More About Power Ratings

 

Many handicappers have a set of ratings, most often referred to as power ratings, that gauge the overall strength of each team in comparison to every other team. They then take the difference in ratings between two teams as the predicted point differential between the teams if they met on a neutral field. Of course, teams don't usually meet on a neutral field so points are added to the home team to compensate for the advantage that most teams have playing at home. The home field advantage can be a set amount for all teams (such as 2.5 or 3 points in the NFL and 3.5 to 4 points in college football) or can vary from team to team depending on their individual variance in their level of play at home and on the road.

While the concept of power ratings is rather simple, it is very difficult to come up with a set of accurate ratings. The problem with most power ratings methods is that the ratings are generated using some sort of mathematical process based on the past performance of each team and the level of opposition that they have faced. An example of this is the Sagarin Ratings seen in USA Today each week. I've talked to many amateur handicappers that use the Sagarin Ratings to figure out if the point spread is too high or low on a particular game. What is important to remember is that the Sagarin Ratings, and any other mathematically produced set of ratings, explain what has already happened rather than what will happen. In other words, while it is true that these ratings accurately reflect the difference in the performance of each team up to that point of the season they are not a predictive tool to be used to forecast the future performance level of teams, which is what we are truly interested in as handicappers.

If beating the point spread were as easy as picking up the Tuesday USA Today, checking the Sagarin Ratings and making your wagers based on that, then everyone would be winning and sports books would all be out of business. Obviously, that is not the case. So, while the Sagarin Ratings can be used to see how teams have performed up to that point of the season, do not depend on them to forecast how teams will perform in their next game.

Power ratings are typically based off of the final scores of games - in football, there is a lot of 'noise' and 'variance' in scoring, and points are not nearly as useful for predicting the outcomes of games. Furthermore, power ratings which reduce every team to a single number ignore the enormous importance of matchups. If Texas Tech and Georgia Tech have similarly rated offenses, then you would expect them to fair similarly against a defense that had an average rating across the board in all defensive metrics. However, against a defense with an average overall rating, but on a more specific level, with very high run-defense ratings (allowing 3.1 ypc against opponents who combine for an adjusted 4.5 ypc) and very bad pass-defense ratings (allowing 9.8 ypa against opponents who combine for an adjusted 6.4 ypa), you would expect Texas Tech's pass-heavy offense to fair comparably better than Georgia Tech's run-heavy offense, even though the two offenses are rated similarly overall. Obviously analyzing matchups is much deeper and more complex than this, and often gets into very technical data concerning advantages at individual positions, but this simple example illustrates the overall concept of how power ratings do not factor matchups.

 

Vegas needs to avoid NHL betting blackout

It may be that Gary Bettman is a betting man. The NHL commissioner is showing a liking for Las Vegas, so that’s a start.

Bettman is planning to expand the 30-team league, and Seattle, Portland, Ore., Kansas City and Quebec City are on his short list. But he’s definitely ready to bring ice to the desert, according to a report from the Vancouver Province.

“Sources close to the situation have indicated Las Vegas is a done deal,” the report stated.

It’s a developing story, not a done deal. In May, MGM Resorts broke ground on a $375 million, 20,000-seat arenaon the Strip that is set to open in 2016, and it figures to someday be home to an NBA or NHL franchise. A hockey team is now the favorite in the race to be first.

The issue of legalized sports wagering will be a hot topic for debate, though in reality it should not be an issue at all.

There is no way to justify a betting ban on Las Vegas’ NHL team when UNLV football and basketball games are offered in the books. Bettman might not make the request, but if he does, there should be a unified effort to refuse a sports book blackout of the local team.

“We don’t know what their intentions are, and they might not want that,” LVH sports book director Jay Kornegay said of the NHL. “I can’t speak for the industry, but I think it would be hypocrisy if we took our home team off the board. I just think we’re sending the wrong message if we were to take games off the board.

“We have a history. By booking UNLV and UNR games for the past 14 years, we have proven that. We have not had a problem, and they are just another game on the board. It certainly would not make sense if we’re booking local colleges and not the local pro team.”

