Teaser bets see bettors move the lines on their ideal wagers in order to give themselves a slightly higher chance at a favorable outcome. Typically, teasers make your bet more likely to hit but decrease the odds, meaning your payout may be smaller. Teasers are a popular bet type among savvy bettors who like to track team performance over time and make smart bets informed by research.
On this page, we’ll give an overview of teaser bets with plenty of examples and important information to know.
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CLAIM NOWA teaser bet is an altered parlay that allows bettors to add points to two separate point spreads.
For example, let’s say you want to be on the following twp point spreads:
In a normal parlay, those two bets would combine for odds of +267. But let’s also assume that you don’t expect those spreads to hold. You may want to tease that parlay to give yourself an edge, even if the odds decrease. There’s a range (set by the sportsbook) of points you can work within to add or subtract from those spreads.
In this case, let’s pretend you want to add 5 points to each spread in a teaser bet. Those spreads would move from -1 to +4, giving each team slightly better chances to cover.
Of course, the odds take a hit, too. If you tease those bets to +4 each, the parlayed odds move to +100. Even money is a pretty solid look, though, and could still prove profitable.
You can also use teaser bets for totals, increasing or decreasing the totals lines by a certain margin.
The example above provides an overview, but there are a few other things to keep in mind.
First, the number of points you can add or subtract in a teaser depends on the sport. Basketball teasers tend to range from -5 to +6.5, give or take. Football spreads will have different thresholds, and so will baseball and hockey. As you’re building your teaser, however, you can fiddle with the bet before you palace it to gauge how big the range is.
Second, teasers can go both ways. If two teams have a spread of -1 and -3, respectively, but you think they’ll each win in a blowout, you could beef up both spreads by subtracting even more points. So those spreads might become -4 and -7, respectively, but your odds would increase and make your potential payout larger.
Finally, it's important to note teasers only apply to bets that contain multiple separate games. You can’t build a teaser out of bets from the same game.
Below, we’ll cover a few examples to help you better grasp how teasers work.
To help you understand the process of placing a teaser bet, we’ll use NBA bets as an example.
First, find the teams and spreads you’d like to bet on. For example:
Add each of those bets into your betslip by clicking on them, as if you were placing a regular point spread bet. Be sure not to select “place bet” just yet, as we still need to add the teaser options. Together as a normal parlay, this list of bets would have odds of +601.
Head to your betslip. If the bets you’ve selected are eligible for a teaser, you’ll see an option near the bottom of your screen labeled “Teasers.” Click it, and a new screen will pop up.
The teasers screen allows you to select how many points you want to add or subtract to every spread. Remember, the same number applies to all of the bets in your teaser. You can’t pick and choose how much to change each individual line.
In this case, let’s assume we want to make a win more likely but sacrifice a small portion of our payout. There’s a box near the top of the teasers screen that allows us to select the number of points we want to tease this bet by. Let’s go with +4 points to even things out a bit. Now, the spread on each team becomes:
The total odds of the teaser are now +225. Not quite as profitable as +601, but still a solid payout.
If you’re happy with how your teaser looks, type in the amount of your wager and select “place bet.” Now all that’s left is to wait for the games and hope your bets win!
Two of the most popular sports for teasers are basketball and football. Both have varying margins of victory that make them ideally suited to teasers.
Since the NBA playoffs are in full swing at the time of writing, let’s look at another NBA teaser example. This time, let’s assume our selected teams will actually win by a fair margin, making this a good opportunity to subtract points from the spread and increase our odds. Here are the original lines:
Total odds on this parlay would be +589, but again, we’re pretending we think each selected team will have a decisive win. So we might tease the spreads -4, making the new lines:
Now, the odds are a whopping +1200. The outcomes may be less likely, but the payout is significantly stronger. This bet may not be advisable, but it provides a good example of what you can do with teasers to give yourself an edge either in payout or likelihood to win.
