I trust
everybody had a great Thanksgiving weekend. I’ll try not to let my
turkey overdose affect my writing. Over the last two weeks, I have
tried to explain some of the mathematics behind parlays to help you
understand why the payoffs are set where they are. This week I want to
cover Teasers and the good news is there is no math to discuss today.
According to the dictionary there are many definitions for the word
“Tease”. However there were a couple of definitions that I think are
appropriate for the word in the context it will be used in today.
Tease
–verb
1. to annoy or pester
2. to arouse hope or desire without affording satisfaction
These
aren’t the most positive definitions we could hope to start with but
anybody who has lost a teaser would not argue that they are accurate.
Let’s
start with an explanation of teasers for those that are not sure (I
skipped this part in my first discussion of parlays and received a ton
of emails. I learned my lesson). A teaser is a combination of two or
more football/basketball spreads/totals where you get a better line on
each pick in exchange for a lower payout. It is similar to a parlay
where you buy points on your picks but with a teaser you get the same
amount of points for each pick. There are an incredible number of
variations in how teasers are offered (we’ll discuss why later) but
generally you can tease your football lines 6, 6.5, or 7-points and
your basketball lines 4, 4.5, or 5-points. For example if you like the
Eagles –8 and the Chargers +2 but aren’t sure the Eagles will win by a
Touchdown or the Chargers will keep it close you could tease both
these picks. If you teased 6.5 points you would have a 2-team Teaser
with Eagles –1.5 and the Chargers +8.5. I think you can clearly see
that making Philadelphia only have to win by 2 to cover (instead of 9)
makes this bet easier to win. Also, the Chargers can now lose by 7 and
still cover. The tradeoff is the payout is only 10/12 (this varies
from book-to-book but will serve for our examples today) instead of
13/5 as a parlay would be. If you risked $60, the teaser pays $50 but
the parlay pays $156! You must decide if the greatly improved chance
of winning is worth a 2/3 reduction in payout.
With 3+
team Teasers, a Push on any leg reduces the Teaser to the next lowest
level. A 4-teamer where one leg is Push would payout at 3-team levels,
etc. Note that a 2-team Teaser with a push is not reduced to a 1-team
Teaser as there is no such bet. Be sure to check with your book to see
how 2-team teasers with a push are handled (some settle Push/Loss as a
Loss, others make it a Push) so you are not surprised.
Why are
Teaser payouts so much lower? Simple, it is the only bet type a book
offers where balanced action can still result in losses. How can that
be? Let’s look at either the Sunday Night or Monday Night games from
this past weekend to show how this happens. Sunday Night had Tampa Bay
–2.5 over the Saints and a total of 40.5. Monday had the Raiders –6.5
over the Jets and a total of 48. Bettors liked both the favorites and
the Raiders game to go over the posted total so the results were good
for the House (Saints 23-20 and Raiders 26-20) but yet we lost EVERY
teaser placed on just those games! Taking the Monday Night game as an
example, there are four possible 2-team Teaser combinations (we’ll use
a 6.5-point teaser for this example):
Oakland
Pk/Over 41.5
Oakland Pk/Under 54.5
NY Jets +13/Over 41.5
NY Jets +13/Under 54.5
Every
one of these was a winner last night because the final score was
within 6-points of the spread and total. If there was $120 to win $100
on each of these plays, the House just lost $400 on $480 in handle for
an 83.3% loss when action was balanced! The same can be said for the
Sunday Night game. In fact 11 of the 16 spreads in the NFL this
weekend finished within 6-points of the closing number. Books had a
good weekend on straight wagers and parlays but didn’t fare very well
at teasers.
