Best Type Of Bet For Football
This is part 1 of a two part analysis of teasers.
Part II.A Look at Advanced Teaser Strategy
Teasers are one of the many different ways to bet football. If you’re brand new to sports betting, as in never placed a bet, you should read the article I just linked you to as the information contained in this article here is quite advanced. For others, if simple math makes your head spin, note that I touch on teasers in my simple to follow article on football betting systems. For anyone ready to learn, let’s dive into advanced teaser betting which is one the best ways to profit betting NFL football.
What is a Teaser Bet
The bottom page offers you the best football accumulator tips for today. If you are willing to try your luck in double, treble and other types of accumulator betting, we will provide you with options.
A teaser bet is a parlay bet that uses modified point spreads. For example: a 2-team 6-point teaser on Giants -8.5 -110 and Patriots +4.5 -110 gives you Giants -2.5 and Patriots +10.5 as a parlay. The odds for 6-point teasers vary between bookies. To give an idea: 2-team 6-point teasers are generally offered at -110, 3-team 6-point teaser at +150 to +180 and 4-team 6-point teaser at +250 to +300. You’ll notice these pay less than standard parlays; this is because you have the added benefit of 6-points in your favor. In this article I’ll teach you everything required to make long term profits betting teasers.
Understanding the Odds
Different Types of Football Bets. One of the first things you should understand about betting on football is the fact that there are several different types of wagers that can be placed. You won’t necessarily use all the different types, depending on what strategies you employ, but it’s still advisable to learn at least a little about each one. A handicap bet is an extremely popular bet type in points based sports such as football. It involves one team starting the game with more or less points as to try to even out the advantage that one team has over the other and therefore make the event more exciting from a punter’s perspective. How to bet on football tips. There are a number of ways to bet on our football tips, but the best is through a free bet. You can check out the best of these on our free bets page, which compiles the best special offers from the UK’s biggest bookmakers and puts them in one place. Football Betting Football bets are by far the most popular in the world of sports betting and there are many factors that make this sport one of the best to bet on: it is played all year round, is followed all over the world and offers a vast number of games.
The first thing to understand about teasers is exactly what it is you are betting. Did you know a 2-team 6-point teaser at -110 is a parlay where each team is priced -262? Did you know a 3-team teaser at +180 is a parlay where each team is priced -244? If you’re already familiar with this math you can skip ahead; for those confused, allow me to illustrate this using simple math.
When betting at -110 we’re risking $1.10 to win $1.00, this means a successful bet returns $2.10 ($1.10 stake + $1.00 win). To calculate how often we need to win to break even, even when we use the formula risk/return = implied probability.
So here the math: 1.10/2.10=0.5238 (52.38%)
This tells us in a -110 teaser BOTH teams need to cover 52.38% of the time for us to break even. To see how often each team individually must win all we need to do is calculate the square root of 0.5238. You can do this via a root calculator (outside calculator); just enter 2 on the top field and 0.5238 in the bottom one. Doing this we see the answer is 0.7237 and this tells us each team must cover their point spread 72.37% to achieve the overall 52.38% required win rate. If we plug 72.37% into the implied probability field of our odds converter we see in American odds this is -262. This tells us is if we parlayed -262 with -262 the odds are -110. Therefore a 2-team 6-point teaser at -110 is a parlay with each team priced at -262.
Doing the math on a 3-team 6-point teaser +180: we start with $1.00 risked returns $2.80 ($1.00 stake + $1.80 win). So to calculate how often all three teams must win we take 1.00/2.80= 0.3571 (35.71%). This time we’re going to take the cubed root (3rd root) of 0.3571 because we’re dealing with 3 teams. Plugging this into a root calculator we see this solves to .7095 (70.95%). Once again using our odds converter we see 70.95% implied probability is -244 in American odds. So a parlay on -244, -244 and -244 pays +180. Therefore a 3-team 6-point teaser at +180 is a parlay where all teams are priced -244.