In one possible scenario, only MGM Resorts could agree to not book games involving the Las Vegas team. But even that step is an unnecessary concession.

“My thought process would be to do what we can to make sure we have all the teams on the betting boards,” Kornegay said.

Hockey wagering is rather insignificant, accounting for around 2 percent of his book’s annual handle, Kornegay said. But allowing for any type of betting ban would set a bad precedent, so Kornegay and his colleagues have a significant argument.

 

Sports Betting Math

Most people who want to place bets on sports are fans to begin with. It isn’t unheard of for a gambler to place some sports bets, especially during big games like the Super Bowl or the NCAA basketball Final Four, but for the most part, sports bettors are sports fans looking to use their knowledge of a game or of a game’s players to earn a little extra cash. Being a fan of a particular sport, a team, a college or professional squad—these are all precursors to placing sports bet. Sports betting is also a way for a fan to get in on the action of the game, with something more than self-respect at stake.

All gambling is mathematics, even games of chance. If you understand the math behind the game, you understand the game and can give yourself an advantage. For many games, like penny slots or poorly placed roulette bets, are so bad that smart bettors earn their advantage by avoiding them altogether. In sports betting, the math is more complicated. Depending on your favorite sport, you may need to think about things like bye weeks, underdogs, quarterback ratings, and injuries with the same fervor other connoisseurs reserve for fancy winces.

So how difficult is sports betting math? The math behind placing a winning bet is fairly complicated, but the way to stay ahead of the bookmaker is rather straightforward. If you collect on 52.4% of your bets, you’ll break even. We’ll have more details on that number later, including why it takes more than 50% wins to break even, but first some general knowledge about sports gambling and the numbers behind it.

Sports Betting Basics

The easiest way to demonstrate the math behind a sports bet is to make up an example. Let’s say you and your buddy walk into a casino, each with $200 burning a hole in your pocket. There’s a big game on tonight, the Cowboys and the Redskins, so you wander into the sportsbook to check up on the latest news about the game. While you’re sitting there, you see the wagering board, with some funny numbers on it. It looks like this:

428 Cowboys +175
429 Redskins -4 -200 38

Some of this is easy enough to read. The Redskins -4 means the Redskins are favored to win and must do so by at least 5 points for a bet on the ‘Skins to pay out. The next number (-200) is the moneyline, in this case the Redskins are a 2/1 favorite. The last number (38) is the total, the over/under of the expected number of points scored in the game.

More on Placing Sports Bets

Look at that over/under number, in this case 38. If you or your buddy thinks this is going to be a particularly high or low scoring game, based on your knowledge of the team’s offenses and defenses, or information about a hurt player or bad playing conditions, you can place a wager on the total of points scored.

So how is a guy supposed to know how to literally lay down a sports bet? You need to know three things:

*the type of bet you want to make
*the number of the corresponding team you have chosen and
*the amount you wish to wager

Knowing all that beforehand gives the ticket writer the details he needs to write the ticket without having to bend over backwards to process your bet.

Tipping and Sports Betting

We haven’t even gotten to the meat of the sports math yet, and we’re already talking about tipping the staff behind the window? Yep. Here’s why.

If you place two $100 bets, and you win, you’ll collect $440. You should consider leaving a tip around five percent of your winnings. Yes, that’s a $22 tip, but you just made a huge win, and surely you can spring for a twenty-spot for the guy who helped you win it. If you tip around the five percent mark regularly, when you win, you’re way more likely to get free drinks, which is about all you’re going to get comp-wise at the sportsbook.

So, back to the basic math of sports betting. You and your buddy, after much deliberation, decide to each place a $100 bet on your favorite team. What now?

To bet on the Redskins using the point spread, your bet is called “laying the points.” For your bet to pay off, the ‘Skins have to win by five or more to cover the spread. Remember, if the ‘Skins win by exactly four, the game is a push, and both sides recoup their bet. Another alternative is called “taking the points” with the Cowboys. That means the Cowboys have to lose by three or less for your bet to win, or if the Cowboys win outright. So you and your buddy go up to place your $100 bet, and you find out that the standard straight bet at any bookie pays 11/10. That means you have to bet $110 if you want to win $100. You and your buddy pay the bookie $110 and sit down with drinks to watch your bets come in.

