Teaser Bet Explained in 2020
Are you one of those bettors who want to place a teaser bet, but have problems understanding teaser sports betting? If that’s the case, you came to the right place. In this betting guide you will find everything teaser-related and then some. To make things even clearer we asked the top betting lines and teaser gambling experts to explain the concept from their perspective too. Read on to find out all the details.
You can think of teaser bets as several types of wagers rolled into one. This is because they are quite similar to double or parlay bets and are also closely related to betting lines.
What is more, teasers probably evolved from betting lines. So if you understand lines betting, you will have no problem understanding teasers too.
In simplest terms, teaser bets are when you adjust betting lines and point spreads. You do this to increase the chances of having a winning wager. However, as you might expect, you pay a certain price for increasing the likelihood of your wager being successful by agreeing to lower odds.
Let’s explain this with an example from the NFL. First, we will look at a regular football spread parlay wager. Then we will compare that with the teaser bet you can make from the original double.
| 2-Team Parlay | Wager | Stake | Odds |
| Cincinnati Bengals (+8) - Seattle Seahawks (-8) | Seahawks (-8) to win | $100 | +264 |
| NY Giants (+7.5) - Dallas Cowboys (-7.5) | Cowboys (-7.5) to win |
As you can see, in a regular NFL 2-team parlay wager spreads offered for both teams are quite realistic. This means that both teams are evenly matched after the betting lines are applied. If this double wager comes to fruition, you stand to make a $264 profit from a $100 stake.
Let’s look at what happens when you choose to tease your wager.
| Teaser (+6 spread) | Wager | Stake | Odds |
| Cincinnati Bengals (+2) - Seattle Seahawks (-2) | Seahawks (-2) to win | $100 | -130 |
| NY Giants (+1.5) - Dallas Cowboys (-1.5) | Cowboys (-1.5) to win |
It is obvious that with a teaser, you have greater chances of having a winning wager. This is because the favorites to win their games, the Seahawks and Cowboys now come with much lower spreads to cover.
However, it is also evident that any potential payout will be much lower compared to the original parlay. You now stand to make a profit of only $77 with the same $100 stake. That’s more than three times lower than what the original parlay pays.
It’s fairly easy to tease games if a sportsbook lets you place this type of wager. That’s why it is important to first check whether the sports betting operator lets bettors wager on teasers. If the answer is yes, just follow these simple steps to place your teaser bet:
- Open a betting account with a sportsbook.
- Deposit some money on it.
- Select the sports you want to wager on. The most common sports for teaser bets are football and basketball. If this is your first teaser bet, make sure you chose those two sports.
- Select the games you want to include in your teaser bet.
- When you see your games on the betting slip, click on the teaser option. This is usually at the top of the betting slip.
- Adjust the point spread in your teaser bet.
- Submit your wager.
Teasers are most often placed on sports that come with betting lines markets. This means that in theory, you can place teasers on games from sports such as football, basketball, hockey, and baseball.
That being said football is by far the most popular sport for teasers. This is because in football you can capitalize the most from adjusting the spreads given to one team or another.
It is important to note that if you are looking to increase the probability of your teasers, you should probably only focus on the NFL. This doesn’t mean that college football is not a good option, but the NFL comes with the most accurate lines out there.
Accurate lines are important if you want your teasers to be effective. There is no point in teasing teams if the points ranges bookies give you are rarely spot on. Unfortunately, this is sometimes the case in games outside top-tier football.
Another sport in which you can customize spreads is basketball. NBA teasers are not as popular as their NFL counterparts, but most sportsbooks do offer them. However, due to the difference in how points are scored in basketball and football, NBA teasers don’t have that wager-changing potential as NFL teasers do.
As with all other types of wagers, teasers can be both winning and losing ones. Adjusting spreads and reducing margins to your liking frequently results in winning wagers. However, sometimes not even the pros can get the margins right and end up with losing slips. Here are examples of both winning and losing teasers.
