Good Six-Point Teaser Bets

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Requirements for a Good Bet

Some sportsbooks pay 11:10 on six-point teasers, some pay even money, and some are 10:11 or -110.

The most generous six-point teaser pay schedules require each team to cover 69.0 percent of the time for the bet to be break-even. For those sportsbooks that pay even money or -110 on two-team teasers, you need teams that cover 70.7 percent or 72.4 percent.

Sportsbooks offer six-point teasers of three teams at terms that range from +140 to +180. If you can find +180 for a three-teamer, you need to find teams that each have 70.9 percent or more chance of covering. If you tease your three teams at a sportsbook that pays less than +180, you will need teams that cover with higher frequency to justify making the bet.

You don’t want to merely meet those minimums; you want teams that cover more often than that so that your bets have positive EV.

Tease All for 6 Points

On average, when you are given six points, you have a 66.8 percent chance of covering, a 31.1 percent chance of losing, and a 2.1 percent chance of pushing. That is not good enough to get an edge. Does that mean never betting on six-point teasers? Nope.

It means you can’t select random teams for teasing, because teams on average cover only 66.8 percent of the time if given six points. But just because the average is 66.8 percent does not mean that every team given six points will have a 66.8 percent chance of covering.

Eliminating Big Favorites and Big Underdogs

The most common outcome of an NFL game is the favorite’s winning by three points. That happens in about 10% of NFL games. Might you enhance your teaser chances if you consider only teams that will pick up fav-by-3 when teased? That is, consider teams that would fail to cover the spread if the game resulted in the favorite’s winning the game by exactly three points, but would cover the teased spread. An example is a two-point dog. If you bet a dog at +2 and the favorite wins the game by three points, your bet loses. But if you tease that dog to +8 and the favorite wins the game by three points, your team covers the teased spread.

Recent NFL game results are partitioned into three categories below: big favorites, big dogs, and teams in the middle.

The first category is teams favored

by so many points that a six-point tease won’t capture the 3. The second category is dogs by enough points that they already have the 3 and don’t need six points to capture it. The third category is all the teams that are left after the big favorites and big dogs are removed.

Teams favored by 9.5 or more, if given six points, would not cover the teased spread if winning the game by only three points.

Dogs of 3.5 or more do not need any teased points to cover if the result of the game is the favorite winning by three points.

Teasing all the remaining teams, meaning teams going off at -9 to +3, would result in covering a six-point teased spread 67.2 percent of time, failing to cover 30.3 percent of the time, and pushing 2.5 percent of the time. Ignoring pushes, six-point teasers cover 68.9 percent of the time.

Teasing only teams going off at -9 to +3 is an improvement over teasing all teams, and is almost good enough to get an edge over any sportsbook that offers two-teamers at -110, which is why most sportsbooks charge more than -110 for that teaser.

This is part of an occasional series of articles.

Excerpted with permission from Sharp Sports Betting by Stanford Wong, edited for this format.