Teaser Bets Explained: Adjusting the Spread for a Strategic Edge

The catch? Because you’re taking more favorable odds on each leg, the overall payout is significantly reduced compared to a standard parlay. Teasers exchange high reward for higher probability, making them a calculated play or a dangerous “sucker bet” if used incorrectly.

What Is a Teaser Bet and How Does It Work?

A teaser is a combination bet requiring at least two teams or outcomes to win. For a fixed, lower payout, the sportsbook gives you a set number of points to apply to your selections.

Adjusting the Spread: You use the extra points to move a favorite’s spread down or an underdog’s spread up.

• Example: A $\text{6}$-point $\text{NFL}$ teaser turns a $\text{-7}$ favorite into $\text{-1}$ (moving the line by $\text{6}$ points). It turns a $\text{+2}$underdog into $\text{+8}$.

All-or-Nothing: Just like a parlay, all legs must cover the adjusted spread for the teaser to win. One loss kills the entire bet.

The Trade-Off: A standard two-team parlay might pay $\text{+264}$ (about $\text{2.6}$ to $\text{1}$), while a two-team $\text{6}$-point teaser might pay only $\text{-120}$ (bet $\text{\$120}$ to win $\text{\$100}$).

Teaser Formats and Payouts

Teaser formats come in standard point increments that correspond to the sport’s scoring patterns:

Teaser Payout Rule: The more points you tease (e.g., $\text{7}$ points vs. $\text{6}$ points) or the more teams you include, the lower the payout becomes, reflecting the increased probability of winning.

The Strategic Edge: Understanding Key Numbers

The profitability of a teaser hinges on exploiting key numbers—the most common margins of victory in a sport. This strategy, popularized by gambling author Stanford Wong, focuses almost exclusively on $\text{NFL}$ betting.

The “Wong Teaser” Strategy

In $\text{NFL}$ football, the most frequent margins of victory are $3$ (field goal) and $7$ (touchdown). A “Wong teaser” is designed to use $\text{6}$ points to move a spread across both of these key numbers, maximizing the probability boost.

Why it Works: Historical data shows that teasing a game through $\text{3}$ and $\text{7}$ wins at a rate high enough (often $\sim 76\%$ per leg) to overcome the reduced payout of the teaser (which requires about $\sim 74\%$ per leg to break even at $\text{-120}$ odds).

Teaser Traps to Avoid

• Never Tease Across Zero: Teasing a line like $\text{-2}$ to $\text{+4}$ wastes a huge amount of value. $\text{NFL}$ games rarely tie ($\sim 0.23\%$ of the time), so the points used to move the line from $\text{-1}$ to $\text{+1}$ are virtually worthless. Always use your points to cross the important margins of $\text{3}$ and $\text{7}$.
• Avoid Teasing Totals: The distribution of total points in the $\text{NFL}$ is more uniform, and there are no “key numbers” for over/unders as important as $\text{3}$ or $\text{7}$ in spreads. Teasing totals is generally considered a bad $\text{EV}$ play.
• Limit Legs: Teasers with more than three teams greatly increase the compounded risk, making them very hard to profit from, even with the extra cushion.

Teasers vs. Parlays: Risk Management

While teasers reduce the risk of any one leg losing, they don’t remove the all-or-nothing requirement.

Important Rule: Pushes

When a teaser leg results in a push (the margin lands exactly on the teased spread):

• In a $\text{3+}$-team teaser, the pushed leg is typically dropped, and the bet is settled as a smaller parlay.
• In a $\text{2}$-team teaser, a push usually results in a void (No Action), and your stake is refunded.

Teasers are a specialized tool. If you are not strictly following the key number strategy in $\text{NFL}$ or $\text{NCAAF}$, you are likely paying too much for the points and would be better off sticking to low-vig straight bets.