Docs Website

53 Years Strong! A Trusted Leader In Sports Picks, Best Bets and Predictions Since 1971.

Main Menu

Best NFL Teaser Bets Week 18: Basic Strategy Teasers

by Mike Allen - 1/4/2024

Best teaser bets Week 18 Davante Adams Las Vegas Raiders

We have reached the final week of the NFL 2023 regular season. I guess I have to add 2024 onto there this time. I hope you entered the holiday season with your betting bankroll in the green. And if it's still there after all the shopping you did for your friends and family, then congratulations on a successful year.

If you were blessed enough to have made a consistent profit this year and you bet regularly, then I would be willing to bet a boatload of my bankroll that you didn't do it mostly with parlays.

There is a way to make these parlays more playable, and it's called a teaser bet.

Doc’s Sports offers NFL expert picks for every game on our NFL predictions page.

What is a Teaser?

A teaser is a type of parlay wager where the bettor can manipulate the betting odds by giving themselves points. There are many different types of teasers, and if you're doing this for the first time, it can be overwhelming to do your best to decide on a bet.

There is a basic strategy that many sharp bettors use weekly in the NFL. Generally, we don't recommend parlay betting, but a teaser using the basic strategy is a tried and true method for making money in the short and long term.

What is a Basic Strategy Teaser?

The basic strategy teaser is a 6-point teaser. It is also a 2-game teaser, not 3, 4, or 5. It can be very tempting to add a lot of teams to your teaser because they look a lot more inviting with 6 more points to play with.

Don’t worry about potential gigantic payouts. Don’t stray from the strategy.Next, we want to tease through the key numbers of 3 and 7. More games are decided with a point differential of 3 points than any other amount of points. The second most likely margin of victory is 7 points. We want our 6 points to go through those two key numbers.

How will we do it?

If you want to tease an underdog up, we look for dogs with betting odds of (+1.5) to (+2.5) and tease them up to odds of (+7.5) to (+8.5).

If we want to tease a betting favorite down, we look for odds of (-7.5) to (-8.5) and tease them through those key numbers down to favorites of just (-1.5) to (-2.5).

We have our strategy. Let's look at the possible matchups we can use for our NFL Week 18 basic strategy teaser. 

Potential Week 18 Teaser Games

New York Jets (+1.5) vs New England Patriots (-1.5)

Unfortunately, we don’t have any betting favorites of (-7.5) to (-8.5). I wanted to give you guys an example of both.

We have a couple of underdogs, though, whose betting odds are in the basic strategy teaser wheelhouse. The first of which is the New York Jets, who are 1.5-point underdogs to the home Patriots.

Neither team can make the playoffs.

One cool thing about this game is that it could be Patriots head coach Bill Belichick's last ever. I can't see him changing organizations at this point. He has nothing to prove, and I think the grumpy guy has about had it with the handling of all the attitudes and egos.

The reason I do want to include this game into a potential Week 18 basic strategy teaser is because of the point total. It is currently set at 30.5. Low point totals are our friends when teasing games.

The lower the point total, the more our 6 points count.

Denver Broncos (+2.5) vs Las Vegas Raiders (-2.5)

Oh, Denver…

I am sure you have probably heard the news that the organization has decided to sit Russell Wilson for the final 2 games of the year. He sat out last week, he will this week, and then he is gone.

I understand that he sounds like a nightmare to deal with all around, but you paid him the money. It wasn’t his best ever, but he had a pretty good year.

If we were betting this game straight up without the teaser, it seems too good to be true, and a public play all day for the Raiders at (-2.5).

The Broncos players may have been upset that a potential playoff opportunity was taken away when Wilson was benched, but they have had a week to get over it. That said, do Wison’s former teammates speak well of him?

Exactly. They don't.  So, why would his current teammates not play hard because he was benched?

Denver has kept most of their losses close, and they have a decent chance to win this one outright.

Week 18 Teaser Prediction

Broncos (+8.5) and Jets (+7.5): -120

Get NFL picks on every single game, or if you want our very best bet premium picks by the experts, sign up for your free $60 account with a guarantee.

 

Most Recent NFL Handicapping

One E-mail A Week Is All You Need!
Our weekly newsletter is loaded with exclusive free picks,insight and advice from our expert handicappers