Do Wong teasers still work? Every NFL season since 1999

Do Wong teasers still work? The underdog half does, if you get −125 or better. We scored every NFL Wong leg from 1999 to week 5 of 2026 against the closing line, 1,422 legs in 7,355 games, and priced every two-team teaser a bettor could have built at what 2026 betslips charge. Since 2015 underdog legs won 77.6%, comfortably over the 74.5% a −125 teaser needs. Favorite legs have won 68.3% since 2021, short at any price. At −135, the price at the two largest books, the juice takes most of what is left. The checklist at the end turns the record into rules.

What a Wong teaser is, in one paragraph

A 6-point NFL teaser moves every leg 6 points your way and pays less than a parlay for it. Most of those points buy little, because NFL games rarely end on the margins they cross. Two margins are different: games end on exactly 3 about 15% of the time and on exactly 7 about 9%. Stanford Wong, in Sharp Sports Betting, kept only the legs where the 6 points cross both: favorites of −7.5 to −8.5 teased down to −1.5 to −2.5, and underdogs of +1.5 to +2.5 teased up to +7.5 to +8.5. The teaser calculator guide has the full explanation and prices your own legs; this page is the record.

What a leg has to win

A two-team teaser pays only if both legs win, so each leg has to win the square root of the teaser’s break-even. At −125 the teaser has to hit 55.6% of the time, so each leg needs 74.5%; at −135, 57.4% and 75.8%. Every 10 cents of juice raises the bar by more than half a point a leg.

The full record, season by season

Legs are won-lost-pushed after the 6 points, with the win rate on decided legs. The last column is every two-team teaser a bettor could have built that season (every Wong leg paired with every other Wong leg from a different game in the same week), $100 each at −125.

Before 2015 the strategy did not pay: six of sixteen seasons cleared 74.5%, and the all-pairs teaser lost $2,600 at −125. In 2015 the NFL moved the extra-point kick back to the 15-yard line, more teams went for two, and the margins Wong legs need came up more often. Seven of the twelve seasons since cleared the bar, and the underdog column has been above it in all but two (2018 and 2022).

Underdogs against favorites

The last column is the control: every other side teased 6 points, from pick’em to 14-point favorites. Wong legs beat those by 4 to 9 points in every era, so the rule finds something real. What has changed is which half of it works.

Underdogs have been steady at 77% to 78% for twelve seasons. Favorites were the stronger side from 2015 to 2020 (76.4%) and the weaker one since (68.3%, 84-39), below the break-even at any teaser price. 123 legs is a small sample, so some of the slide may be noise, but it shows in the teasers too: since 2021 the 359 teasers that paired an underdog with a favorite went 184-175 and lost $2,780 at −125, while the 379 two-underdog teasers went 237-142 and made $4,760. The 61 two-favorite teasers went 36-25 (+$380), too few to lean on.

The +1.5 underdog is the best leg in the set (80.9% over 110 legs) and the −8.5 favorite the worst (68.5% over 54). That fits the margins: a +1.5 teased to +7.5 already has the 3 and gets the 7 with the hook, while a −8.5 teased to −2.5 still has to win by 3 or more.

What it is worth at the price you get

The same 2,177 two-team teasers, $100 each, at the three prices on US betslips in 2026: −120, the best still offered anywhere and posted by no large book; −125, what Caesars and Hard Rock charge; and −135, what the two largest books charge, up from −120 a few seasons ago.

Underdogs carry the price as well as the record. The two-underdog teasers since 2015 made +$7,040 at −125 and still +$4,919 at −135; since 2021, +$4,760 and +$3,356. With favorites mixed in, the all-pairs record since 2021 is +$2,360 at −125, −$348 at −135 and −$1,557 at −140.

What the books charge today

Wong wrote for −110. Most US sportsbooks moved a two-team 6-point teaser to −120 through the 2010s, and in 2025 several moved again, to −130 and −135. The prices below are the ones vigged’s teaser calculator and finder use, read from each book’s published table, house rules or the most recent reports, four of them confirmed on a betslip in October 2026. A dynamic price is set from the legs you pick, and Wong legs are the ones it marks up most. Each is scored against the 75.9% all Wong legs have won since 2015.

On the 2015 to 2026 record a −125 book returns about $7.50 on every $100 teaser and a −135 book about $3.90, and that gap is most of the edge. If your slip shows a different price, the calculator takes the price you type.

What the total tells you

Wong preferred low-total games. Before 2015 that held up: games with a closing total of 41.5 or lower ended on exactly 3 17.2% of the time, against 13% to 14% for higher totals, and underdog legs in them won 78.9%. Since 2015 the total matters at one end only.

Underdog legs won 77.9% in games totaled under 43 and 79.3% at 43 to 49.5 since 2015, so a low total adds nothing. In games totaled 50 or more they won 68.9% since 2015 (61 legs) and 67.5% since 1999 (83 legs), below the 74.5% a −125 teaser needs in every era. The sample is small and its range of error is wide, so read it as a reason to skip a leg rather than a sure thing. Favorites run opposite to Wong’s advice: 67.7% under a total of 44 since 2015 against 75.3% at 44 or more, and since 2021 they fell short at both (65.5% and 70.6%). There is no smooth trend in between: across all 1,416 legs, win rate and total barely move together.

Why low totals don’t help anymore

The idea behind the old rule is that in a low-scoring game each point is worth more. Across every NFL game since 1999 it is not. The final margin lands about 13 points from the spread at every total, and the share of sides that lose against the spread but would win with 6 more points is 19% to 20% in every band. NFL scores move in 3s and 7s whatever the total, and a teaser’s value comes from crossing those.

One thing about totals is firm: do not tease them. A 6-point teaser on the total, over or under, won 68.2% since 2015 (4,183-1,948-83), short of every two-team break-even. No single final total comes up in more than 3.8% of games, against 14.8% for a 3-point margin, so 6 points on a total buy far less than 6 points through the 3 and the 7.

How to bet Wong teasers in 2026

Method and data

• Games and closing lines: nflverse games.csv (nfldata, CC BY 4.0), 7,355 NFL games with a closing spread and a result from 1999 to week 5 of 2026, regular season and playoffs. The spread is a single consensus closing number, so a leg that was −7.5 at the close may have been −7 or −8 at some books.
• A Wong leg is a side closing at −7.5, −8 or −8.5, or at +1.5, +2 or +2.5, teased 6 points. The result is the final margin against the teased line: a push counts as neither a win nor a loss in the win rate.
• A two-team teaser is every pair of Wong legs from different games in the same week, at a single price for the week. One push pays the other leg back; a push and a loss loses; two pushes refund. This is the common rule at US sportsbooks, and the one the teaser calculator uses.
• A total leg is the closing total moved 6 points toward the over or the under, scored against the final points.
• Three-team and larger teasers, 6.5- and 7-point teasers, college football and the NBA are out of scope here. The teaser calculator guide covers the college and NBA numbers; neither clears the juice.
• The script is tools/wong-teaser-study/tally.py in the vigged repository; it prints every table and figure on this page from the CSV.

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