Wong Teaser Break-Even Math: The Edge Is the Price, Not the Key Numbers
The Wong teaser is the most repeated edge in NFL betting. Tease underdogs of +1.5 to +2.5 and favorites of -7.5 to -8.5 by six points. Cross the 3 and the 7. Collect.
The first half is true. Teased legs on those numbers win 74 to 78 percent of the time in every sample we found. The second half depends on one input most guides skip: the price. At -110 the strategy prints money. At -135 the same legs lose money. This article gives you the break-even table, the exact EV at each price, and a calculator so you test the teaser on your own board.
The setup in one paragraph
A two-team, six-point NFL teaser pays on a single price, and both legs must win. Stanford Wong introduced the selection rule in Sharp Sports Betting, first published by Pi Yee Press in 2001. Pick spreads where six points of movement pass through both 3 and 7. A +2 underdog becomes +8. A -8 favorite becomes -2. Las Vegas Sun columnist Jeff Haney reported the same rule in 2006 from Michael Shackleford's analysis: random two-team, six-point NFL teasers carried a house edge near 10 percent, but underdogs of 1.5 to 2.5 and favorites of 7.5 to 8.5 reversed the edge at the best available price of -110.
Note the last clause. Shackleford tied the edge to the price in 2006. Most Wong teaser content since then drops the condition.
Step 1: The break-even leg probability at each price
A two-team teaser pays only if both legs win. If each leg wins with probability p, the teaser wins with probability p squared. The bet breaks even when p squared equals the break-even rate of the price.
Formula
break-even teaser rate = price / (price + 100)
break-even per-leg rate = square root of break-even teaser rate
Example at -120: 120 / 220 = 54.55%. Square root = 73.85%.
| Two-team teaser price | Break-even teaser rate | Break-even per leg |
|---|---|---|
| -110 | 52.38% | 72.37% |
| -120 | 54.55% | 73.85% |
| -125 | 55.56% | 74.54% |
| -130 | 56.52% | 75.18% |
| -135 | 57.45% | 75.79% |
| -140 | 58.33% | 76.38% |
Each 10 cents of teaser juice raises the required win rate on every leg by about 1.3 points. The change looks small. The next two sections show the edge sits in this gap.
Step 2: What the legs win
Five reported samples give cover rates for Wong-qualified legs. Each uses a different window and source.
| Sample | Window | Reported leg win rate |
|---|---|---|
| Wong data, home favorites -7.5 to -8.5 (reported by TeamRankings) | 1999 to 2010 | 75% (128-42-3) |
| Pinnacle closing lines, home favorites -7.5 to -8.5 (reported by boardroom.tv) | 2010 onward | 74.22% (n = 128) |
| Pinnacle closing lines, home underdogs +1.5 to +2.5 (boardroom.tv) | 2010 onward | 76.74% (n = 129) |
| Teased underdogs +1.5 to +2.5 (reported by On the Juice) | Since 2003 | 75.2% |
| Wong teaser legs, closing spreads (reported by The 33rd Team) | 2016 to 2021 | 78% |
The samples cluster between 74 and 78 percent. Use 75.5 percent as the center. Compare the center to the break-even column above. The edge exists at -110, -120, and -125. The edge disappears at -130 and turns negative at -135 and -140.
Step 3: EV by price and leg rate
Expected value per dollar risked on a two-team teaser equals the teaser win rate times the net payout, minus the loss rate.
Worked example: -120 teaser, both legs 77%
teaser win rate = 0.77 x 0.77 = 0.5929
net payout per $1 risked = 100 / 120 = 0.8333
EV = 0.5929 x 0.8333 - (1 - 0.5929) = 0.4941 - 0.4071 = +0.087
Result: +8.7 cents per dollar risked
| Price | Legs at 74% | Legs at 75% | Legs at 77% | Legs at 78% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -110 | +4.5% | +7.4% | +13.2% | +16.1% |
| -120 | +0.4% | +3.1% | +8.7% | +11.5% |
| -125 | -1.4% | +1.3% | +6.7% | +9.5% |
| -130 | -3.1% | -0.5% | +4.9% | +7.6% |
| -135 | -4.7% | -2.1% | +3.2% | +5.9% |
| -140 | -6.1% | -3.6% | +1.6% | +4.3% |
Read the 75 percent column. The same legs returning 7.4 percent at -110 lose 2.1 percent at -135. The strategy did not change. The book moved the price.
What books charge now
Teaser prices have moved up from the -110 era. CBS Sports reports many books once offered -110 on the two-team, six-point teaser. Books have raised the price in recent years, and DraftKings still posts -120. A Juice Reel newsletter for the 2025 season names bet365 at -120 and Caesars at -125 as the best prices and reports one book pricing all teasers at -135. Covers explains a second defense: teaser protection. Books offer teasers only from the default spreads on screen, so they post lopsided juice on non-key numbers to discourage the targeted crosses.
