Nfl Teaser Rules

1. 10 Point Nfl Teaser Rules
2. Teaser Bet
3. 2 Team Teaser Rules
4. Teaser Bet Rules

Numerals on the back and front of jerseys as specified under NFL rules for the player’s specific position. Such numerals must be a minimum of 8 inches high and 4 inches wide, and their color must be in sharp contrast with the color of the jersey. Smaller numerals should be worn on the tops of the shoulders or upper arms of the jersey. Rule 1: Cross Key Numbers. I personally consider 3, 4, 6, 7, 10 and 14 key teaser numbers. Those are the six most common margins of victory in the NFL. However, 3 and 7 are kings since games end on those two numbers at a significantly higher clip than the rest. We are regulated by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement as an Internet gaming operator in accordance with the Casino Control Act N.J.S.A. 5:12-1 and its implementing regulations.

One of the most popular types of wagers that NFL sports gamblers like to bet on are teaser bets. An age old question among sports bettors is are these bets profitable and what is the best way to reduce the edge held by the sportsbooks?

What Are Teasers?

Teasers are multi-leg bets similar to parlays, but that instead allow bettors to modify or move the point spread. They are most common in both college and pro football, but can also be bet on basketball games, as well.

All the legs of the bet must win for a bettor to win their teaser. If one the legs loses the teaser is graded as a loss. Bettors must choose a minimum of two teams in their teaser bet but may choose up to 15 teams at many sportsbooks, and anything in-between. When I say teams, I mean totals as well, any side or total can be used as a leg in a teaser bet.

Let’s look at some straight bets from a typical NFL Sunday before I show how a teaser affects each number:

San Francisco 49ers -3
St. Louis Rams +6.5
Minnesota Vikings +5

Now, we’ll look at the odds offered after we add 6-point three team teaser to our selection of bets.

San Francisco 49ers +3
St. Louis Rams +12.5
Minnesota Vikings +11

As you can see the odds have moved 6 points in our favor. This 3-team teaser pays out at +165 for bettors in US odds. That means, if a bettor wagered $100 on this 3-team teaser and all his legs won, he would win $165 plus original stake of $100. But, what if one of the legs ties or pushes?

Let’s say the 49ers end up losing the game by exactly 3 points, making the San Francisco leg of the bet a push. Depending on your online sportsbook, a tie could result in the loss of the teaser or grade the wager no action. What happens then? The teaser is reduced to two teams. If the sportsbooks allows pushes to be graded as no action, the teaser will then just be reduced by one game.

For instance, if one of my bets pushes in a 4-team teaser, then the teaser becomes 3-team teaser with correct appropriate odds. Remember, this is not the case if one bet pushes and the other bet loses. Any teaser, besides a 2-team teaser is graded as a loss.

The vast majority of sportsbooks offer teasers that count pushes as a reduction in the number of teams and not as a loss. Some sportsbooks, such as 5Dimes Sportsbook offers players a wide array of choice with their teaser bets, including options for ties/pushes reducing the number of teams and a tie counting as a win, as well. Of course, the odds change slightly depending on your choice, but this is a marvellous feature which puts a lot of control in the bettor’s hands.

Almost all US-facing sportsbooks will offer sweetheart teasers, also known as monster teasers. These bets are normally 10 3-team teasers but have unique rules. I cover sweetheart teasers in depth on this page.

Teaser Odds

Below are the listed NFL teaser odds for Bovada.lv, which is probably the most popular online sportsbook for US-based online sports bettors.

As you can see, the odds increase dramatically as players start to reach the higher numbers of teams. Also, if players want to buy more than six points it will cost them. Bovada’s teaser odds are around the industry standard, but US bettors can usually find better odds and certainly better options at 5Dimes.

For those that like to bet 2-team teasers, 5Dimes offers players +100 odds versus the -110 that Bovada offers. 5Dimes also allows players to go up to 15-team teasers and allows teaser options up to even 20 points. Of course, bettors will pay big if they want a 20 point teaser, and it will vastly decrease the amount they stand to win on the wager.

10 Point Nfl Teaser Rules

Why Odds Less Than Parlays?

Those that bet NFL parlays may come over to teasers and wonder why the odds are so much worse for bettors. For one, bettors are getting more points in their favor, but the other reason is that a teaser is the only bet which a sportsbook offers that can be beat from both sides, even if they receive balanced action. Let me show you what I mean.

Cincinnati Bengals +3 at Pittsburgh Steelers -3 Total: OverUnder 47

We bet several combinations of teasers:

Bengals +9 and Over 41
Bengals +9 and Under 53
Pittsburgh +3 and Under 53
Pittsburgh +3 and Over 41

If Pittsburgh wins the game by a final score of 23-20, all of the above bets win. 23-20 is a fairly common score line in the NFL, meaning that bookmakers can lose their asses when certain numbers hit for players.

