What is a straight trade?
A straight trade is a single-leg wager on one outcome — things like:
Moneylines
Point spreads
Totals (over/under)
Player props
Futures
When you place a straight trade, you're either accepting another user's posted price or setting your own price and waiting for someone to take the other side. Either way, your counterparty is a real person, not Novig.
Why this matters: because there's no "house" on the other side of the trade, there's no vig baked into the price. If your trade gets matched, you and the person on the other side agreed to that price directly.
Note: If a market has little or no liquidity, Novig may step in as a market maker to fill your straight trade so you're not left waiting indefinitely.
What is a parlay?
A parlay combines two or more individual selections ("legs") into a single wager. All legs have to win for the parlay to pay out.
Unlike straight trades, parlays on Novig are not matched peer-to-peer. Instead, Novig itself prices and fills your parlay rather than finding another user who wants the exact opposite combination of legs.
Why parlays work this way: every parlay is a unique combination of legs and pricing. It's essentially impossible to reliably find another user who wants to take the precise opposite position on that exact combination in real time. So instead of peer matching, your parlay is priced and filled directly by Novig.