1. Nfl Betting Point Spreads
2. What Do Points Mean In Betting
3. Betting Point Spread Explained
4. Buying Points In Betting Odds

Most people who bet on football know a thing or two about buying points. And many of them have very strong views on how effective or hindering buying point can be. Some bettors believe that you should never buy points under any circumstances, while others believe that regularly buying points is a great approach that can significantly improve your chances of winning money.

Buying points is age-old debate among sports bettors. Recreational bettors love buying points because they feel safer and more secure knowing they are getting a better number and, therefore, have a greater shot at covering. However, buying points is typically frowned upon by experienced bettors. If you are constantly buying points, it means you. Most sports betting sites allow you to buy half-points from a point spread for $0.10. Let’s say the Minnesota Vikings are -110 to cover a -5 point spread against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Buying Points at a Glance. Not everyone thinks buying points is a good idea but it is a strategy you should be aware of, especially if you enjoy betting on NFL football or NBA basketball. Here are the fast facts about buying points in sports betting.

We don’t agree with either of these viewpoints. We certainly don’t believe that buying points should be avoided at all costs, and we’re very reluctant to believe that it’s something anyone should do regularly. We do, however, think that it can be the right thing to do in SOME circumstances.

For those of you not familiar with buying points, it’s an option that’s widely available at bookmakers and betting sites. In very simple terms, this option allows you to adjust point spreads in your favor. So when backing the favorite, you benefit from having to give away fewer points. And when backing the underdog, you benefit from getting more points. In exchange for moving the spreads, a fee is charged by the bookmaker in the form of reduced odds: or higher vig, depending on how you want to look at it.

We explain more about how buying points works below. We also look at the main advantages and disadvantages of buying points, and explain how to decide whether or not it’s something you should do. We’ve provided some strategy advice too, based around WHEN to consider buying points. Then we finish up with a couple of extra important pieces of advice. After reading this article you’ll know pretty much everything you need to know about buying points when betting on football. And, hopefully, you’ll be able to use the technique effectively.

How Buying Points Works

Our goal here is to provide you with an overview of the process of buying points so that you know exactly what you’re dealing with. We’re going to keep this as simple as possible, so that even someone new to football betting can get a clear picture of what’s involved. If you’re already familiar with the basics of buying points, you can probably skip this section and move straight onto the next one.

As we briefly explained in the introduction to this article, buying points allows you to influence the point spread to your advantage. Bookmakers and betting sites obviously aren’t going to let you do this for free, so they effectively charge a fee. That’s where the phrase buying points come from. You get the points in your favor, but you have to pay for the privilege. This is why some people feel that buying points is a bad idea. Their opinion is that the cost of purchasing them is too great to make it worthwhile. Although their view is understandable, it’s also flawed. Things are just not that clear-cut, as you’ll soon discover.

Generally speaking, the cost of buying points is 10 cents per half-point. This doesn’t mean that you literally have to hand over 10 cents to buy half a point though. Rather, the odds are adjusted accordingly. So assuming the original odds for a point spread are the standard -110, buying half a point will see them move to -120. Buying a full point will see them move to -130.

The best way to illustrate how this works is through an example. Let’s say we’re looking to place a wager on an upcoming game between Washington and Atlanta. Our preferred betting site is currently offering the following line.

The Redskins are the favorites here: giving away five points. This means they’re going to need to win by six or more points for a wager on them to be successful. We think that’s a likely outcome, but we’re not completely sure. So we decide we want to buy a point at the cost of 20 cents. They’re now -4, and only need to win by five points or more. The odds have moved to -130 as a result. We’ve got a slightly better chance of winning our wager, but will be getting a reduced payout in exchange.

Here’s another example. This time we’re looking at a game between Carolina and Baltimore, and the line is as follows.

For the purposes of this example, we’re going to back the underdog. Carolina is being given one and a half points, which means they can lose by a point and backing them will still pay off. However, we feel like we want an extra half point here. It will give us the safety net of a push if Carolina ends up losing by two points. So we decide to purchase half a point at a cost of 10 cents. This makes Carolina +2. As the odds were originally -115, they now move to -125.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? That’s really all there is to buying points. You just have to decide which team to back and how many points to buy. The line is then moved accordingly. There’s one slightly more complicated aspect of buying points to mention though, and that’s dealing with spreads of three or seven points.

If you know the key numbers in football, you’ll know that three points is the most common margin of victory and seven is the second most common. As such, bookmakers treat these spreads a little differently when it comes to buying points. When the spread is +/-3, you can expect to pay 25 cents per half point bought. When the spread is +/-7, you can expect to pay 15 cents per half point bought. The reason for the extra cost is simply that there’s a bigger advantage to the bettor when moving a spread off three or seven. The bookmakers compensate for that bigger advantage by charging a bigger price.