These are deceptively simple bets. Deceptively because they make it look like the outcome of the football game is like the outcome of picking marbles out of a bag. Put one black marble and two white marbles in a bag, pull one out at random, and there’s your football game. After all, the odds are the same: 2/1 for white.

But we, as sports fans, know that the mathematics of a sporting event is much more complex. Sports bettors deeply involved in their hobby will subscribe to weather bulletins from major cities that take part in their sport, making huge wagering decisions based on a few mph of wind in one direction or another. Then there’s the unknown—does a player get hurt in the first quarter? Does weather become a factor? Is a particular player “in the zone?”

How Do Bookies Make a Profit?

Just as we finish ruminating on the concept of the difficult math at play in the background of major sporting events, we’re going to turn right back towards the simpler side of sports betting. Bookies make a profit because of vigorish. What’s vigorish?

Look at the above example again. You and your buddy each paid $10 to the bookie to place your bet. That’s what the standard 11/10 odds in sports betting are all about. You bet the Cowboys and your buddy bet the Redskins, a total of $220 bet. The sportsbook has to pay back $210 to the winner, leaving a nice $10 profit no matter what happens on the football field. That $10 built-in profit is called the vigorish, and it’s the final monkey wrench in the gears of sports betting.

Obviously, sportsbooks are going to take more than two bets on any game, but this example is for simplicity’s sake. Looking at the total number of bets on different games over the course of a week and adjusting the moneyline and other numbers is another way the bookie makes a profit. Adjusting the odds a tiny percentage point in either direction will affect the balance of beats and make the book more likely to turn a profit no matter what.

Essentially, a bookie is a person who holds on to money from bettors then pays them if they win and keeps their money if they don’t. That’s what the job is boiled down to its essence.

When a bookie sets odds for games, he will build what bookies call an “over round” into his set of odds. Another slang term used for this formula is “the juice.” For the sake of simplicity, let’s look at a boxing match where both contenders are equally talented, of equal stature, etc. Since they both have an equal chance of winning, a casual bet may be even money. You put $20 on one guy; your friend puts $20 on the other. Whichever fighter wins awards the bettor with the total of $40.

Bookies don’t offer even money like friends in a casual betting situation. In the above example, with two evenly matched boxers, a smart bookie will offer 5/6 odds for each. That way, a $10 winning bet would only return $8.30 plus your stake. What does this do for the bookmaker? He can float an equal amount of money on both fighters, winning no matter which fighter actually wins. If they take $1,000 worth of bets on one boxer and $1,000 on the other, the bookie would take in $1,000 but only have to pay out $830, for a guaranteed $170 profit regardless of the outcome.

Bookies look at the weight of their books all the time and adjust odds and other factors to make sure their books balance. Though it isn’t possible to completely balance a book, bookies that go too far out on one side run the risk of losing money, and losing money in gambling is the fastest way to find yourself in another industry. All of these factors are why bookies generally root for the underdog—too many favorites winning in a sport with a short season (such as the NFL) can cause a bookmaker to lose money, while a bunch of upsets (like you generally see in college football) is a guaranteed profit for the bookmaker.

The short answer here is that bookies making money has nothing at all to do with your betting. It is almost unheard of for a single customer to be allowed to place enough bets to sink a single book all on his own. High rollers in sports betting get special privileges in terms of their maximum bet size, but these privileges often change with the bettor’s luck—maximums get raised after the bettor sees big losses and decreased (sharply) when the bettor starts to get lucky.

In short, a sportsbook’s profits aren’t necessarily impacted directly by the way an individual bet is called. Unlike casino games or slot machines, where it’s you against the house, sports bettors fuel the bookmaker’s business and only rarely is an individual bettor betting against the bookie.