Winning example of a teaser bet
Let’s look at a winning NFL teaser wager:
| Teaser (+6 spread) | Wager | Stake | Odds |
| Indianapolis Colts (+1.5) 13:20 Philadelphia Eagles (-1.5) | Eagles to win (-1.5) | $100 | -128 |
| Carolina Panthers (+2.5) 19:21 Jacksonville Jaguars (-2.5) | Panthers to win (+2.5) |
This is a winning NFL double with an adjusted point range of +6. Both games went the way you wanted them to. This is despite the Panthers losing their game. Your profit once both games ended was $78 from a $100 stake.
Losing example of a teaser bet
Let’s look at a similar NFL wager. This time, however, the outcome wasn’t as favorable as the first one.
| Teaser (+6 spread) | Wager | Stake | Odds |
| New England Patriots (-2.5) 30:27 Detroit Lions (+2.5) | Patriots to win (-2.5) | $100 | -122 |
| New York Jets (-2.5) 16:14 New York Giants (+2.5) | Jets to win (-2.5) |
This is a losing wager because the Jets needed to win by an additional point to cover that -2.5 spread. Unfortunately, they didn’t do that. What’s more, the fact that the Patriots won didn’t matter too. In teasers, both selections must be successful for a wager to payout.
Teasing teams up or down is not as difficult as it seems and especially not if you follow our experts' tips. Here are 5 pieces of advice that will greatly improve the success of your teasers:
- Tip 1: The first thing that you should do, especially when betting on football, is to always find a way to cover the most common margins. For example, the most common point difference at the end of football games is a 3-point margin. This is then followed by margins of 7, 4, and 6 points. Ideally, you should always look to capture these margins with your teasers.
- Tip 2: Another very good piece of advice is to tease games that come with 7.5, 8, or 8.5 margins. These are prime candidates to be teased as the standard +/- 6 points range would mean that you cover all of the margins mentioned above.
- Tip 3: Basic teasing strategy stipulates that you should find two teasing sweet spots. The first one is to tease favorites down to more than a touchdown. The second one is to tease underdogs up to a field goal.
- Tip 4: Listening to betting experts always pays off when teasing teams up or down. This is especially true if they advice they give you is free of charge. That’s the case with Billy and his betting picks. They are free once you sign up and going with them is a no-brainer.
- Tip 5: Stick to the NFL when teasing games. Betting on college football is quite exciting, but college games are also often high-scoring affairs. This means that the teasing that you will do might not have much of an effect as the lines at the end won’t be as tight as in the NFL.
Teasers are great to increase the likelihood of having a successful wager if you think that you can adjust the line in your favor. Most pro bettors consider teasers as the only parlays worth exploring.
This is because even a regular NFL 2-team parlay wager comes with odds of 4 to 1 whereas in singles your chances of getting a payout are 50:50.
However, with teasers, those 4 to 1 odds can be greatly improved if you adjust the line in the right way. Reducing the line that a favorite has to cover from -8.5 to -2.5 will drastically increase your chances of winning. In fact, in the second instance, a field goal would be enough to cover the spread in the adjusted line.
Betting professionals take great pride in picking the correct spread in each teaser bet. That’s why they always try to tease teams up or down as close to the final winning margin as possible. After all, there is no point in teasing a team down from -7.5 to -1.5 if they win with an 8+ point margin at the end. If that’s the case, you could have just backed the team in the point spread market.
Now that you know how teasers work, it’s time to start customizing spreads. However, not all sportsbooks have teasers in their offers.
Fortunately for you, the 5 betting sites listed here do and give you a variety of spreads to choose from too. Just pick a site and start teasing.
A teaser is a type of wager in which you reduce or increase the betting lines margin. For example, you can tease a team down from -7.5 to -1.5. You do this to improve the chances of your wager coming to fruition.
A teaser is pretty simple. First, you have to select the games you are going to wager on. Then you adjust the betting lines to improve the probability of the wager. As soon as you have done this, you are ready to submit your teaser.
Teasers come with lower odds and this means lower payouts than regular betting lines. To increase your chances of having bigger payouts try to include legs that are more likely to be successful.
Most top-quality sportsbooks that offer NFL and NBA betting also have teasers in their portfolios. To check whether you can wager on teasers, choose your picks and then go to the betting slip. If you find the option there, that bookmaker has teasers.
Yes, it can. However, this depends on the sportsbook you are wagering at. Some sportsbooks stipulate that if the wager ends in a draw after you have calculated the teaser adjustment the operator will return the stake.