Let’s use one more example to show the effects of this bigger price in practice. Here’s the line for an upcoming game between Detroit and Pittsburgh.

Nfl Betting Point Spreads

We want to back the Steelers here, but we want to give away just two and a half points rather than three. So we’d buy half a point. The cost for this would be 25 cents, so the odds would move to -135. This is obviously quite a significant adjustment, but we’ve gained a notable advantage too. The most likely outcome here is probably that Steelers win by three. Backing the Steelers on the original would mean a push with that result. Having bought half a point, though, we’d win this wager. So taking the lower odds would be worth it.

A final point to mention here is that the exact rules of buying points, and the associated costs, can vary at different betting sites. Some sites limit the amount of points you can buy to one and a half points, while others allow you to buy more. Some sites charge a fixed cost per half point, while others increase the cost as you buy more. Costs can also vary between NFL and college football. With this in mind, you should always check the terms for buying points before you get started.

The pros and cons of buying points when betting on football are probably already apparent to you. Let’s explore them briefly though, for the sake of clarity.

The biggest advantage of buying points is that it improves your chances of winning a wager. Giving away fewer points when backing the favorite, or gaining extra points when backing the underdog, puts you in a better position. It can prevent you from losing against the spread by a very small margin, which is one of the biggest causes of frustration when betting on football.

The main disadvantage of buying points is, of course, the fact that potential payouts are diminished. By accepting reduced odds, the money you stand to win is automatically less than it could be. This is obviously not a big deal when the extra points help you win wagers that you would otherwise have lost. But there will be times when the extra points weren’t necessary for a wager to win, in which case you’ve given up some of your return for no reason. That’s the downside.

There’s no right or wrong answer to this question. As we’ve already mentioned, some people are completely against the idea of buying points. They would advise you to NEVER buy points. Others see the merit in buying points, and they would offer different advice. Neither set of opinions is more correct than the other. What you need to do is to establish your own view on the subject.

Something that we try to make very clear in our football betting strategy guide is that we don’t ever want to tell you exactly what to do. We don’t think that will be very beneficial to you in the long run. What we prefer to do is give you the information you need to work out what to do for yourself. We offer plenty of advice to assist you, but we never provide a precise set of instructions for you to follow.

With that being said, we believe all serious bettors should consider buying points. Regardless of whether you’re a recreational bettor or someone who takes things more seriously, it’s something that CAN work out well if approached in the right way. You certainly shouldn’t look to buy points every single time you bet the spread, but there will be occasions when it’s a sensible course of action. The hard part, of course, is knowing when that’s the case. The next section of this article should help you with that.

When to Buy Points

We view buying points as a tool for risk management. It’s essentially a way to balance the risk versus reward ratio of a wager. We can increase our chances of winning a wager (or reduce the risk of losing it) in exchange for taking a lower payout if we do win. The key to buying points effectively is to make sure that we get the balance right. This varies from person to person. We all have different attitudes to risk, so it’s about finding the balance that works for you.

If you are going to consider buying points, the first thing to think about is when you’re going to do so. Your goal, of course, is to only purchase points when it will put the odds in your favor. This means considering value and probability. Basically, you’re looking for spots when the value you give up by taking lower odds is less than the value you gain from the increased probability of winning.

Now, we can’t tell you exactly how to find these spots. To some extent you have to rely on your past experiences and your intuition. It’s not easy to make an accurate judgement about exactly how beneficial the extra points will be. There are just no absolutes in football betting unfortunately.

With that being said, we can tell you about one broad situation where buying points is usually a financially rewarding decision.

Take +3/-3 as an example. We’ve already explained how three points is the most common margin of victory in football games. So whenever there’s a +3/-3 spread, there’s automatically a good chance that a wager on that spread would result in a push. Therefore, it’s entirely logical to purchase a half point as this should dramatically increase your chances of winning. Taking the underdog at +3.5 and -135 is probably a better bet than taking them at +3 and -110: simply because it means a victory for the favorite by three points will be a win and not a push.

The same principle applies when the spread is seven points too, as this is also a very common margin of victory. But let’s be clear here. We’re not suggesting that you should blindly purchase half points every time you see a spread of three or seven points. That approach is just too simplistic. You still need to assess the opposing teams, and other important factors, and make a judgement about how a game is likely to play out. It’s no good assuming that there’s a high probability of a push just because the spread is on a key number. You have to actually reach that conclusion based on some proper analysis.

It’s also important to note that there can be a high probability of a push on any spread. This theory is not just limited to the key numbers. There’s a case for purchasing half a point any time you feel that a push is likely at the initial spread. And, in fact, it’s BETTER if you can identify opportunities outside the key numbers. The cost for buying points will be lower, and so it should be easier to improve the overall value of a wager.

