By Dexter Foley
Online Sports Betting Terms
Teaser: A teaser is, at its essence, a parlay: You’re combining two or more wagers into one bet, and all the legs must win for your bet to pay off. But in a teaser, you get to “buy” points on the point spread or total — generally six points for football games and four points for basketball games.
Example: NFL Week 1 for our example. The Bills are one-point underdogs to the Rams, and the Patriots are 2.5-point underdogs to the Dolphins. In a teaser, you would add six points to both point spreads and parlay the Bills as seven-point underdogs with the Patriots as 8.5-point underdogs.
Sportsbooks generally charge in the neighborhood of -120 juice on two-team teasers.
Like regular parlays, novice gamblers can get into trouble with NFL teasers, but there is a way to be smart about them by using optimal strategy.
Prop bet: A prop bet is, in most instances, a bet on one player’s performance. In football, it could mean a bet on how much yardage a player will gain (usually separated by position into rushing, receiving and passing) or a bet on whether a player will score a touchdown.
Futures bet: A futures bet is when you bet on a team to win a season title (league, conference or division) or to surpass or fall short of a season win total as established by bookmakers. You also can make futures bets on players to win awards handed out after the season or to reach certain statistical benchmarks.
