What does Teaser mean in sports betting?

A teaser is a type of parlay that lets the bettor shift the point spread or total on every selection in their own favour, in exchange for reduced odds. In American football the standard adjustments are 6, 6.5 or 7 points; in basketball, typically 4 to 5 points. Like any parlay, all legs must win for the ticket to pay, so the teaser trades a lower price for more forgiving lines on each game. Worked example: a two-team, 6-point football teaser. You take Team A from -8.5 to -2.5 and Team B from +2.5 to +8.5 — both spreads moved six points toward you. A standard two-team parlay at -110 legs pays about 2.64 times the stake; the same teaser, with its easier lines, might pay only around 1.91 (roughly -110 on the whole ticket). You are buying a 12-point cushion across the two games and paying for it in price. The genuine edge lies in teasing through the key numbers. Because so many football margins land on 3 and 7, moving a line from, say, +1.5 up through both 3 and 7 to +7.5 captures a disproportionate share of likely outcomes — the well-documented 'Wong teaser' targets exactly these crossings. The common mistake is teasing across low-value points that skip the key numbers entirely, or stacking many legs so that the compounding requirement to win them all swamps the line advantage. A teaser is still a parlay: every leg has to land. Compare with the parlay, the point spread and buying points, and treat the longer-odds appeal with the usual staking discipline.