Teasers

I have had quite a few emails regarding using teasers. I have 5 golden rules to follow. Despite what is commonly believed, I think teasers are quite profitable as long as you follow these rules. The key is if you follow the rules you get the odds on your side and keep the odds away from the book.


1. Only play the NFL. The key to remember is that you are using the lines to your advantage. If the lines are tight and correct then more teasers are going to win. NFL games are much more true in lines due to their higher following and public interest. College game lines are all over the place. Going with this rule, don't play until week 4 after the lines are more settled.

2. Play the right games. By the right games, I mean play games with low totals almost exclusively. Games with totals of under 38 are much more likely to have closer scores and less likely to develop shootouts where points are cheap. So to apply this rule just eliminate all games with higher totals, stick to the 7 or 8 lowest total games or just work with games under a predetermined number. Right now I say only games 39.5 or under I look at except if I think there are very favorable reasons to play a game.

3. Don't play favorites over 9. You need to remember the key numbers are 3,4,6,7,10. The more key numbers you get on your side the better your chances of winning. Taking a team at -13 and getting them to 7 doesn't help much.

4. Don't cross zero. This rule doesn't always have to be followed, but I do it almost without exception. One of the most compelling reasons was something pointed out to me by an expert in that 0 and +.5 are worthless numbers. You are giving away a point of your 6 points. A further reason to follow it is that you will be looking at a lot of favorites of -3 or less. If you like teams at -3 or less, those are going to form the base of your best straight bets. Those are numbers you don't mind laying, so no real point in tying it into a teaser. Besides notice that the best you can do is get the 3 to work for you, the other numbers don't come into play. Just a good practice I think as you must remember small favorites are small favorites for reasons, they aren't necessarily that likely to win the game if things go against them even just a bit.

5. Play into odds you can beat. I don't ever play worse than even for a two teamer. Since few places accept NFL 2 teamers for even that means I rarely play them. Further I only play +180 for 3 and +300 for 4 unless I get a very good reason to play for less because I get favorable numbers. Its tough to beat these if you take +150 for 3 so be sure to get a good return for those times you hit.


With these rules what you end up doing is playing a lot of small dogs and a few -6 to -9 favorites, but even more prevalent will be plays for under totals. Most teasers I play have 2 or 3 under totals play and 1 or 2 sides. Occasionally you can throw in an over total if you get two sides where you feel the defenses will struggle, but I think the nature of overs makes them less desirable in a teaser. Overs tend to go way over, making it better often just to bet them out. Unders tend to be closer to the numbers and those extra six points in a game where points aren't cheap can make a big difference. In fact sometimes there are weeks where all my teaser bets will involve nothing but low total unders.

See Wong's book on this. Excellent point on lower total games being better teasers. But avoid teasing totals. Even capturing the 36-42 corridor isn't enough to make these good bets. Perhaps a game totalled in the 20s could be a good teaser total candidate, but this is theoretical only since you just don't see posted totals below 31 anywhere but the XFL.......I miss the XFL rule changes!

Tough to call on that Fez because I have been doing well for years teasing low number games under. I tend to focus more on unders to start with and find a lot of the games if they do go over do it barely. I don't take all low total games under, I have my criteria, but it has worked well over 5 years. I don't know if it would work for everyone though, but definitely the main point is to stick to teasing NFL games with low totals.

good thinking on teasers...i have done so miserably with them, i just stopped looking at them, but reading wong's book and networking with players i respect, and my own numbers, i think they can be beaten, but still prefer payout of beating a bad line...gr8 post wb..gl

You may be picking good low totals to go under. If you pick 55% or higher ATS games to tease, then the teasers will obviously also do well. But the straight bets will have higher expectation.

Good point, not sure what it is. Today I lost a 4 teamer, had three winners and a loser (pretty standard result). Ravens and Eagles were easy winners, but I was done in by the damn Saints. I did take the under teaser on GB-TB and those 6 points saved me so I guess at least my theory on that was good. Was a pretty typical week of teasers, lets face it when you are making bets at 3-1 payoffs its hard to hit them, something usually goes wrong somewhere. However in all those games I thought I was looking at great teasing situations with two favorites I felt couldn't afford to lose playing two struggling teams and a dog that I figured would be very live in a low scoring game. Somehow the Saints figured they could lose playing like that. The total for the GB game surprised me, I figured it for 33-34 range. Rivalry game like that where neither team figured to move the ball and it came out that way. A straight under play loses because of the punt return and the uncharacteristic turnovers by Favre, but the bonus points worked out.