Teasers
A teaser is a parlay where the book lets you move every point spread in your favor. You pay for the points with a much smaller payout. Whether that is a fair trade depends on which numbers the points carry you across.
Moving the line your way
You pick two or more games, and each spread, or total, is moved by the same number of points in your direction. Every leg still has to win. The common football teaser is 6 points, so take two games.
| Your pick | The line | Teased 6 points |
|---|---|---|
| Favorite | -8.5 | -2.5 |
| Underdog | +1.5 | +7.5 |
The favorite now has to win by 3 where it had to win by 9, and the underdog can now lose by a touchdown. Both bets are far easier to win. Both have to.
Most books offer football teasers of 6, 6.5 and 7 points, and basketball teasers of 4 to 5 points. More points cost more, because the payout drops as the points go up.
What it pays
Here I can't give you one figure, because teaser prices are set by each book and they differ. A two-team, 6-point football teaser is commonly priced somewhere around -120. I've seen it better than that and worse. Three teams and up pay plus money, from a table in the book's rules.
Compare that with an ordinary two-team parlay at -110 a leg, which wins $264 on a $100 bet. At -120, a $100 teaser wins $83. You have given up more than two thirds of the payout for the 12 points.
How often each leg has to win
This is the sum that tells you whether a teaser is worth anything. For a two-team teaser to break even, both legs must win often enough between them to cover the price.
| Price on a two-team teaser | Each leg must win |
|---|---|
| -110 | 72.4% |
| -120 | 73.9% |
| -130 | 75.2% |
| -140 | 76.4% |
A point spread is built to be a coin flip, so an ordinary side wins about half the time. At -120, six points have to lift that from 50 percent to nearly 74, which is 24 points of win rate bought with six points on the scoreboard, or 4 for every point. The average point is not worth that much.
The 3 and the 7
Points are not all the same, as the spreads page explains. Football scoring comes in threes and sevens, so games finish with a margin of 3 or 7 more often than any other, and a point that crosses one of those numbers does far more work than one that doesn't.
Look at the example again. Moving -8.5 to -2.5 crosses the 7 and the 3, and moving +1.5 to +7.5 crosses the 3 and the 7. Those are the best six points you can buy. Now tease a -5 favorite down to +1 and you have crossed the 3 but not the 7, and paid the same price for less.
This is not a secret, and books know it as well as any bettor. Many have moved their teaser prices up over time, or changed the rules, for exactly these legs. It is still the first thing I'd check: which numbers does each leg cross. If a leg doesn't cross both, I wouldn't put it in a teaser.
Basketball has no margins like that. The scores are high and the results are spread out, so 4 or 5 points buys you much less, and I'd leave basketball teasers alone.
Where the book's edge is
It is in the gap between what the points are worth and what you paid for them. A teaser feels safe because each leg looks easy, and two things that each look easy still both have to happen. At 74 percent a leg, both come in about 55 times in 100. The other 45, you lose the lot.
Adding teams makes it worse the same way it does on a parlay, since every extra leg is another chance to lose at a price the book wrote. That safe feeling is also why people over-bet teasers (nobody ever lost sleep over a 74 percent shot until the 26 came in), so I'd stake them small against the bankroll.
Before you tease a game
Find your book's teaser table first. It is in the house rules, and you want the line for the points and the number of teams you are playing, so you can work out what each leg has to win. Check what can be teased while you're there: usually sides and totals in football and basketball, and books often bar mixing certain bets from the same game.
Then read the push rule, before the game starts. A teased leg that lands exactly on the number is handled differently from book to book. At some it drops off and the teaser is paid as one leg fewer, at some a two-teamer with a push is refunded, and at some a tie loses, which is common on printed teaser cards.
If after all that I still wanted one, I'd play football, two teams, with every leg crossing both the 3 and the 7. Six points sounds like a lot. Ask what they cost before you take them.