Sports Betting Odds

Remember at the beginning when we talked about the magic number necessary to guarantee a break-even week in sports betting? If you read enough about sports betting, you’ll hear this number repeated often: 52.4%. If a bettor can win 52.4% of his bets, he’ll break even. Where does that number come from?

When betting the spread, you get odds of -110. Sometimes, sportsbooks will offer a -105 line as a promotion or to welcome new business. But for the most part, if you’re betting the spread, you’re getting -110.

We draw that 52.4% break even number right out of the odds. -110 is equivalent to 11/10. That means if you bet 21 games, you’d have to win eleven of them and lose ten of them to break completely even. Even at -105, you’d still have to win an astounding 51.2% of the time just to break even.

If you don’t trust the basic math behind this break-even principle, look at another real-world example. Let’s say you get really into sports betting after your Cowboys cream the Redskins and you go home with a nice fat wallet. You then bet on the next 10 Cowboys games, winning six times and losing four times. That 60% betting record (with the odds of -110 that is traditional for against the spread bets in football) will leave you with a profit of $160. Think about it—your $600 profit from your 6 winning bets minus the $440 you lost on losing bets leaves $160. It took you $1,100 to win $160, meaning you have to bet $6.87 to win $1 on average. So you see the small differences between a 52.4% winning rate and a 60% winning rate—inside those 7.3 percentage points lies hundreds of dollars in profit.

Now imagine instead that you lost one of those six winning bets, leaving you with a 50% betting record. You spent a total of $1,100, won $500, and lost $550. That means overall your 50% record drained your wallet by $50. That’s where the vigorish will get you. Not even winning half the time is good enough to break even in sports betting.

Professional Sports Bettors

Believe it or not, some people really do bet on sports for a living. Maybe they work part time at a sportsbook or in some other marginal job in the casino industry, but there is a group of gamblers who bet on sports for their life’s work. With all the math swirling around in our heads after the last bit of the article, it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to do this for a living.

If you know that a 52.4% record will mean you break even, the simplest way to turn sports betting into a career is to bet enough so that a 53% winning record will bring in the kind of money you want to make.

Another example. After your successful Cowboys experiment, you decide to invest $10,000 in sports gambling over the first four months of the following football season. That $10,000 is set aside to win or lose in sportsbooks.

You plan on betting on 160 games during your investment period. You dream of a 55% winning record because your win-loss with a 55% winning record would give you an 88-72 record. That’s an expected profit of +8.8 units. How did we get to that number? To calculate your units, subtract the total of your losses (multiplied by 1.1 to include the vig) from your wins and you’ll get your unit profit.

Placing $460 bets on each of these games, a number pulled from some quick and dirty math about how much you could afford to bet in a single week’s NFL play without blowing your bankroll, would result in a $4,048 profit if you maintain that 55% winning record. Turning $10,000 into $14,048 in just four months is an investment return of 40.48%. I dare you to ask your bank for that kind of return on your savings account.

But that’s all assuming you can pick the winner 55% of the time. Do your research, look into the records of professional sports gamblers. 55%, while not impossible, would place you among the elite sports bettors in the country, if not the world.

Professional sports bettors have to worry about variance more than any other type of gambler. Working against the forces of variance means managing your bankroll over the course of the season to avoid the negative possibilities that could totally empty your wagering account. Professional sports bettors have the time and resources necessary to calculate these variances, and there are even a few pieces of software out there that can help you figure out your ideal bet in the face of negative variance. But the bottom line is that professional sports bettors would dream of having a 55% winning record, simply because it guarantees you’re beating the house.

Pro bettors make their money on bets that sportsbooks offer that give them even the slightest betting advantage. The key to becoming a profitable sports bettor is being able to find advantages, opportunities where the line a book is offering is vulnerable.

This is why many long-term sports bettors are math freaks. Good sports bettors understand statistics, particularly what are called inferential statistics, though any higher math will help when it comes time to place a bet.