So, to summarize, there’s no definitive strategy to use for determining when to purchase points. You have to decide on the optimal balance of risk and reward and then act accordingly. Whenever you feel that you can get better overall value by buying points, then you should go ahead and do so.

Before we conclude this article, there are two final tips that we’d like to offer.

• Don’t buy points SOLELY to make it easier to win.
• Shop around for the best deals when buying points.

We’ve already covered the first tip to some extent, but we want to make it abundantly clear here. Your goal when buying points isn’t simply to improve your chances of winning the wager. It’s to give yourself a more favorable position overall. Just buying points every single time you bet the spread, hoping that you’ll improve your win rate, will almost certainly cost you a lot of money in the long run. This is NOT a good strategy. You’ll win more wagers, yes, but the amount sacrificed in payouts will hurt your total return significantly.

That’s why it’s important to be selective, and only buy points when there’s a genuinely valid reason for doing so. And making a win more likely is not a valid reason by itself. Not when there’s the tradeoff of reduced odds. There might be times when you lose several wagers by the smallest of margins, and are tempted to buy points on subsequent wagers just to avoid the continued frustration. But you have to learn to deal with that frustration and keep on doing your best. Suddenly purchasing points all the time is NOT the right solution.

Our second tip is something that few bettors bother to do. They just buy points at their preferred betting site without a second thought. This is a potentially costly mistake. Remember how we said earlier that different betting sites have different rules and costs for buying points? With that being the case, it makes perfect sense to shop around and make sure that you get the best deal.

Note that this is not a simple case of picking one betting site though. The best site to use will vary, depending on how many points you’re buying and what spread you’re buying off. So you really need to shop around each time you’re looking to purchase points. This can be a little time consuming, but it’s not hard to do if you have accounts at a few different betting sites. Just please stick to the reputable sites, such as the ones we recommend on the following page.

BEST FOOTBALL BETTING SITES

How to Wager on Different Sports Bets — Buying Points and Teasers

Buying points on different sports is an NFL and NBA betting strategy. Most bettors do not buy points because of the added cost and indifference to this wagering type of bet. Bettors can gain a significant edge when buying points at the right time.

• Should You Buy Points Off an NFL Spread

When you see a spread close to a field-goal or touchdown, bettors can buy points if they expect a close game. Most bookmakers allow bettors to buy a ½ point to 2 points off of the point spread in the NFL at 10 cents for every half point. If you want to buy a –6 point favorite down to –5.5, it costs –120 money odds up from the standard -110.

The only numbers in the NFL that have been profitable to buy is 3 and 7. Buying a ½ point on a –3 point or –3.5 point favorite has been historically effective as an NFL profitable trend. Buying a ½ point on a +2.5 point or +3 point underdog is also profitable. However, you need to get the right price and matchups to find the expected value.

A few other numbers may be close to positive expected value in the NFL, but not worth spending time on. If you have a good database with closing lines and results you can determine when buying points is profitable. By finding how often a favorite or underdog covers the spread within a 2 point difference, you will calculate if buying points is worthwhile. Specific data pockets can be an analytical tool for handicapping point spreads.

• Will Buying Points Really Affect Your Bottom Line

Most NFL betting percentages show dogs and favorites covering 50% each over 16 games. Half way through the 2017 season (8 games) the dogs at cashing in at a 55% rate. If you are a dog bettor, buying points is not necessary when the dog is covering at a profitable rate. Buying points is a selective process on certain dogs where your expected value is relevant. Buying one half point for an added dime can be beneficial.

• Should I Buy Points Off an NBA Spread

A lot of bettors assume that buying points in the NBA is negative value. A point in the NBA happens quickly and is not valuable. When a point spread is small each point becomes more valuable but risky.

The nature of scoring in the NBA is far different than the NFL. Thinking a half point, 2 or 3 points will give you an edge is wishful thinking. The NBA has many variables that cause point swings on each side. Hot and cold shooting streaks, 3-point scoring, free throw misses, foul troubles, lazy defense and bench scoring are some difficult patterns to handicap.

• How to Assign a Value on How Much NBA Points are Worth

How to determine if you should buy points and place a value on how much certain points are worth is a percentage play. You need to hit 52.4% of your bets to break even at –110 odds. If you buy a full point and knock the spread down, the cost is .20 which lowers the spread but costs –130. At –130 odds you have to win 56.52% to break-even. You need to win 4.12% more often than –110 to break even.

Buying ½ points or more in the NBA is rarely effective. Most bookmakers allow you to purchase multiple points off of the spread for the extra juice. In the NBA the most common winning margins are 7 to 10 points between competitive teams. The NBA has a wide gap in team talent and stronger teams prevail.

