Teaser Betting Guide

Teaser bets are a popular alternative to straight wagers since it affords you a great amount of customization. While novice bettors may think that makes such bets easier to win, that isn’t the case. Just like traditional parlays, you increase your risk because whether you win or not depends on the outcomes of several sporting events instead of only one. Unlike parlays, however, the payouts for teaser bets usually aren’t as lucrative.

This wager is called a teaser because you can tease the point spreads and/or totals up or down to your liking. There are limits to that, however, set by the sportsbooks’ house rules. Since teaser bets are popular at brick-and-mortar sportsbooks, Tennessee online sportsbooks offer them as well. You should be able to place teaser wagers on a variety of individual and team sports.

TN’s sports betting regulations do impose a few rules regarding teaser bets. For the most part, however, sportsbooks are free to conduct this part of their businesses to their liking. Sportsbooks have a better chance of keeping your money in teaser markets, so they make it quite easy to place those bets. All it takes is a few clicks, and you’re good to go.

How to place a teaser bet at a TN betting app

All you need to start is a little bit of time and a computer or a smartphone with internet access. Before you can place a sports bet, you have to register an account.

Download the sports betting app or visit the website of the sportsbook you prefer. Then follow the on-screen prompts to register your account. If you’ve already registered with the sportsbook in another state, you won’t have to register again. Log in to the app or website with your existing credentials. From there, you can deposit funds into your account to place bets. Many TN sports betting operators offer bonuses to new customers.

Once that’s done, you’re ready to place your teaser bet. Simply select the athletes/teams and spreads/totals, select teaser, and then decide how much you want to tease the spreads and/or totals. Many online sportsbooks will simplify the process even further by offering ready-made teaser cards. The card does the teasing for you and offers you options on how many legs to include.

With a card, all you do is decide on the number of legs and how much you want to wager. Successfully doing so requires some knowledge of how the odds work. Once you’ve got the jargon down, that’s easy to grasp.

How teasers work at TN sportsbooks

A teaser bet is one wager that involved the point spreads or point totals on at least two different sporting events. Each separate spread or total within the teaser is called a “leg.”

It’s easier to understand how these markets work with a real example. For that purpose, let’s look at a couple of point spread lines from the 2019-20 NFL season.

You could bet on each spread by itself. However, setting both spreads as “legs” of a teaser allows you to manipulate the spreads. For the sake of our example, let’s say you wanted to tease the spread by 6 points. If these were the only “legs” of your teaser and you wanted to bet on the underdogs, your teaser bet would look like this:

You set yourself up to still win should the Houston Texans and Tennessee Titans win these games by more than 3 points but fewer than 10. You’ve also increased your potential payout by combining both spreads into a teaser. You can also tease the spreads for the favorites, of course. Here’s what your teaser wager would look like if you moved the spreads 6 points in the other direction:

What this teaser does is turn Houston and Tennessee into 3.5-point underdogs. If you’re confident that Indianapolis and Jacksonville were to win these games narrowly, this wager would suit you. Most sportsbooks impose minimums and maximums for how much you can tease spreads and totals as well. For football, that range is usually 4 to 10 points.

Team sports like football aren’t your only options for teasers. You can also place teaser bets on individual sports, like golf and tennis, if you desired.

How teaser bets work with golf, tennis and other individual sports

If golf and tennis betting is more your thing, teaser wagers are still an option. Again, all you have to do is find at least two spreads or totals markets you like and tease them to your liking. Let’s take a look at another real example. From one of the WTA’s major events in 2019, these totals markets were set on the number of games the two players would take to decide their matches.

Just like with our football example, you could set both of these markets as “legs” of a teaser and then tease the totals. It might pay off to do so if you were convinced that Serena Williams and Simona Halep wouldn’t dispatch their lower-seeded opponents so easily.

Another thing you have to keep in mind when you tease spreads or totals is that doing so affects your potential payout. This can be the element of teasers that many new bettors struggle to understand.

Payouts for winning teaser bets

The simple rule of thumb is if you increase your risk, you also increase your potential winnings. At the same time, the more you play it safe, the less money you might win. For every point you tease the spreads and totals in your wager, the lower your payout will be. On the other hand, the more legs you include in your teaser, the greater the potential winnings could be if you win.

That’s because you’re decreasing your risk with each point you tease and increasing it with each leg. Sportsbooks reward you for taking risks because you’re voluntarily increasing the chance that they will keep your money.

Using our football example, a two-leg, 6-point wager might pay out -110 if you win. At the same time, if you increase that 6 points to 6.5, the sportsbook might drop your odds to -120. Going back to the tennis example, the line for a teaser on those two legs could be -130. If you add in a third match, however, that might take your odds up to -110.

Continuing with our football example, say you were sure you wanted to only include those two spreads in your teaser. Further, suppose you’re unsure of how many points to tease the spread by. The odds tell you how much you would need to wager in order to make $100 in profit. At 6 points, you would need to put down $110 while at 6.5 points, you would need to wager $120.

Returning to the tennis wager, adding in a third “leg” would cut your bet to make $100 by about 15%. However, it also increases the likelihood of you losing your bet by a third. The added benefit may not be worth the additional risk by that math.

How are pleaser bets different from teaser bets?

You should approach each bet, even a teaser market, as though it’s set up for you the sportsbook to win. There is a way to play up that dynamic, however, perhaps to your advantage.

A pleaser or a reverse teaser bet is a great example of this. Instead of trying to manipulate spreads and totals to your advantage, you intentionally move the lines to the sportsbook’s benefit. That may sound crazy, but the same rule applies. The greater the risk you take on, the better your potential payout will be should your bet succeed.

In this case, because you’re giving away points, the sportsbooks will be generous with the odds. 

Let’s continue with our football example to set up a pleaser. Because the original spreads favored Houston and Tennessee, you could increase the spreads in those teams’ favor. You could add 6 points to the lines on both, making your pleaser bet as follows:

Instead of needing the Texans and Titans to win and by at least 4 points, you need Houston and Tennessee both to win by at least 10 points. In exchange for your generosity, the sportsbook might increase your payout from -110 to +600.

As with teasers, each “leg” you add to your pleaser increases your potential payout. Contrary to teasers, however, each point you give away in your pleaser to the sportsbook also lengthens your odds.

Teasers and pleasers are like all other markets in that sportsbooks use greater odds to entice you to place bets that favor them. Should you bet wisely, however, you can come out of the situation the victor.