Here is what a professional baseball bettor might do in his head. After looking over statistics from MLB (kept religiously by all sorts of bloggers, data archives, and magazines) between the years 2000-2010, he notices a particular statistic pop out. For example: when the home team starts a left-handed pitcher the day after a loss, that team wins 59% of the time. Good sports bettors can do this sort of math in their head or very quickly on paper. From that bit of information comes a new betting theory—look for game situations that mirror the above example and bet on them. That means he’ll only bet games where the home team starts a left-handed pitcher the day after a loss. Does he just jump in and start betting based on this back of the napkin math? No way. More statistical analysis is required—he may find that this was a fluke for that particular decade and isn’t a trustworthy statistics, or he may find an even more advantageous bet based on his original theory.

Pro sports bettors also keep near-obsessive records of their bets. Obviously, no edge in sports betting lasts longer than a single game. Taking proper records will also help you test theories, like the above one about left-handed pitchers and losses. Without taking good records, no sports bettor’s bankroll will last very long.

What Is a Good Record for Sports Bettors?

So, at the end of the day, what could you call a “good” record for a sports bettor? Most casual gamblers looking into sports betting see a pro advertising his 1100-900 record and shake their head a little. How could such an abysmal record be something to be proud of? That’s a 55% winning percentage, and it indicates to those in the know that this bettor is actually turning a profit placing bets on sports.

A good record for a sports bettor is any record equal to or larger than 52.4%, because that number or anything higher means you’re not losing money. A 53% winning record, while not impressive on paper, means you’re actually beating the sportsbook and putting money back in your pocket. Ask your friends that play the slots or play online poker how often they end up putting money back in their pocket.

A -110 wager, standard for spread bets in the NFL, gives the house a built-in advantage of 10%. It means that even if you do win, and you line up to collect your $100, some sucker behind you just spent $10 to hand the casino $100.

A good record for sports bettors is any record that ensures they at least break-even. If you bet 16 games this NFL season and you won 9 and lost 7, you probably made money. And taking money away from a casino is always something to be proud of.

 

Pythagorean Formula and Basketball Betting

Using math to help predict the outcome of a sporting event is something that has been done for years. That's what statistical handicapping is all about. 

In recent years, there has been a tendency to use the Pythagorean Formula to determine how many games a team should have won in any years based on its scoring, both for and against. It is frequently used for baseball and the general premise is that "Expected wins = runs scored(2)/runs scored(2)+ runs allowed(2)."

Later, the exponent was changed from 2.0 to 1.83. The theory behind the method is that teams who won fewer or more games than expected could be good wagers to see a reversal the following year.

The method has been altered for nearly all sports, which use the same premise, but use different numbers. Many times the method is referred to as the Pythagorean Expectation.

Pythagorean Formula in the NBA
For each team playing, you would need its spread results for each of those three categories and you would then total them up.

Using a game between Philadelphia and Boston at Boston for an example, let's assume the 76ers are 7-9 against the spread on the road; 4-4 on the road against .500 or better opponents; and 5-4 on the road against divisional opponents. When you total the 76ers' spread record:
On the road: 7-9
On road vs. 500+: 4-4
On road vs. division: 5-4
You will get 16-17.

For Boston, we'll use the following:
At home: 10-6
At home vs. 500-: 6-5
At home vs. division: 6-4
When you total Boston's spread records you will get 22-15

The first step is to take the road team's spread wins (in this case 16) and add them to the home team's losses, which is 15, to get a total of 31. Next, take the home team's spread wins (22) and add them to the road team's losses, which total 17, to get a total of 39.

The next step is to square both numbers, hence the Pythagorean Formula name, and 31*31=961 and 39*39=1521.

Because the home team is classified as A-squared, we will calculate the home's teams percentage of covering the spread. The Pythagorean Formula has you divide A-squared by A-squared + B-squared, so our formula for this game will read "1521/1521+961 or 1521/2482=.613 or 61.3%, meaning Boston has a 61.3% chance of covering the point spread.

Patterson and Painter said to look for favorites with a greater than 70% chance of covering the spread or underdogs with a greater than 58% chance of covering.

Pythagorean Formula in the NCAA

The formula is the same for college basketball in that you divide A-squared by A-squared + B-squared, but the difference is the categories used. For the NCAA, I would use: home and away; favorite or underdog; and conference or non-conference. 