For the sake of covering everything, let’s also look at an NBA totals teaser. Here’s how it could look with the initial odds:
As it stands, this parlay has odds of +601. But let’s assume you think each team will bring out its best defense, making for a few missed scoring opportunities, or perhaps some fouls and missed free throws will muddle up the expected score.
Because we’re betting the over and we want to decrease the lines, adding points is what we want. Teasing these bets by +4 essentially gives each team 4 extra points to work with, making the totals lines look like so:
These lines are now more favorable overall, and they combine for respectable odds of +225. Sure, you’re sacrificing a better payout, but these lines are slightly more achievable and thus more likely to win you your bet.
It’s also helpful to note that although we use examples of three-leg teasers you can palace them with only two legs. If you want to build teasers with lower odds but higher chances of winning, you can absolutely do that.
A note on under bets: exercise caution. Betting the under can be a savvy strategy if you have the stats to back you up. In basketball especially, there’s a lot of data you can pull from. But in the NBA and in many other sports as well, overtime is a huge risk. You may be locked and loaded with an under bet in regulation play, but a last-minute basket could lead to overtime and all but eliminate your chances. Place under bets with this in mind.
The NFL might be the most popular league for teasers. Scoring in the NFL varies widely, making it a prime league for savvy teaser bettors. Here’s an example of an NFL teaser. Note that these are odds from the past, considering football was not in season during this writing. Here are the initial spreads:
In football, touchdowns can be massive scoring game-changers, making point values of 7 or 14 valuable when you’re betting. So in this example, let’s add +3.5 to each spread to bring the Giants and the WFT’s spreads into that zone while giving us a slight edge on the Broncos, too. Now, the spreads look like so:
Now, Washington has a chance to cover even if the team loses by a touchdown, while the Giants have wiggle room to the tune of two touchdowns. The Broncos only need to win by one touchdown now, compared to two scoring drives in the previous spread.
This teaser, by the way, has odds of +240, making it a fairly solid paying bet.
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CLAIM NOWHere’s the thing: every bet has the potential to be very good or very bad. There’s no single answer to this question. Instead, it’s important to understand how teasers work and apply your knowledge within their framework.
In short, a teaser can be a great bet, if placed with the right information and foresight. At the end of the day, teasers are parlays, making them inherently riskier than any single point spread bet. But again, a stats-loving viewer might find ways to make teasers work in his or her favor.
This is gambling, after all, so no teaser bet is a sure thing. However, you can use a few tips to give yourself better chances of winning with teasers.
It may be enticing to subtract points from a spread in the hopes of a few blowout matches, but proceed with caution and understand your sport. Basketball is a volatile, high-scoring game with a propensity for close matchups, so you may not want to put yourself at a disadvantage by decreasing the point spread.
If and when you subtract posts in a teaser, make sure you have reasons for it such as your research, past performance data, etc.
Team performance over time can give you a good indication of how much a squad can score or how many points they tend to get in a given game. If you have solid data, don’t be afraid to tease totals bets and give yourself an edge when the set lines don’t look ideal.
Football is a prime example of victory margins making a big difference. Primary scoring methods in the NFL are field goals (3 points) and touchdowns/extra points (6/7 points). IF you see a point spread near those thresholds but not quite there, it may make sense to tease a line from -+2.5 to +7 if possible, because a touchdown or field goal can help that team cover.
It is generally not advised to use teaser bets for college sports, as they’re extremely volatile and unpredictable. Try to stick to professional sports, as they have solid data and are a tad more reliably predictable.
It’s up to you when to place a teaser bet, but there are a few scenarios in which it’s advisable. The case mentioned above in which a touchdown could make all the difference is one such example. If a victory margin looks reasonable but could be thrown into disarray with a stray hail mary by the underdog, consider whether a teaser will help mitigate that risk.
We also advise caution with basketball teasers, because games tend to be close, coming down to the final seconds to decide a winner. A teaser would make sense if you can give a contending team an extra edge against a slightly better opponent.
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