However, if the books can lose big, they can also win big. This same situation may happen in reverse, but go in favor of the sportsbooks and they can scoop up the profits from teaser bettors. Also, certain types of teasers have had a lot of success over the years, especially Wong Teasers, which have forced bookies to decrease the overall teasers and have even pushed them off certain numbers.

Are Teasers Profitable?

The Wizard Of Odds did a long term study over hundreds of NFL games from 2001 to 2011 on the profitably of teasers and the sportsbook’s edge on bettors.

He analyzed common teasers of 6, 6.5 and 7 points but also looked at teasers up to 14 points. His results were rather conclusive, and he found that sportsbooks held a rather large edge on NFL teasers. Interestingly, he found that for the more commonly bet teasers of 6 or 7 points that away teams and overs were marginally better than home teams and unders.

Teasers are similar to parlays, in that the edge of the sportsbooks increases as the number of picks or teams in the teaser increases. So, if bettors want to have a chance at betting the sportsbooks with teaser bets, they better stick to 2 or 3-team teasers.

Even these odds are not great as they still give the sportsbooks an edge of 10 to 19 percent depending on your prospective sportsbook’s teaser odds. This is a significant edge, and it only gets worse from there. As the number of teams get higher, the odds get worse and worse for NFL bettors. According the decade on NFL games compiled by the Wizard of Odds, the sportsbook’s edges on teasers of 4 or more picks is anywhere largely from 17 to 55 percent and gets worse as gamblers add more bets.

This massive edge is impossible to beat, making teasers a sucker bet in many cases. Wong Teasers, as mentioned on Intense Gambling have been proven to be profitable with the appropriate odds, and I discuss this in-depth here. But, long term, teasers in most situations are not wise bet for bettors.

Tips For Betting Teasers

Though we just discussed that most teasers are not profitable for bettors, there is a reason why it is called gambling. Bettors may still want to try and hit it big by betting teasers, and even though the odds normally are not in their favor, I’ll do my best to point them in the right direction to minimize the bookie’s edge as best as possible.

Firstly, finding a sportsbook with the best odds and options is vital. Making sure that the book gives no action on 2-team teaser in which one game pushes is also crucial. If you want to bet teasers with a variety of options, such as teasers higher than 8-9 teams or sweetheart teasers, be sure to check that the book is offering these wagers before signing up. Try to formulate your own strategy for NFL teasers and use some of the tips and information written by Intense Gambling. The IntenseGambling.com page is the best NFL teaser study I’ve found online and its results seem to reveal some conclusive patterns.

Previously, I published a comprehensive article on teaser betting strategy which explains what teasers are, who has the best odds, how to analyze teaser bets on an advanced level, blind teaser bets that are likely profitable, industry secrets and more. If you haven’t read that article, I strongly suggest doing so before continuing.

Teaser Bet

Now, moving forward, a topic I didn’t discuss in any detail was special teasers. These are the ones referred to at sports betting sites as “sweetheart teasers” and “monster teasers”. The name is not a standard, but the concept is the same. If you’re not familiar with these, a common example is a 10 point three team NFL teaser, generally offered at -110 to -130 pricing.

To give a further example, there are 3 teams you’re interested in betting this week: Jets +1.5, Ravens -11.5, and Patriots -2.5. Rather than betting these straight at -110 or -105, or putting them in a standard parlay, or standard teaser, you can put them in what many sites call a special, monster, or sweetheart teaser. If you do so, you’ll have a single bet of: Jets +11, Ravens -1.5, Patriots +7.5; each spread has been moved 10 points. Once again, you’ll need to risk between $11 and $13 per $10 you want to win, depending if the betting site offers these at -110, -120, -130.

This is only one example of a sweetheart teaser. Some sites also offer four team 13 point teasers, while 5dimes.eu offers teaser betting for 2-15 teams on every half point between 5.5 and 17, as well as a 20 point teaser option. While teaser options vary site to site, the 3 team ten point option is offered by many local bookies and most online betting sites. For that reason, I’ll use that as my example of how to calculate the value of sweetheart teasers.

Ties Often Lose

The first thing you need to know about sweetheart teasers is that, generally, ties lose. This is not the case at all sites, but it is at many of them, so pay close attention to the rules.

Best Sites for 10 Point Teasers

2 Team Teaser Rules

Here are the odds and rules for 10 point sweetheart teasers at four of our recommended betting sites:

www.Bovada.lv – 10 point three team teasers at -110 (Ties Lose)
Sportsbook – 10 point three team teasers at -120 (Ties Lose)
5Dimes.eu – 10 point three team teasers at -110 (Ties Lose)
Bookmaker.eu – 10 point three team teasers at -120 (Ties Reduce)

Sportsbook obviously offers poor odds for this wager type. These guys are good in other areas, but for this type of teaser we’ll leave them out. Bookmaker also offers worse odds, but has its advantages. At Bookmaker these teasers can be bet for as much as $20,000 per bet, while most other sites have $500 max limits. Also Bookmaker has ties reduce, meaning if one or more legs push while all others win, the bet is refunded. However, at -120 this is not enough to make it worth it, so for most, www.Bovada.lv and 5Dimes.eu are the best sites for monster teasers.

