Teaser Bets Explained: How and Where to Bet Teasers

A teaser is an alternative parlay bet where bettors receive, or buy, a fixed number of points on each game. They remain popular among bettors who enjoy the thrill of betting parlays but can’t always stomach the volatility. On this page, BettingUSA will explain how teasers work, where bettors can find the best odds, and how to evaluate value in teasers.

Teaser Betting Sites

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Teasers win far more often than equivalent parlays, which accounts for their reduced payouts.

The format has evolved significantly throughout the years, and not necessarily for the better. Teasers were once exploitable, but sportsbooks have taken preventative measures against this behavior. Value opportunities do exist at online sportsbooks, but finding them takes patience and precision.  

Teaser Bets Explained

Teaser bets derive from point spreads and totals, as those are the only bet types where bettors can buy points. Football and basketball, both collegiate and professional, synergize particularly well with teasers. Most online sportsbooks only offer teasers within these markets.

Those restrictions aside, constructing a teaser is similar to building a traditional parlay. Bettors choose at least two wagers they want to combine, but instead of betting on the main spread or total, they wager on alternative lines.

In football, teaser bettors can buy 6, 6.5, or 7 points, although some books allow bettors to choose from a wider array. The most commonly offered basketball teasers are 4, 4.5, and 5 points.

Bettors must buy the same number of points for each parlay leg and cannot build teasers from within the same game. However, the lack of same game teasers could one day change, considering the sports betting industry has already shifted its position on correlated parlays.

Like parlays, teasers are all-or-nothing propositions. If even one leg falls short, the entire ticket loses.

Perhaps the most significant difference between parlays and teasers is their payouts. Teasers pay significantly less than standard parlays because the additional points bettors buy make their wagers more likely to win.

A Teaser Bet Example

Imagine a bettor wants to build a three-team teaser from two NFL point spreads and one total. The original lines are:

• Dallas Cowboys (-7) / New York Giants (+7)
• San Francisco 49ers (-6.5) / Arizona Cardinals (+6.5)
• Philadelphia Eagles vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers o/u 43.5

Now, imagine the bettor in this example likes favorites and overs. The bettor takes Dallas, San Francisco, and over 43.5 in the Philadelphia vs. Tampa Bay game.

Additionally, the bettor decides to take the most common NFL teaser margin, which is six points. As a result, the spread on every wager in the teaser shifts six points as follows:

• The Dallas Cowboys move from 7-point favorites to 1-point favorites
• The San Francisco 49ers move from 6.5-point favorites to 0.5-point favorites
• The over moves from 43.5 to 49.5

Assuming standard -110 lines, the odds on these three selections would have been $595 had the bettor played these selections as a typical parlay. However, the bettor’s decision to buy points with a teaser resulted in the odds shifting down to about +140 or +160, depending on the sportsbook. That’s an increase in implied probability from 14.39% to 38.46% – 41.67%. The magnitude of the change shows just how much weight sportsbooks place on those six points and why bettors must use them wisely.

Likewise, the bettor could have bought six points on the Giants instead of the Cowboys, moving their spread from +7 to +13. How bettors allocate their points is entirely up to them.

What Is a Reverse Teaser Bet?

A reverse teaser, or pleaser, is conceptionally the same as a regular teaser, but bettors sell points instead of buying them.

The result is a wager that is far riskier than teasers and traditional parlays. However, reverse teaser payoffs can be enormous.

To illustrate this point, FanDuel offers +595 odds on a standard 3-leg parlay consisting of three NFL spreads (-110). Sell six points, and the payout jumps to +2200.

Bump it up to four teams, and the payout jumps to a staggering +6600. The massive payout odds reflect the challenge the bettor faces, picking four teams that will beat the posted spread by six points or more.

How To Place Teaser Bets Online

The process of placing teaser bets online is roughly the same from one sportsbook to the next. Here’s how it works using the DraftKings Sportsbook app as an example:

1. Log in to your DraftKings account
2. Visit the main NFL, college football, NBA, or college basketball page
3. Construct a two or more-leg parlay using point spreads, totals, or both. Remember, bettors cannot build teasers with other bet types such as moneylines, props, and futures
4. After making your selections, open the bet slip and select the “Teaser” option next to the “Parlay” tab at the bottom of the slip
5. Six-point teasers are the default for NFL, but bettors can change that figure to 6.5 or 7 points in most cases and up to 10 or 13 points for select bets. Similarly, four-point teasers are the default for basketball, with 4.5 and 5-point teasers also available.
6. After creating your teaser, input an amount to wager, and DraftKings will display the potential payout.
7. Fire the bet and hope for the best.