However, don’t feel too bad for books (and I am sure you don’t). Even
though it is possible to have every Teaser be a winner, it is also
possible for the House to earn over 50% with balanced action. Look at
the Cleveland/Carolina game for this example. The spread was Browns
–7.5 and the total was 35. Here are the four possible 2-team Teaser
combinations here (again teasing 6.5-points):
Cleveland –1/Over 28.5
Cleveland –1/Under 41.5
Carolina +14/Over 28.5
Carolina +14/Under 41.5
We see
only the last one was a winner (final score was Panthers 13-6). If
there was $120 to win $100 on each play, the House collected $360 but
paid out $100 for a profit of $260 on $480 in handle (a 54.2% gain).
Any game where both the spread and total fall outside teaser range
will be good for books. There weren’t many games like this last
weekend!
The
third possibility is where either the spread or total “pays both ways”
but the other line does not. For example, there was the Packers/Bears
game this weekend. The spread was Green Bay –9.5 and the total was 38
so the final score of 30-20 Packers meant teasers on the spread were
all winners but only teasers with the right total were winners. Again,
lets look at the four 6.5-point, 2-team Teaser options:
Green
Bay –3/Over 31.5
Green Bay –3/Under 44.5
Chicago +16/Over 31.5
Chicago +16/Under 44.5
In this
case, the two teasers with the Over are both winners so the House
makes $40 on the $480 in handle for a decent profit of 8.3%
So, now
that we understand the different possible outcomes, it should become
apparent that there is no equation that can be run to calculate the
Theoretical Hold Percentage for Teasers like we can for straight
wagers and parlays. The only way to set up Teaser payouts is to comb
through the actual results and adjust accordingly. If more games fall
closer to the spread and total over time, payouts on teasers will have
to be lowered. If fewer games “pay both ways”, payouts could be
raised. Also, because Teasers can be multiple picks from multiple
games, it is impossible to even come close to balancing action anyway.
Over the years, teaser payouts have ebbed and flowed. In years where
Teasers have been very profitable, payouts have increased as books
fight for clients and profits. In other years, payouts get lowered and
some books even stop offering them (this happened in the NFL a couple
of years ago and some books still won’t take teasers on NFL spreads!).
In fact this year, we are holding a higher percentage on NFL parlays
than we are on teasers.
The
fact that there is no math behind teaser payouts makes the options
very different from book to book. Be sure to shop around for the best
combination of points, picks and payouts to suit your needs. Also be
sure to ask how a 2-team Teaser with a Push and a Loss is handled.
I also
want to touch briefly on a couple of other types of Teasers, namely
Sweetheart Teaser and Pleasers. Sweetheart Teasers give you even more
points in your Teaser (say 10 or 13), but you must pick more teams,
the payouts are further reduced and pushes make your bet a loser.
Pleasers (or Reverse Teasers) are Teasers where you give up points in
exchange for a better payout.
That should just about do it for Teasers but before wrapping up, here
is Kent’s Line Move of the Week. Kent is BoDog’s top bookmaker and
each week he discusses a game of note with us from his unique
perspective. His thoughts this week are from the Sunday Night game:
“Rob
told me he wrote a lot this morning so I will keep it short. The
Sunday Night game had the Buccaneers at the Saints. We took a ton of
action on Tampa Bay and I found it very surprising. Yes, Tampa Bay had
the best record in the NFC and was looking to avenge the week 1 loss
to the Saints but the closing line of Tampa Bay –2.5 seemed very high.
We opened at Pick and the line was simply bet up all week long. A
little trick I use to analyze a line where the road team is the
favorite is to add 6-points to the spread to see if the line would
seem high should home field be switched. It would have helped players
on Sunday Night. Being the home team usually gets a team 3-points from
bookmakers so switching home fields should add 6-points to a road
favorite’s spread if they were at home….right? In this case, there is
no way the Bucs would be an 8.5-point favorite over the Saints, the
spread would probably be around 6, so I knew we were on the right side
and I let players bet heavy at –2 and –2.5. Home dogs tend to bite big
and they did that night.”
Thanks
very much as always Kent. I will be back next week with a look at the
world of professional Handicappers.
I
always welcome comments, questions and suggestions via email at
rob@bodog.com
Rob Gillespie
Operations Manager
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