How to Beat Teasers
If you’re using 3-team 6-point +180 teasers you simply need to find a situation where teasing a point spread six points increases that teams expected win rate by 20.95%. Why? Because point spreads are a 50/50 proposition, and we’ve already determined in order to break even on 3-teams +180 teaser we need each team to win 70.95% of the time. 70.95%-50.00%=20.95%, so if a point spread is 20.95% more likely to cover when moved 6-points it is a +EV bet, if less than 20.95% it is a –EV wager and should be avoided. If we’re doing 2-team 6-point -110 teasers we need to increase the win rate by 72.37%-50.00%=23.37%. Hopefully this all makes sense! If not, reread it and keep in mind the math involved here is very simple.
Basic Strategy
Teasers were originally designed as a method to extract more money from recreational punters; however, along the way sharp sports bettors soon realized that with simple math and careful selection betting teasers can be quite profitable. Although the concept Basic Strategy Teasers has been around since the 1980’s, it was 2001 book by Stanford Wong titled “Sharp Sports Betting” that introduced this concept to the masses. Basic Strategy is based on the fact that almost 25% of NFL games are decided by either 3 or 7 points and around 38% of all NFL games are decided by 3 to 7 points. There are no other margins of victory close to these figures. Therefore simple logic tells us teasers that fully cross the 3 and the 7 at the best possible odds are the highest value of all teasers. This is called Basic Strategy or in some circles Wong Teasers.
To put this into a betting system, basic strategy is to tease underdogs +1.5 to +2.5 and favorites -7.5 to -8.5 in 6-point teasers. Basic strategy also states the best odds possible are required. As illustrated in the first section of this article 3-team 6-point teasers at +180 have better odds per team than 2-team 6-point teasers at -110. Therefore if on a given week there are 3 point spreads matching basic strategy criteria, 3-team teasers are a far better option than 2-team teasers.
Some Points about Basic Strategy
- Basic Strategy Teasers are very often +EV, but this is not always the case. The logic behind them only shows they are the best blind subset to wager on, nowhere does that logic quantify their profitability.
- It is important to check multiple online sportsbooks to confirm point spread you’re about to tease truly are +1.5 to +2.5 or -7.5 to -8.5. If your sportsbook list the line as -7.5, but one, two, or several others have the same team at -7, this should not be considered a basic strategy teaser.
- Basic Strategy refers only to NFL football. Despite belief to the contrary, there are in fact profitable college football teasers. To find these you need to understand advanced teaser strategy covered later in this article.
Best Betting Sites for Teasers
Prior to getting into advanced teaser strategy it is important to understand, punters who are beating teasers are doing so using lots of simple math and value shopping multiple online sportsbooks. A mistake novice bettors often make is to focus only on best teaser odds, meaning they want 3-team +180 not 3-team +170. However, what if there is 3 point spreads all +1.5 at every sportsbook (in other words the consensus line is +1.5 for each), yet one sportsbook that offered only +170 had these all priced at +3 -135? In case you’re not aware, the price such as -110 in +1.5 and -130 in +3 makes no difference to teaser payouts. Each site has “fixed odds” for teaser, so teasing +1.5 -110 to +7.5 or teasing +3 -130 to +9 results in the same payout. Generally speaking it’s important to get +180 on 3-team 6-point teasers however it is not the end all. If you understand advanced teaser strategy all things need to be considered to determine which option is best.
More to this point: 5Dimes.eu is well known for offering the best teaser odds overall, however they shade their lines in such as way it cost more to cross the 3 and the 7. Examples of how they accomplish this: say a team should be a -8.5 point favorite, 5Dimes might list them as -10.5 +130, or if a team is a +2.5 underdog 5Dimes might list them at +1 -125. On the point spread their expectation is the same; 5Dimes does this only to make it tougher to beat teasers. So although 5Dimes offers the best teaser odds, the value is often less than expected.
Again I must emphasize it is very important to use as many betting sites, bookies and sports books as possible when betting teasers. However, the site I find has the largest value the most often is www.bovada.lv. These guys offer 3-team 6-point teasers at +180, which is somewhat scarce these days. For example Intertops offers these at +170, Bookmaker at +160 and BetOnline at +150. Additionally, Bovada rarely shades their lines on -7.5 to -8.5 favorites, and often shades the lines on +1.5 to +2.5 underdogs to +3. So the one place they do shade the lines benefits teaser bettors. So while using multiple betting sites is important, opening an account at www.bovada.lv is an also near must for any serious teaser bettor.
