It's a common belief that a sports book would never offer a bet in which the odds are with the player. That is true for all bets you can make except for one. Mathematically, there is one kind of sports bet offered by most books that is, over the long term, profitable for the player. What is it?

The answer and the data Saturday night...

Guesses?

NFL 6-point teasers

over on white sox season wins

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

The over in Indianapolis Colts wins.

My guess was also 6 point NFL teasers, on favorites with the line between -7.5 and -8.5. Not sure how many teams, so I'll guess two.

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Fire Phil Emery

Ding ding ding.

A 6 point 2-team teaser, purchased at the most widely available -110, requires teams to cover the spread +6 points 72.4% of the time to break even. A basic strategy teaser is to take teams across the 3 and 7...that is tease dogs up across the 3 and 7 and favorites down across the 7 and 3. However, a closer look reveals that only the home favorite subset has won more than 72.4% of the time in the last 15 years.

Basic Strategy 2-team, 6 point teaser summary, last 15 years:
RD +1.5 to +2.5.......201-78-0 for 72%, sample size 279
HD +1.5 to +2.5.......146-56-0 for 72.3%, sample size 202
RF -7.5 to -8.5.........43-22-0 for 66.2%, sample size 65
HF -7.5 to -8.5..........167-59-2 for 73.9% sample size 228

Thus, at -110, the player has a 1.5% edge teasing home favorites of -7.5 - 8.5 down six points. If you can find a 6 pt. teaser at even money (there are only a few rogue books left that offer them), then the breakeven point is 70.7. That would give you a 3.2% edge...definitely worth playing.

There are no plays for this subset this week at the current lines.

When there are...can you post so we can all make some easy money? I'm getting hammered today...

sure, but I wouldn't call it "easy" money. More like grind it out over the long term money.

Any reason why this wouldn't apply to the college game as well? I can think of a few possible reasons, but if you had the numbers in a database to run, it would be interesting to see the results.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

Irish Boy, you are so smart.

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The scores of college games have much more variance vs. the spread than in the NFL. I haven't seen any numbers in a while, but the last time I can recall, the % were in the mid 60s. I'll see if I can scratch up the data.

Seattle -7.5 is the only team that qualifies for this subset in week 1. Carolina +2 or +2.5 is the only other team that fits the overall basic strategy this week. A combination of those two would be +EV.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."