Using the Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013, game between Washington and UCLA in Los Angeles, lets assign the following for Washington:
Away: 6-3
Underdog: 6-3
Conference: 7-2
When you total Washington's record you get 19-8.

For UCLA, we'll assign the following:
Home: 6-7
Favorite: 6-13
Conference: 4-5
When you total UCLA's record you get 16-25.

Adding Washington's wins to UCLA's losses gives a total of 44 and adding UCLA's wins to Washington's losses gives a total of 24.

When both numbers are squared, we get 44*44=1936 and 24*24=576. Now the formula will read 576/576+1936 or 576/2512=.229, meaning UCLA has a 22.9% chance of covering the spread, so the play would be on Washington. UCLA won 59-57 as 7.5-point favorites.

Like many other articles, this is one of those that I am throwing out there for you to examine and play around with. I wouldn't blindly wager on its games, but do some tinkering and see if it still holds any value.

 

NBA Basketball Betting Tips

Watch for teams playing they're 3rd game in 4 nights. They're often times tired with weak legs left under them -- espeically when on the road. The spread may take this into consideration, but it's an excellent spot to watch out for a nice overlay (odds in your favor).

Keep a very close eye on line moves. If a line move happens in favor of one team and the public is on the other side, this may indicate sharp action and may be a good game to coattail.

Establish a bankroll and stick to a money management system. Then never bet more than 5% of this bankroll on any one play. This means that if your starting bankroll is $100, your maximum bet should be no more than $50. This is a kind of boring way to gamble, however, it will get you through the highs and lows of a long season of streaks and they do happen! Most don't listen to this advice and just "fire" on games. Ya can't win long term that way. Once your tired of losing, come back and read this article again and practice this tip. You'll be glad you did!

Only bet when the value is on your side. After handicapping all the games on the day's card, there are often times a couple per day in which the oddsmakers have made a weak line. Only play these games. Always remember that the bookmaker is forced to put out a line on every game, you howeaver aren't forced to bet every game. This means you can pick and choose your spots which in our estimation puts the value on your side if you have properly handicapped a game.

Don't put too much faith in trends. They're fun to read, but what happened in the past usually doesn't have much bearing on what is going to happen today or in the future. There are indeed a few instances in which certain teams "own" other teams, but it's rare and the chances are by the time you know about it, the tide is likely to change and move the other way or be broken.

When handicapping, consider looking closely at turnovers as a statistic. Turnovers usually lead to points. Points win games. Same goes for points in the paint. Shots taken closer to the hoop are made at a higher percentage. These two stats are often times overlooked while handicapping and are key to determining winners and losers.

Always check starting lineups. This means don't bet games too early as well. What's worse than betting on a team only to find out that their starting point guard is down?

Try to avoid betting on your favorite team. More times than not, your emotions come into play and it skews your opinion.

If your going to play "short" underdogs, such as +1, +2 or +3, consider betting the moneyline instead, as the moneyline pays more and often times you won't need these points to cover the spread.
Conversely, avoid betting NBA moneyline favorites, especially big ones. One loss there and your trying to bail yourself out of a deep hole which is a losing proposition.



How the Point Spread Works

When two teams meet on the playing field or on the basketball court, one team is typically better than the other. If all sports gamblers had to do was to pick the winning team in a game, everybody would simply wager on the best team and collect their money.

Using an example from Week 2 of the 2007 NFL season, the Atlanta Falcons were visiting the Jacksonville Jaguars. There was little doubt Jacksonville was the better of the two teams and if all one had to do was to pick the winning team, nearly every bettor would have taken the Jaguars.

 

What the sportsbooks and bookies did, however, was to create a point spread, to make both teams equally attractive in the eyes of bettors.

 

In this case, Jacksonville was installed as a 10 point favorite, which is commonly written as Jacksonville -10. Atlanta, the underdog, is commonly written as Atlanta +10.