Even websites with poor teaser odds often have +EV teasers. For example BetOnline.ag offers teaser odds so poor it’s almost a crime they’re allowed to do so. However, they also offer 2-team 7.5 point teasers at -140 which is an option not many sites offer. On rare occasions when there are two strong 10 point NFL favorites on the same week, this teaser option often has positive expected value. Another site Bookmaker.eu isn’t very competitive on most teaser options; however, they offer 4-team 6-point teasers at +300. This is quite impressive compared to BetOnline +250, Pinnacle +260, Carib +260 and Sportbet +280 on the same. The point I’m attempting to drill home in this section: understanding the intricacies of several online betting sites and then shopping point spreads in depth is a major key to profitable teaser betting.
Author & Professional: Jim Griffin
Copyright 2017
Football is the granddaddy of them all when it comes to wagering on sports, and with a week in between the bulk of the action every week, there is never any shortage of ways you can bet on it. Below is a look at the most common types of wagers placed in football.
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Point Spreads – Unlike most sports on which money lines are the most popular way to bet, point spread bets are king in football. Both sides are generally set at -110 (Bet $110 to win $100), and bettors can bet the favorite while surrendering points (such as -4.0) or the underdog while receiving points (such as +4.0). If a bettor bets the favorite, the favorite must win by more than the amount of points it is giving up; if on the underdog, the underdog must either win outright or lose by less than the amount of points it is receiving. Point spreads in pro football usually range from +1.0/-1.0 to +14.0/-14.0, while college football point spreads can go high into the 30’s.
Over/Unders – Over/Under wagers in football is also very popular, where sportsbooks set a points total and bettors can bet on whether the combined score of both teams will go over or under the bookmakers’ set total. Totals in pro football usually range from about 35.0 in games expected to be low-scoring to 50.0 in games expected to be high-scoring. College football’s low range is about the same, but two offensive-minded teams can see totals high into the 70’s. 35 is a key number due to the fact that it amounts to five touchdowns scored.
Money Lines – While point spread betting is more popular, money lines (or simply wagering on a team to win outright) is still available. Money lines are most popular among underdog bettors and in games with small spreads. Bettors that feel that their underdog has a good chance of winning outright may opt to give up the points in exchange for a better payout on an outright win. In games with spreads of 3.0 or less, underdog bettors often feel that since they aren’t receiving many points, they are better off taking the better payout; favorite bettors on the other hand are sometimes willing to pay a little extra juice to bet their team on the money line to avoid being burned by a close win that fails to cover the spread.
Parlays – A football parlay is a wager in which two or more football sides are chosen, and all must win for the wager to pay out. Football parlays are extremely popular; some bettors like to parlay low-scoring teams with the under or high-scoring teams with the over (semi-correlated parlays) to try to make a bit more money on their sides. Other bettors like to bet big 10 or 12-team parlays, betting a small amount for potentially massive winnings if one of these “lottery ticket” bets happens to hit.
Propositions or “Props” – Proposition bets are also extremely popular as bettors can bet on various team and player statistics as well as specific game events. Common prop bets in football include which team will score first, which player will score first, whether a team’s first possession will be a touchdown, field goal, or turnover, and many more. Bettors can also wager the Over/Under on statistics such as a quarterback’s total yards or passing attempts, or a running back’s total yards or carries. With so many sportsbooks carrying so many proposition bets, if you can think of it, you can probably bet it.
Football Betting Systems – Some bettors like to take the guesswork out of where and when to place wagers, and opt to develop or follow football betting systems. Football betting systems look for specific statistics or game factors (unique to each betting system) that meet a certain criteria, and if that criteria is met, a bet is placed. For example, a bettor may decide that he wants to bet on every team coming off of a double-digit win every time they are at home against a road team with a losing record the following week. Each week, the bettor will look for situations like this, and if they are found will bet on them. Obviously enough, the success of betting systems varies depending on the system followed.
Teasers and Pleasers – Another common way to bet this sport is football teasers and pleasers. These are parlay bets that use alternative point spreads. In a teaser the point spread moves in your favor resulting in a lesser payout, in a pleaser the point spread moves in the bookmakers favor resulting in a higher payout.
Best Type Of Bet For Football This
A wager type similar to teasers, but also helpful in line shopping, is purchasing half points. You can learn about these on our page the contains our NFL Half Point Calculator.
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Author: Jim Griffin