Teasers Gaining Popularity
by Jeremy Martin
Teasers have been a part of sports wagering for many years. A teaser bet involves taking two or more teams and adding a set amount of points to the line of each team selected. All of the teams parlayed in the teaser bet must cover the teaser line in order for the bettor to win and the odds are lower (worse for the bettor) than your typical 11/10 straight wager.
Even though this betting option has been around for ages, it has only started to gain popularity - and legitimacy in the eyes of the mainstream betting public - in the last decade or so. In Nevada, savvy bettors started to realize that teasers, if played correctly, could give them an edge in their ongoing battle against the sports books. As betting on sports has become more widespread and accepted, the general public has begun to understand teasers. As more people have picked up the intricacies of playing teasers, an increase in betting handle has obviously followed.
The books in Nevada started to get financially hurt by teasers - mainly the six-point, two-team variety in the NFL - and many decided to make the odds more unattractive or even take certain risky teaser options off the board altogether. The Internet sports books saw an opportunity to capture a new market in the teaser players. While it is very difficult to find a two-team, six-point teaser at 11/10 odds in Las Vegas (unless you know where to look), those are about the worst odds you can find for that teaser option online. There are several books on the Net that offer a six-point NFL teaser at 'even money.'
While the two-team teaser is a favorite of the professional bettor, there are now more options than ever for those that like to tease some of their weekly wagers. Bettors can play six, 6 ½ and seven point teasers in college and NFL. Ten and 13-point teasers are also gaining wide popularity. Some books even offer teasers of 20 points or more. Of course, the potential payout is usually not very attractive to the savvy bettor when any more than seven points are added to each side in a bet. Some books even offer wagers called 'pleasers,' which involve points being deducted instead of added to the line for all sides involved. They payoff for these bets is much higher but they are very difficult to cash.
Although teasers have become a favorite of the professionals, even public bettors are getting more successful at this wagering option as they begin to understand them and learn different ways to manipulate the line in their favor.
"(The bettors) are getting smarter," said Doc from Rio, the head oddsmaker for Skybook. "It used to be that you could just bank on a guy taking a seven down to 'pick'em and three up to 10. In the old days that's all they used to play. Now games are minus 3 ½ and they will take a seven-point teaser and get plus 3 ½ on the favorite. They never used to do stuff like that."
"I think (interest in teasers) may have increased among the sharp guys," added Leo Shafto, head oddsmaker for Royal Sports. "They were considered sucker bets (in the past) but the sharp guys (realized) that you can really use teasers to your advantage. People who are playing teasers are probably a little smarter now than they were before."
Certain books have built their whole operations around teasers. Millennium Sports uses the marketing slogan 'Home of the World's Best Teaser Odds' and they offer some of the best teaser payouts that can be found on the Internet. Millennium takes in millions of dollars in teaser handle each weekend of the football season.
"Sometimes our chart says we don't have a very big decision on a game, then we run the teaser report and we find out that we have $250,000 or $350,000 on that team with teasers," commented Erick Vill, head oddsmaker for the Costa Rican book. "Any kind of blowout is usually good for us. Even if we lose $100,000 or $200,000 on the game itself by the pointspread, but if that particular favorite won by 20 or 30 points, that will help us because it will kill some of the (teaser) action on the other side."
The general betting public, referred to as 'squares' by those in the industry, tend to bet on the favorite and the 'over' on football straight bets and that formula tends to apply to teasers as well. "If the favorite wins but (the total) stays 'under,' we are always going to be okay," added Vill. "If the underdog wins we are always going to be okay. Usually if the favorite wins and (the total) goes over, 90 percent of the time it means we are going to get hurt."
Even though this book gets heavy teaser action on nearly every game of the football season, the bookmakers still do not move their line according to teaser action like they do with straight wager action. According to Vill, moving the point spread for a game according to teaser handle is not going to make a difference when it comes to the book's bottom line. Since bettors are already getting anywhere from six to 13 points, on average, a ½-point fluctuation in the standard line is not going to persuade teaser players to go with the other side, therefore helping the book balance its action. That's why Millennium chooses to move its line according to straight wager action only.
NFL teasers have always been considered stronger than college for the player because the lines are usually very good and because there aren't many huge blowouts in the pros. Not all bookmakers agree on this philosophy, however. There are good arguments on both sides.
"Even if (a bettor) has a bad opinion in the NFL, you've got so much talent that usually the lines are a little tighter," said Shafto. "In college I think it is easier to handicap for straight wager purposes. I think you can mis-handicap an NFL game and still be off by only five or six points. And a teaser will allow for you to cover that. Chances are, if you mis-handicap a college game, it is going to be more of a blowout because there is more of a talent disparity in college than there is in the NFL."
Vill, however, disagrees with this assessment. He believes that the college teaser is stronger just because of that same disparity of talent that Shafto mentioned. "If you take all the big teams in college, you are not going to have (a lot) of big upsets," he said. "You are not going to see Miami (FL) losing outright and you are not going to see Florida State, when they are favored by 21 or 28 points, barely winning the game by seven (points). In the NFL there are big surprises. Anything can happen."
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