Are Sweetheart Teasers Sucker Bets?

For years I heard Sweetheart teasers are sucker bets, but to be honest I hadn’t looked at them in any great detail until writing this article. So with that, let’s go ahead and take a look together:

Now we already know, or at least should know, considering it’s the most common price charged in sports betting, that at -110 you’ll need to win 52.38% of your bets to break even over the long run. When there are three bets which are part of that -110 wager, what we need to do is convert 52.38% into a decimal of .5238 and then find which number times itself three times equals .5238, or in math terms: what is the cube root of .5238. Using a cube root calculator, I quickly determined that .8061 x .8061 x .8061 = .5238. Therefore, for a leg in a three team teaser at -110 to have neutral expected value, it must win 80.61% of the time.

After doing this math, I’m already discouraged. It seems rare that I’m going to pick up an extra 30.61% in win probability by adding 10 points, especially when pushes count as losses. I decided, however, to make an educated guess of which subsets of point spreads have the most value in a 10 point teaser. Now, what I know is that in the NFL the most common margin of victories in order are: 3, 7, 10, 6, 14, 4, 1, 17, 13 and 2. So I want to come up with subsets that cross as many of these key numbers as possible. The six that I decided were most likely to have value, if any subset has value at all, are-10.5 to -12.5 favorites, -1.5 to -2.5 favorites, -4.5 to -6.5 favorites, +4.5 to +5.5 underdogs, +7.5 to +9.5 underdogs and +11.5 to +12.5 underdogs.

My next step was looking at tons of historical data to determine how often teams push at each number crossed in a ten point teaser, and then add them together to get a rough idea if teasing that subset with ten points might have value. After doing, this I eliminated the -1.5 to -2.5 and the +7.5 to +9.5 subsets; teasing those ten points only increased their win rates by around 17%. The other four subsets were close enough to warrant a more detailed analysis.

As a professional gambler I’ve been compiling NFL statistics for years into databases I can use for analysis when needed. While this might sounds complex, for calculating teasers, push probabilities, etc., it is really not all that difficult. While I can’t confirm their accuracy, I’ve heard many recommend atsdatabase.com and sportsdatabase.com for NFL data. Heading to my database, I was able to find the following historical results for 10 point teasers:

-10.5 to -12.5 teased 10 points
Since 2006: 53-15 (77.94%)
Since 2001: 97-30 (76.37%)

-4.5 to -6.5 teased 10 points: (32.7% at -6.5) to (31.6% at -4.5)
Since 2006: 210-61 (77.49%)
Since 2001: 391-108 (78.36%)

+4.5 to +5.5 teased 10 points:
Since 2006: 96-24 (80.00%)
Since 2001: 213-58 (78.60%)

+11.5 to +12.5 teased 10 points:
Since 2006: 24-8 (75%)
Since 2001: 41-11 (78.85)

I’ve now dug into these enough to determine with 98 percent certainty, there is no value to be had in standard three team ten point teasers.

Hopefully, this is not too discouraging. A thinking sports bettor, one who often makes the most profit, is someone who has lots of ideas, curiosities, theories and hunches. Rather than betting these and seeing if they win, they get out a blank sheet of paper, a few spread sheets, etc. and run tests. Bookies are smart, so more times than not we’re going to be disappointed in finding out that our brilliant idea was not +EV.

The good news is that as we practice our skills and as our knowledge grows, in time we can spot +EV bets much quicker. As far as teasers go, outside the box +EV teasers exist on a weekly basis.

5Dimes.eu has 560 different types of teasers available. They offer 2-15 team teasers on every half point between 5 and 17, and also 20 point teasers, with two different formats regarding ties for each. While initially doing the work takes some time, and it might be a “tough way to make an easy living”, becoming an expert at football teasers and then managing your bankroll will make you easy money over time.

Now, if you’re a recreational bettor just looking for blind bets, stick to the strategies we mention in our teaser strategy guide. In that same article, those of you aspiring to or currently betting professionally can find further advanced strategies.

Remember teaser betting often wins in streaks; don’t get over confident or carried away with your bankroll. Bet responsibly, and we wish you the best of luck!

Teaser Bet Rules

Other Advanced Sports Betting Strategy Articles:
» Future Betting Strategy
» NFL Bye Week Betting Strategy
» Parlay Betting Strategy