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Following his graduation with an Honors in Business Administration, Nick redirected his focus from conventional stocks and bonds to the world of sports team performance investments. He employs a unique blend of advanced statistics and historical data to construct intricate sports investment models, pinpointing value opportunities and consistently yielding profits. Nick's contributions extend beyond a single platform, as his work can be discovered on outlets such as Pistons Powered, Winners And Whiners, and numerous other publications.
All posts by Nick RaffoulIn the world of sports betting, there are almost endless possibilities in the types of bets you can make. But today, we’re going to talk about teaser betting.
We’ll outline and define exactly what teaser betting is, what a teaser bet looks like, how to place a teaser bet, where to place a teaser bet and overall strategies you can use when analyzing a possible teaser bet.
If looking to get into teaser betting, the first thing you need to do is find a sportsbook site that offers it. Below, we have enclosed eight different sportsbooks that offer teaser betting, as well as screenshots as to what it looks like to place a teaser bet on each site.
By now you’re probably wondering exactly what a teaser bet is. Essentially, a teaser is a different type of parlay. Just like a parlay bet, a teaser bet requires you to win every game to cash the bet.
Teaser betting is most commonly done with football spreads and totals, as well as basketball spreads and totals.
But the difference with a teaser bet compared to just a regular parlay is that, in teaser betting, you’re getting points in your favor. We wish the sportsbooks did this out of the goodness of their hearts, but unfortunately they don’t.
While the number is in your favor, the price change isn’t. So a 4-leg parlay of untouched spread bets could be a 10/1 payout, a teaser bet with those same games with the number adjusted may pay out closer to 2/1 or 3/1.
As we said above, with a teaser bet, you’re getting points in your favor, whether it be to make a lower spread for a favorite or higher spread for an underdog. Don’t miss out on our page explaining Underdog Betting.
It also makes the total in your advantage for a teaser bet, whether it be knocking some points off to make the over more attainable or adding points to a total to take the under. But it comes with a price.
Depending on the sport, you get a different amount of points added to your spread or total, but we’ll get more into the specifics of teaser betting basketball compared to football later.
A basic one we put together took the Tamba Bay Buccaneers at Washington Football team -10, Baltimore Ravens (-7.5) at the Miami Dolphins and the Pittsburgh Steelers (-7) vs. the Chicago Bears.
Here’s where the teaser comes into play.
Thanks to Bovada, you can choose how many points to buy for the teaser bet; 6, 6.5 or 7.
A parlay bet with those three spreads would come out to +628 (Bet $100 to win $628). Adding seven points to those spreads to make the teaser bet moves the odds down to +120. But now, instead of needing the Buccaneers to cover 10 points, you now need them to cover just three.
As for the Baltimore and Pittsburgh spreads, teased down to -.5 and a PK respectively, you would simply just need those teams to win to cash the teaser bet.
As mentioned above, the more points you get in your favor, the more the price of the teaser increases.
Let’s look at another teaser bet scenario. The Buffalo Bills are at the New York Jets and are a 13-point favorite. We also have the Carolina Panthers as a 10-point underdog against the Arizona Cardinals.
Another factor that comes into play with teaser betting is the size of it. The more teams in the teaser bet, the better the payout. Even though you’re getting 6-7 points through teaser betting, the heavier risk is implied and calculated using algorithms by each book to determine the final price.
If you wanted to tease those two games by six points, you would get the Buffalo Bills -7 and the Carolina Panthers +16.
At Bovada, a teaser bet of that kind is -120, meaning you would have to bet $12 to win $10.
As mentioned previously, Bovada offers bettors the opportunity to buy more points in its teaser betting section. That would put the Bills at -6.5 and the Panthers at +16.5, but the price is increased to -130, essentially one dollar.
For -140, you can place a teaser bet to lower the Bills all the way down to -6 and the Panthers to +17.
But let’s see what happens when you add another team to the teaser bet.
As you’ll see, we added the Seattle Seahawks +4 at the Green Bay Packers to the teaser bet and the price went from -120 for a 2-team, 6-point teaser bet to +150 for a 3-team, 6-point teaser bet.
As pictured, buying a half-point to make it a 6.5-point, 3-team teaser drops the odds to +135 and to +120 for seven points.
You’re probably wondering what a sweetheart NFL teaser bet is for the -130, but we’ll cover that soon.
By now, we’ve covered some of the basics of teaser betting and exactly what it means to tease a game.
We’ve already shown a teaser bet example for football. But you can also do teaser betting for basketball. Below, we’ll show an example.
By now, you should have a good understanding of what a teaser is in football betting. To reiterate, bettors can get between six and seven points to their side of both spreads and totals.
Just like with a parlay, you have to bet more than one game for a teaser bet. The more games in the teaser, the higher the risk, but higher the payout. As an example of a teaser that would’ve hit in the NFL, let’s look back to Week 9.
Practical Examples
The Baltimore Ravens were laying seven points in what turned out to be a thrilling overtime contest with Justin Tucker winning the game with a field goal in overtime. Laying the seven points, the Ravens failed to cover the spread in the narrow win. However, if someone were to place a teaser bet with the Ravens teased six points to -1, that leg of the teaser would’ve hit.
