Here is all you need to know about pleaser betting.
Key Points
– Pleaser betting can be difficult to understand.
– A pleaser bet is essentially the opposite of a teaser bet.
Pleaser Betting Explained
If you know what teaser bets are, you will understand pleaser betting. The difference between pleasers and teasers is that the line adjustments are moving in opposite directions.
Whereas teasers allow a bettor to adjust a line in the bettor’s favor, the pleaser bet moves the line in the opposite direction.
Both teasers and pleasers are forms of parlay bets. As with any type of parlay, all legs must win in order for the pleaser to win.
Pleaser betting is one of the most exciting forms of sports betting. That’s because it is a high-risk, high reward activity. Pleasers have the potential to pay out a lot of money because they carry the worst odds.
Bettors looking for these bets have the best chance of finding them at an online sportsbook. These are complex bets and are not typically found in physical sportsbooks or casinos.
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How Pleaser Betting Works
As mentioned, pleaser bets can be thought of as the polar opposite of teaser bets. Bettors who tilt the point spread and/or total to their favor receive a lower payout. However, bettors that adjust the point spread in favor of the sportsbook will receive a larger payout if they win.
Let’s look at examples of a typical NFL teaser versus a pleaser. Pleasers are one of the ways to bet on football for experienced bettors.
Game 1 features the Green Bay Packers as a -7.5 favorite over the Chicago Bears. Game 2 will feature the Dallas Cowboys as a +1.5 underdog against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
- Packers (-7.5) vs. Bears
- Cowboys (+1.5) vs. Bucs
To put together a two-team, six-point teaser, we will get the Packers at -1.5 and the Cowboys at +7.5. Those spreads are more advantageous to us as bettors. As a result, our sportsbook is only willing to give us odds of -110. If we bet $110 and win, we’ll get $100 in profit.
The pleaser bet is the opposite. Let’s use the same teams, but we’ll say Green Bay is a -1.5 favorite and the Cowboys are favored by 2.
- Packers (-1.5) vs. Bears
- Cowboys (-2) vs. Bucs
We really like both teams to not just cover, but cover by a lot. These two bets can be tied together in a six-point pleaser. We would then get the Packers -7.5 and Dallas -8. For taking these lines, the sportsbook is willing to pay +800. If we wager $100 and both legs of the pleaser win, we net $800. That’s quite a difference from the teaser.
Payouts for Pleaser Bets
A standard parlay wager that includes the point spread mentioned above might pay out at a rate of 2.6/1, but a pleaser bet might pay out at a rate of 8/1. In American odds, that translates to +260 versus +800. That’s why we win $800 in the pleaser example above.
Payouts for pleasers are higher because of the greater associated risk. The higher the risk, of course, the higher the reward.
Here is where you can see that pleaser betting can be extremely lucrative. It’s risky, but the payout on a ten-team pleaser, for example, is huge.
Typical pleaser bets are NFL two-team, six-point and seven-point pleasers. A typical payout schedule for a seven-point football pleaser at the best sportsbooks for football might look something like this:
2 Teams – +800
3 Teams – +2500
4 Teams – +6000
5 Teams – +15000
6 Teams – +45000
7 Teams – +70000
8 Teams – +100000
9 Teams – +135000
10 Teams – +175000
Keep in mind that these bets are parlays. If you bet on ten different teams in a pleaser, you have to win each individual bet or the entire pleaser will be considered a loss. This, in conjunction with the reduction in the odds of winning, is what drives the payouts to such alluringly high levels.
Are They Really Worth the Money?
Pleaser bets are notoriously difficult to understand and even more challenging to cash in on. Due to the nature of their high risk and high reward, they are more comparable to playing the lottery than making a calculated wager.
They are not something that bettors who are just starting out should use. Having said that, there are circumstances in which advanced sports bettors may find that it is not a bad idea to take a worse line in exchange for a larger payout.
There are times when the lines that are provided by a sportsbook are excessively generous. There are so many elements at play in every game that the day-to-day unknowns leave the door open for the possibility of such scenarios.
In these unusual circumstances, it might be beneficial to choose a higher payout in order to maximize your potential winnings. However, if you are concerned about the size of your bankroll, you should limit these bets to as few teams as possible.
