What Is a Wong Teaser? The Complete Guide to “Correct” Teasers

NFL odds are arguably the most popular feature at most online sportsbooks. Millions of fans scour the market for betting angles every week during the fall.

One of the fastest-growing bet types in the United States is the teaser. Long beloved by old head bettors, the teaser has recently seen huge mainstream growth. 

One underlying reason for that growth? The exploding popularity and public knowledge of the Wong teaser betting style. 

If you’re new to Wong teasers or even just teaser bets in general, I’ve got you covered. This article covers everything you need to know to build your Wong-style combo bet.

Teaser Basics

A teaser is essentially a more conservative version of a parlay. 

Teaser bettors identify at least two games they want to bet from the point spread market. Those point spreads are then adjusted, or teased, up or down by a set number of points. In exchange for the more favorable point spreads, bettors receive less favorable odds on the overall bet. 

Here’s an example of basic tease. Let’s say there are three NFL games this Sunday that you like a side in. Two are favorites, and one is an underdog:

• Eagles (-11) vs. Giants
• Broncos (-5.5) vs. Raiders
• Cardinals (+3.5) at Rams

One classic way to bet this would be to parlay all three legs together. If all three legs are priced at -110, then the standard parlay would pay +596.

However, a teaser would adjust all three point spreads in the bettor’s favor. 

Let’s say the bettor elects for a seven-point teaser. That means their ticket would look like this:

• Eagles (-4) vs. Giants
• Broncos (+1.5) vs. Raiders
• Cardinals (+10.5) at Rams

As you can see, each of the three point spreads has been adjusted by seven points. As a result, the bettor is more likely to win this teaser, relative to the standard parlay. But the cost to the bettor comes in the odds – this bet would be priced at +150, rather than the much richer +596 of the parlay. 

You can read more on how NFL teasers work here. Going forward, I’ll be talking specifically about the Wong methodology.

What is a Wong Teaser and How Does It Work?

Stanford Wong was the pen name for John Ferguson, a finance professor from the University of San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford. 

Wong was a 20th-century pioneer in several areas of gambling. His most prominent area of study was probably blackjack theory; he wrote and published a book called Professional Blackjack in 1975. 

But Wong is also credited with major developmental research in the world of NFL teaser betting. His research into the math of odds and NFL scores revealed something foundational: because of the NFL’s key numbers in sports betting, the most effective way to bet teasers was to always tease through the seven and the three. 

Let’s break that down a little further. As most NFL fans can tell you, three and seven are critical numbers in the sport. Field goals are worth three points, and touchdowns are worth seven. Unsurprisingly, three and seven are two of the most common final score differentials in the NFL.

So, to get maximum expected value from a teaser, Wong recommended always teasing an underdog up past three and past seven. Or, in the case of a favorite, Wong always recommended teasing down from above seven to below three. 

Eventually, a short-hand was born: the Wong Teaser. It’s a two-team, six-point teaser that targets favorites between -7.5 and -8.5 and/or underdogs between +1.5 and +2.5. 

Wong Teaser Example

One example of a Wong teaser might target two hypothetical sides: Chiefs (-8.5) vs Chargers and Steelers (+1.5) vs Ravens. 

This is a Wong-eligible scenario. The resulting six-point teaser would look like this:

• Chiefs (-2.5) vs. Chargers
• Steelers (+7.5) vs. Ravens

At BetMGM, this teaser would be available for -130. 

Market Evolution for Wong Teasers

As Wong teasers have become more popular, there’s been a downstream market adjustment from many sportsbooks.

One adjustment has been to reduce the odds on two-team, six-point teasers. Bettors who were buying two-teamers 20 years ago were not paying -120 or shorter for this action. But as the plus-EV Wong strategy has become more mainstream, and teasers have become a more profitable enterprise for everyday bettors, pretty much every book in existence has adjusted the price tag. 

Bettors are still buying two-team, six-point teasers at historic rates, too. So the market seems not to have a problem with the tougher pricing, despite the diluting effect on the value that’s undergirding the original Wong principles. 

The other effect has been on the base NFL spreads market. Knowing that bettors are more keen than ever to identify comfortable favorites in the range of six to nine points, the market may be more aggressive in asking bettors to lay north of a touchdown on favorites that might otherwise settle in closer to -4.5. 

That market shift has led to excellent counter-betting opportunities for NFL dogs of 7.5 to 9 points. Over the last two years, such dogs are 29-15 ATS – a hugely profitable corner of the market. 

Of course, Wong teasers are still an excellent betting strategy, so don’t neglect the sides that qualify as optimal legs. But remember that for every market movement, there’s an equal and opposite movement. In sports betting, it often pays to look for the contrarian angles.