Some sportsbooks allow bettors to create teasers from a much wider variety of point margins. Others let bettors construct massive, 10-leg teasers. Pricing also varies from book to book.

NFL Teaser Payouts by Sportsbook

The best advice for new bettors eager to place teasers is to take a moment and breathe. Then, search for books that offer the best teaser pricing. Once they’ve found the best sportsbooks for teasers, bettors should stick with them until a more appealing option arrives. 

To help get bettors started, here’s a look at how several major U.S. online sportsbooks price 6-point NFL teasers:

Even a cursory glance at this table reveals stark differences. For instance, we see that bettors are far better off placing 6-point teasers at DraftKings and Caesars than FanDuel.

BettingUSA omitted BetRivers in the above chart because they feature dynamic teaser pricing. Instead of deriving tease pricing from a fixed-odds table, they tabulate pricing via alternate lines. The result is wagers that are taxed at approximately the same rate as parlays. As a result, the vigorish runs high on 2-leg teasers and increases per additional leg.

Is Betting Teasers a Good Idea?

There was a time when the answer to this question would have been a resounding yes, at least for NFL point spreads.

In the early 2000s, blackjack professional Stanford Wong conducted a rigorous analysis of teasers and published his findings in the now-famous book Sharp Sports Betting. In it, he revealed that teasing through certain key numbers, namely 3, 6, and 7, won at a great enough clip to give bettors an edge.

At the time, 2-team 6-point teaser odds were +100. At implied odds of exactly 50%, each leg would have to win at a 70.71% rate to reach the break-even point. This figure is tabulated by taking the square root of 50%.

Wong discovered that 7.5 – 8.5 point favorites teased down to 1.5 – 2.5, and 1.5 – 2.5 dogs teased up to 7.5 – 8.5, were crushing that rate. They were winning at over 76%. Thus, the Wong teaser was born.

Bettors quickly took advantage, and as expected, the sportsbooks reacted. Their first countermeasure was to shorten the odds to -120. The adjustment slashed players’ edges, but it wasn’t enough to fully overcome them. At -120, the break-even point is 73.85%, still below Wong’s magic number.

The subsequent safeguard was the one that really hurt, and it remains in place to this day. Books began shading their lines so that opportunities to tease through both the 3 and the 7 were few and far between. That’s why today, bettors see more 6.5- and 3-point spreads than they do 7.5 and 2.

Some books went even further and began using alternative lines to calculate teaser payouts. This trend, along with other books decreasing their fixed payouts to -130 or even -140, may eventually kill the Wong Teaser once and for all.

Moving beyond Wong, the value of a teaser varies wildly depending on the sport, the number of points bought, and the starting point spread or total. Betting intelligently makes a huge difference when it comes to teasers, perhaps more than any other wagering format.

It’s also worth mentioning that betting teasers is far less risky than betting parlays, assuming the same number of legs. Betting teasers, especially under favorable conditions, helps risk-averse players preserve their bankrolls for a much longer stretch.

Teaser Betting Tips

Beyond shopping for the best payouts, bettors only need to abide by a couple of simple rules when betting teasers. Adhering to these guidelines won’t necessarily turn them into instant winners, but it will cut the house edge significantly.

• Rarely tease totals: The value of a point is far greater for spreads than totals. Even across key numbers, it’s rarely worth teasing totals due to the wide distribution of outcomes.
• Stay away from college football: This expands on the previous point. College totals and point spreads are all over the place, and buying 6 or 7 points won’t increase a bettor’s win percentage enough to overcome the reduced payout.
• Be wary of NBA teasers: Bettors could do worse than tease NBA spreads, but they’re still not a great bet. Again, the reason is that key numbers don’t carry the same impact.
• Never tease through 0: Zero is a dead number in basketball because games can’t end in a tie. It’s a nearly dead number in NFL, as games seldom end in draws. Why give away a precious point when there’s no need?