As ugly as it was, the second leg of the teaser was the Houston Texans +4 against the Miami Dolphins in a 17-9 loss. While the Texans didn’t cover the spread, the team would have covered the teased line of +10. And finally, the Kansas City Chiefs were laying seven points in an Aaron Rodgers-less game against the Green Bay Packers. They pulled out the 13-7 win, but did not cover the spread. If teased down to -1 with a 6-point teaser bet, it would’ve cashed as well.
What is a Sweatheart?
On Bovada, once you choose at least three teams for a teaser, the option for a sweetheart will be available. Instead of giving you between six and seven points to your side, a sweetheart in teaser betting gives the bettor 10 points to their advantage.
If a fourth team is chosen for the teaser bet, another option will become available; a sweetheart in which the bettor gets 13 points to their side. Considering that’s almost two touchdowns to the bettor’s side, the payout might not be as glamorous, as a 4-team 13-point sweetheart comes in at -140, while the three-team 10-point sweetheart still gives the bettor plus odds.
On BetUS, you can even place what they call a “pleaser”, in which, instead of buying points in your favor, the bettor is essentially selling points back to the book. If the Bills are 13-point favorites against the New York Jets, but the bettor thinks they’ll win by more, you can sell from 7.5 to 3 points.
As mentioned above, football isn’t the only sport that offers teaser betting. While football is perhaps the most common, basketball offers it as well.
In basketball teaser betting at Bovada, they allow for a tease from as low as four points to as high as six points for teaser bets of two or more teams. You can also do a mixed teaser of football and basketball for different point values.
If the bettor chooses to add a team and make it a three-team teaser, the bettor will have the option for a sweetheart bet for seven points for +100 odds and eight points for -110.
When a fourth team is added to the teaser bet, the bettor will receive two more options for a teaser bet of up to 10 points in their favor.
Due to such low numbers in the sport, baseball typically does not offer teaser betting.
After all the talk of teasers, we’re sure you can’t wait to get out there and try one for yourself. We know what you’re thinking. They sound easy, You’re getting enough points in your favor. No more backdoor covers, or a garbage-time touchdown ruining your under bet. But we’re here to tell you it’ll still happen.
There are certain strategies once can use when formulating teasers. Just like regular NFL gambling, there are key numbers you want to get on the right side of. That’s where the teaser can help. It can take a spread from one of the key numbers of 10 and tease it all the way down to three, arguably the biggest key number in football based on the amount of games that finish by three points.
It can also tease a spread from -6 or -7 all the way down to a pick ‘em. However, if you’re going to fill your teasers with spreads like that and tease them down to a pick’em or -0.5, you might as well just do moneyline parlays.
What a teaser bet is optimal for is teasing down a high spread from double digits, like the Buffalo Bills -13 against the New York Jets to pair with those bets you tease down to a pick ‘em.
One thing you can do is set up your teaser bet by time slot. If you have two selections from the early part of the slate, one in the late afternoon slate and one in the night game or the Sunday night game, you have an opportunity to hedge.
If you had a successful teaser going through last week, with the last leg being the Los Angeles Rams at -0.5, meaning you just need the Rams to win, you could have hedged with Titans ML at +280 and still likely found a nice middle ground to guarantee profit either way.
A teaser is a bet in which two more more teams, (the maximum can differ by the sportsbook) that allows the bettor to buy points in their favor, or against them at some books.
In a two-team teaser, if one of the legs result in a push, it will count as no action at the book. If one selection loses, it’s a loss.
There are many different pros when it comes to teaser betting.
For one, it feels like a parlay. You have to hit every leg for it to hit.
Another pro is the customization you can do with it. You can bet heavy favorites down to much more manageable spreads, while also being able to bet big underdogs even higher.
The same can be said with bets on totals, especially if you’re getting a touchdown in your favor.
While it may not be one of the hefty payouts you see getting famous on Twitter and Instagram accounts, you can still get around a +200 payout with a pretty simple bets in the teaser.
One of the biggest cons of teaser betting is that you’re still not all that likely to win. While it may feel like you’re getting away with robbery by getting a touchdown in your favor in football or more than five points in basketball, the fact of the matter remains you still have to hit two or more straight bets in a row to be successful.
Another con is that sometimes the tease rates prove not to matter. If you did a 7-point football tease, but all of them won against the spread, you’ll have a feeling of dread, as your payout could have been quite higher.
It can also not prove to matter on the other side of it either. For example, we teased the Dallas Cowboys from -10 down to -3 in a three-team teaser against the Denver Broncos, just for them to get outscored 19-0 through three quarters before a 30-16 loss. Even in the most drastic teasers where we could’ve gotten the 21-point tease from BetOnline, it still wouldn’t have been enough to save that line.
When one of the legs in a teaser bet ties, it is removed from the slip and is treated as a teaser with one less team. A five-team becomes a four-team, a four-team a three-team and so on. However, if there is a tie in a two-game teaser, it counts as “no action” on the book and the bettor is returned their money.
Wrapping up, we’ve now explained exactly what a teaser is as well as examples of successful and failed teasers.
We’ve shown you some of the best sites that offer teaser betting, as well as screenshots and directions.
The difference between a football teaser bet and a basketball teaser bet was also highlighted. We gave some different strategies you can use when betting teasers and where to bet them with reviews of some of the major online sportsbooks and even offshore sportsbooks.
Now comes the tough part; deciding exactly which sportsbook you’d like to partner up with to make your teaser bets. Between all of the options above, you have plenty of choices, whether you just want to do a 2-team teaser, or a big sweetheart bet, the options are almost endless. Good luck and always wager responsibly.
