the first set, or the outcome of a tie break.

Another popular option is the Over/Under market where the betting house establishes a line based on the number of games they expect in match – for example, if predict expect the final score to be 6-4, 6-3, 6-1, then the expected number of games is 26. Bettors then have to wager if the total number of games will be above (over), or below (under) this line.

Another common possibility is handicaps, when bookmakers look to even the odds in a tennis match by handicapping favourites. This means that a gambler has to better the handicapped number of games or margin of victory for the bet to succeed.

Parlay betting on tennis can generate good returns but remember not to make the parlay too complex. Better a series of short odd bets combined in one wager, than a series of long shots.