Betting sides or totals in the NBA is a roller coaster ride when scoring varies widely from each quarter. No bet is safe until the fourth quarter and buying points is not much of an edge.

• How to Wager on Teaser Bets

A teaser bet has become a popular bet among many sports bettors. Getting points from the book looks profitable but the house has a decided edge. Most sportsbooks decided to eliminate the 6 point teaser and offer a minimum of 61/2 points for –120. Their 2016 NFL season data showed the bigger action on the 6 point teaser was less profitable for the house.

This applies to a 2 game teaser or totals. If you are not getting at least +175 on a 3 game teaser, then pass or eliminate one team and drop back to a 2 game teaser. Value is the unseen variable in each bet that counts over a longer betting period.

If you bet the road dogs and home favorites, your win rate would be profitable. This does have some variation issues and the exact statistics will show some win ratios to fit the matchups. The trend in the NFL for this so called “sucker bet” is a significant wager for public bettors. Teams play harder on the road than they do at home. Home teams want to use and manage the clock but on the road they want the extra possession. This helps when deciding which teams to put in a teaser.

Teaser betting often wins in streaks. When teams playing at home as a 5 to 7 point favorite win the game at a 80% rate for some weeks in a row, the teaser is usually covering.

When buying down the good teams at home, upsets do happen and your teaser loses. An expected win at home can turn into a bad loss. An upset is part of the game and causes many losing teasers. If you tease an early game with a late game, then winning the first leg of your teaser help you to minimize risk by using a hedge bet for the second leg of your teaser.

Usually this involves betting the opposite of your second leg teaser getting points straight up and hope your second team wins your teaser but does not cover. You win your teaser and win your dog bet with the points. A very good scenario for bettors winning both ways.

One more observation about how sportsbooks shade a line up 1/2 point and give you a better money vig. If the teaser favorite goes from 8.5 points to 9 you now have to lay 3 points (9 minus 6) instead of 2.5 points. Do not lay that extra 1/2 to save a few bucks on the juice. You want to tease a team without laying the 3 to 5 points.

Always look at the option of adding some inflated points to the dog in a teaser. To tease or not to tease that is the question. But which way do you tease — the favorite or the dog. Both teams can cover inside the 6 point swing and cause losses for the books.

Before we get into basic teaser strategy you should calculate your break even point. The first thing to figure out is the implied probability of a teaser winning. The implied probability of a 2-teamer (6-pt) teaser at –110 is 52.38% while a 3-teamer (6-pt) at +180 is 35.71%.

The odds are slightly better for a 3-teamer. Using the implied probability of hitting a 3-teamer teaser (35.71% – 0.3571), you have to win each leg of your teaser at a 70.95% rate, which is better than a 2-teamer (72.5%). One of the most popular teaser strategies is called the “Wong Teaser”, which has become popular in today’s market.

A Wong teaser is a 6-point teaser, but you only bet on favorites of –7.5 points to –8.5 points or on underdogs of +1.5 points to +2.5 points. From 1994-2012, Wong teaser sides won at a 73.23% rate, which is higher than the break even rate on a 2 or 3 team teaser.

The percentage climbs higher if you tease underdogs that qualify and not favorites. Realistically, you could end up coming out ahead long term by betting on Wong teasers, but there are going to be years when you lose money by blind betting them. A lot of bookmakers have started shaving their NFL lines in recent years to prevent bettors that middle gap and win both ways.

The reason why Wong teasers have proven to be profitable long term is because most NFL games are won by 3-7 points. When you bet a Wong teaser you are moving the spread through both of the key numbers in the football (3 & 7). Did you know that roughly 25% of all NFL games end with a winning margin of 3 points or 7 points?

What Do Points Mean In Betting

One problem with Wong teasers is that there are not many legs to bet each week, as bookies do not want to set themselves up with too much teaser action. Rather than set a spread at –8 points they may make the line –9 or –9.5 points to prevent teasers. This means bettors have to be more creative and not limit themselves just to Wong teasers. You should try to keep a database that tracks closing point spreads and final scores although the information is also available online.

In season 2013, the Broncos went 10-6 ATS (62.5%) and 13-3 win record (81.25%). If you had bet them on a 6-point teaser each week, your winning rate was a higher probability. Denver was favored in every regular season game. Cincinnati was another great team to tease during the 2013 season.

Betting Point Spread Explained

The 6 point teaser is being phased out and upgraded one half point to 6.5 by the bookies to offset any edge for the bettor. Will bettors start to adjust and realize the underdog teaser has more value than the favorite.

Buying Points In Betting Odds

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