Prices differ by book and change by season. Your edge depends on which book you tease at. Check the teaser card before every bet. The branded links for the major books are DraftKings, Caesars, FanDuel, and BetMGM. Compare all four.
Why the legs win: the key-number premium
A pure bell curve does not explain a 75 percent cover rate. Run the numbers under the standard model. The standard model treats the NFL margin around the spread as normal. Pro-Football-Reference uses a standard deviation of 13.45 and notes the Winston and Stern figure of 13.86 from the 1981, 1983, and 1984 seasons.
Normal model: +2 underdog teased to +8
Dog margin M is normal with mean -2 and standard deviation 13.45
Teased +8 wins when the dog loses by 7 or fewer: M above -7.5
z = (-7.5 - (-2)) / 13.45 = -0.409
P(M above -7.5) = 1 - 0.341 = 65.9%
The normal model says 65.9 percent. At 13.86 the model says 65.4 percent. Observed legs win about 75 percent. The gap is nine points, and the model has no key numbers.
Add them. Action Network reports 15 percent of NFL games finished with a margin of exactly three since the start of the 2003 season. FTN reports 14.8 percent since 2015, with 7 next at 9 percent. BetMGM reports 9.1 percent for exactly 7 since 2000.
Key-number premium, one side of the game (assumes a symmetric split)
Smooth model chance the dog loses by exactly 3: 2.96%
Observed: 14.8% / 2 = 7.4%. Premium: +4.4 points
Smooth model chance the dog loses by exactly 7: 2.77%
Observed: 9.0% / 2 = 4.5%. Premium: +1.7 points
65.9% + 4.4 + 1.7 = 72.0%
The 3 and 7 explain about six of the nine points. Margins of 4, 5, and 6 account for part of the remainder. We did not tabulate them. Treat the remainder as an open item. The point stands: the cover rate comes from the lumpiness of football scoring. A bell curve cannot price the clusters. A book pricing teasers off a bell curve gives the edge away.
The drift risk: do 3 and 7 still hold?
The extra point moved back to the 15-yard line before the 2015 season. Action Network reported kickers made 99.5 percent of attempts in the three years before the change. A 2025 Covers analysis reports a combined 2.4 percent increase in six and eight point margins compared with the nine seasons before the rule change. The exact-3 rate barely moved: roughly 15 percent since 2003 and 14.8 percent since 2015. The 7 sits at 9 percent in both windows. Wong teasers cross 3 and 7, and both held. The 2016 to 2021 sample at 78 percent confirms the structure survived the rule change.
Step 4: Do your own results prove the edge?
No. The sample you need is larger than the history of the bet.
Standard error of a leg win rate
Wong sample: 128 favorite legs plus 129 underdog legs = 257 legs at 75.5%
SE = square root of (0.755 x 0.245 / 257) = 2.68 points
95% interval = 70.2% to 80.8%
Break-even at -120 is 73.85%. Break-even at -130 is 75.18%. Both sit inside the interval.
The interval covers every price in the table. To separate 75.5 percent from the -120 break-even of 73.85 percent at 95 percent confidence, you need about 2,600 legs. To separate 75.5 from the -130 break-even you need about 69,000 legs. We found no dataset of Wong-qualified legs this large.
Use the price and the model, not your record. A ten-teaser winning streak or a three-teaser losing week says nothing about the edge. Our sample size piece, How Many Bets Before Your Win Rate Means Anything, covers the same standard error math for single bets.
Calculator: your price, your leg rates
Two-team teaser EV
The playbook
- Tease only underdogs of +1.5 to +2.5 and favorites of -7.5 to -8.5. Other legs carry the house edge Shackleford described.
- Compare every book's teaser price before you build the ticket. Bet at -120 or -125. Pass at -130 or higher unless you rate the legs at 77 percent or better.
- Compute the fair price of your own leg estimate. Two legs at 77 percent are fair at -146. Two legs at 75 percent are fair at -129.
- Skip any ticket where a leg needs the total or the weather to break your way. Use the 74 to 78 percent range only for plain Wong spreads.
- Judge the strategy by price paid across hundreds of tickets, not by last week.
The Wong teaser works because football margins cluster on 3 and 7. The bet pays only when the book charges less than the cluster is worth. Everything between -110 and -125 clears the bar. Everything at -135 needs a 77 percent leg rate you cannot verify.
Where this research stops
We found no clean 2022 to 2026 cover-rate sample for Wong-qualified legs. The best recent figure is the 2016 to 2021 sample at 78 percent, and the favorite-side samples hold roughly 130 legs. Treat 75.5 percent as a center, not a promise. We also failed to open the TeamRankings, Action Network, or Pinnacle pages directly, so every figure above comes from search-result text corroborated across more than one source. Recheck the live teaser card and the sample you rely on before you size a bet.