Teaser Betting with FanDuel

FanDuel Teaser Betting

❓How to place a teaser bet with FanDuel?
🏈What sports can you bet teasers in?
🚫When should you not use a teaser bet?
🔍What happens if a teaser leg pushes?
📊What are the pros and cons of teaser bets?
📈What is an “advantage teaser?”

For those who bet on sports, you’re probably well aware that there are many different types of bets. There’s the common spread, moneyline and total bets. There are prop bets on games. There are future bets for events that will be decided in the future. There are parlays and same-game parlays. All of these ways to bet have their pros and cons.

Another form of bet is the teaser. While teasers might not be as mainstream as the types of bets mentioned earlier, they definitely play a significant role in the sports betting world. There’s a long history of the teaser market and when to place this kind of bet. What exactly is a teaser bet? You’ll have to read on to find out.

How do you place a teaser bet on FanDuel Sportsbook?

Placing a teaser bet is simple, but it might not be the easiest thing to find when browsing FanDuel Sportsbook. Here’s how to place a teaser bet through the FanDuel app:

Go to the odds board and find the games you are interested in teasing. Select the normal line for the legs you are interested in teasing.
Once all of your potential legs are in your bet slip, open up the bet slip and towards the bottom, you will see “Teasers”
Press teasers. You can adjust the point value of your teaser in the top right corner, which will move the lines in your bet. The odds will change in real time to reflect the movement in the lines.
Once you set up your teaser to your liking, place your bet like you normally would.

When is a good time to use a teaser bet?

There are certainly times when using a teaser bet is a better strategy. At certain times, a teaser bet makes no sense. For example, it rarely makes sense to tease a total. Those are too volatile and something crazy like a defensive touchdown can throw your whole bet off.

When teasing football games, look to tease through key numbers, similar to the Wong teaser strategy. Also, look for games that are less likely to go far off script. These games often include projected low-scoring games, divisional games, or bad weather games.

The less volatility, the better when placing a teaser bet.

For basketball teasers, bettors often use them to try and escape the wonky free-throw zone. For example, teasing a 4.5-point favorite down to a 0.5-point favorite. Or perhaps teasing a 6.5-point underdog up to a 10.5-point underdog. When you’re between the 3-8 point differential range, it’s hard to tell when a team will stop fouling. Once you get under a possession or near double digits, that becomes less of a concern.

What sports can you bet teasers in?

In order to bet teasers, you would need to find a sport that uses the spread system rather than the moneyline system. For example, football and basketball are considered sports that you bet with a spread, while sports like hockey and baseball are sports that you bet against the moneyline.

Football is by far the most popular sport to use a teaser bet on. Basketball teasers are also common, but those are more risky because there is a lot more scoring in a basketball game compared to a football game (an average of around 220 points compared to an average of around 45 points).

You wouldn’t be able to bet teasers in sports like hockey, baseball or soccer because each goal or run is too valuable and not enough scoring occurs in the game. That’s the same reason why spread betting is a lot less popular in those sports.

What kind of teasers are there? What are the odds?

Technically, in this day and age, you can make any type of teaser you want. Simply pick a number of legs and adjust the line by any amount of points. The sportsbook will figure out the odds based on the number of legs in your bet and the amount of points bought for each leg.

In betting history, the most common teaser is the six point football teaser. Picking two games, move each spread by six points and it would be treated like a normal -110 wager. You can also place a 6.5 point teaser, but those odds would move to -120. A seven point teaser would often have -130 odds. If you added a third leg to your six point teaser, the odds would often go from -110 to +150. It’s a moving mathematical equation based on the number of legs and the amount of points purchased per leg.

In betting history, the most common teaser is the six point football teaser.

These days, those odds are long gone. Sportsbooks realized the profitability of teasers and have adjusted their odds accordingly. Some sportsbooks even charge different amounts based on the numbers you bet in your teaser.

For example, teasing through the key numbers of 3 and 7 might result in lower odds than a teaser that doesn’t tease through both numbers.

Another common teaser is the 3 team, 10-point teaser. Pick three games and move the odds ten points on each game. Those teasers would often pay out at -120 odds.

The most common basketball teaser is a two-leg, four-point teaser. With the amount of scoring in a basketball game, those four points might not be useful at all. For that reason, basketball teasers are a lot less popular than football teasers.

When should you not use a teaser bet?

A teaser bet isn’t always the greatest idea. Here are some instances where we do not recommend using teasers:

Betting totals - Teasing totals is a risky proposition, especially in a sport like football where teasing six points is less than a touchdown and extra point. One weird play and your bet is in serious jeopardy. It’s not worth the risk.
High scoring games - By definition, there’s more variance in high scoring games, making each point worth less. When we’re teasing games, we want our extra points to mean a lot.
Teasing through zero - Games almost never end in ties, so when you tease through zero, you are wasting points on outcomes that almost never happen.

What happens if a teaser leg pushes?

If one of your teaser legs pushes and the other legs win, it depends on the amount of legs in your teaser bet. If you had a teaser with at least three legs, you are good to go. It will simply be regarded with one less leg. For example, a seven-leg teaser will now be graded as a six-leg teaser. Payouts will be less, but you will still win your bet.

If you are betting a two-leg teaser and one of the legs pushes, FanDuel’s policy is that the entire teaser is canceled and your risk is refunded.

What are the pros and cons of teaser bets?

There are both pros and cons to betting teasers.

Pros of teaser bets

The biggest pro when it comes to betting teasers is that there is simply less risk. By buying points on every leg of your bet, you theoretically have a much better chance of cashing each leg.

The biggest pro when it comes to betting teasers is that there is simply less risk

If you are using the right math and betting the right games, you can quickly realize that not all points are created equal. Six points in a late-season, cold, projected low-scoring divisional game are a lot more valuable than six points in an early-season 80 degree shootout. If you have enough legs in your teaser, the payouts can also be nice.

Cons of teaser bets

The cons of teaser bets are right in the name. They are often a tease. You need to win every leg of your teaser bet in order to cash your bet. If you hit five of six legs, your bet still loses. Weird scores happen in every league every night, so perfection is hard. Another con of teaser bets is that sportsbooks have caught up to them.

It used to be possible to gain an advantage over the sportsbook by picking the right games and lines. Those advantages have been adjusted for by changes in odds and even line manipulation.

What is an “advantage teaser?”

Blackjack expert Stanford Wong published a book titled “Sharp Sports Betting” and in this book, he went into detail about how one of the easiest ways to get the best of a sportsbook was by blindly betting football teasers in certain spots. This is the criteria Wong set up:

Game total 49 points or lower
Home favorite of between 7.5 and 8.5 points
Home underdog of between 1.5 and 2.5 points
Road underdog of between 1.5 and 2.5 points

If the game met this criteria, Wong determined that if you blindly teased favorites down and underdogs up, you would win enough to beat the odds books had set on teasers.

It makes sense. In all of these scenarios, you are crossing the key numbers of three and seven points. You are also crossing secondary key numbers such as four and six. Setting a maximum number for the total is also important, because each point is worth less in a potential high-scoring game.

For a long time, if you blindly bet Wong advantage teasers, you would clean up and earn a profit. However, Wong also said he would never pay more than -120 juice on a two-leg, six-point teaser. A lot of sportsbooks no longer offer these wagers at that price point, making advantage teasers as defined by Wong a thing of the past. Sportsbooks have also been known to manipulate the situation and set lines at 9.5-points instead of 8.5-points to avoid teasers going through both key numbers.

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