If you bet the favorite, Jacksonville, the Jaguars have to win by 11 points or more in order for you to win your bet. Remember, the Jaguars are favored by 10 points, so we subtract 10 points from their final score for betting purposes. If Jacksonville were to win 24-13, Jaguar bettors would win their wager. If the Jaguars were to win 23-14, Jacksonville bettors would lose because they did not win by more than 10 points.

If you bet the underdog, the Atlanta Falcons, you win your bet if the Falcons win the game or if they lose by 9 points or less. Because the Falcons are the underdogs, we add 10 points to their final score for betting purposes.

If the Jaguars were to win the game by exactly 10 points, 24-14, it would be a tie or a push and all wagers are refunded to bettors.

 

Jacksonville did defeat Atlanta as expected, but the Jaguars failed to cover the point spread when they won by a score of 13-7.

Money Lines Versus Point Spreads

 

In the case of football and basketball, not only will you see a point spread, you will usually be given the option to also wager on the game with the money line in which all you have to do is pick the winner of the contest. There is one drawback, however, and that is if you want to bet on the team expected to win, you can find yourself risking much more than you stand to win.

 

Deciding when to bet using the point spread and when to use the money line is just one of the decisions bettors have to make on an ongoing basis. There are no rules etched in stone when to use the point spread and when to bet with the money line, but an excellent article looking at this problem when betting the NBA can be found here at the Top Betting Reviews website.

 

 

 



How to Bet Teasers

 

 Teasers are bets you can make on either football or basketball and are similar to parlays in that all of the teams selected must win in order for a bettor to win their wager. A single loss on any one game makes the entire bet a losing one. 

There is one major difference between teasers and parlays, however, and that is the bettor is allowed to move the point spread in any direction they like on a particular game. For example, if the Bears are favored by 10 points over the Dolphins, teaser bettors would have the option of moving the point spread in either direction, and could make the new point spreads for the teaser bet the Bears -4 or the Dolphins 16.

In football, bettors can move the line 6, 6.5, 7, or sometimes 10 points, but the payoffs are lower with each additional half-point the bettor takes. A 7-point teaser will pay lower odds than a 6-point teaser, for example.

In basketball teasers, point spreads can be moved 4, 4.5, or 5 points. Teasers must be a minimum of two teams and can use as many as 10 teams, depending on the sportsbook the wager is placed through, although most placed tend to limit the number to six.

Ties count as a loss at most sportsbooks, although some will reduce the number of teams in the teaser by one. It's best to check with the individual sportsbook before placing a wager to make sure you know its rules.

 

Football Teasers

In exchange for the points allowed by teasers, bettors take much lower odds than they would if wagering on a parlay. While a three team parlay will pay 6-1, a three team, 6-point teaser pays 9-5. 
The typical odds for football teasers are as follows:

6-point Teasers:
Two teams = 10/11
Three teams = 9/5
Four teams = 3/1
Five teams = 9/2
Six teams = 6/1

6.5-point Teasers:
Two teams = 10/12
Three teams = 8/5
Four teams = 5/2
Five teams = 4/1
Six teams = 11/2

7-point Teasers:
Two teams = 10/13
Three teams = 7/5
Four teams = 2/1
Five teams = 7/2
Six teams = 5/1

Some sportsbooks will offer three-team, 10-point teasers at odds of 10-13 (risk $13 to win $10), although not all sportsbooks offer them.

Basketball Teasers

Basketball teasers work exactly the same way as football teasers, although players receive fewer points in which they can move the line. 
The typical odds for basketball teasers are as follows:

4-point Teasers:
Two teams = 10/11
Three teams = 9/5
Four teams = 3/1
Five teams = 9/2
Six teams = 15/2

4.5-point Teasers:
Two teams = 10/12
Three teams = 8/5
Four teams = 5/2
Five teams = 4/1
Six teams = 7/1

5-point Teasers:
Two teams = 10/13
Three teams = 7/5
Four teams = 2/1
Five teams = 7/2
Six teams = 13/2

There is still debate among experienced sports bettors if teasers are good wagers or not. Opinions vary greatly on the subject, with some believing they are strictly sucker bets, while others believe they are worthwhile, especially as more games tend to fall close to the point spread.