Tortures

[josie_wales]

Hey All,

At Skybook they have 'reverse teasers' that are called 'tortures'.

Essentially, you lay 7 extra points.

2 teams pay 6.5-1
3 teams pay 18-1

Just how bad are these if you find a few small dogs and 'torture' them to small favorites?

For example:
For example:
Eagles -1 (from +6)
Lions -1 (from +6)
Jets -3 (from +4)

$100 pays $1800.

I know they must be pretty bad EV, but just how bad? Is there any situation to try this?

jw

[Thremp]

I would think the way you did it would be optimal.

[AvivaSimplex]

Here's what I worked out, literally on the back of an envelope.

A 7-point 2-team teaser pays 10 to 13, or 77% of your wager. Let's assume there's about 10% juice there, so with no juice it would pay 85% of your wager.

The chances of either of the 2 teams winning after a tease is the square root of 0.85, or about 0.7, 70%. Therefore the chances of a team winning when you give 7 points away must be about 30%.

If you have a 30% chance of winning 1 game, the chances of going 2 for 2 is about 10%. Thus the 2-team torture should pay 10-1. 3 for 3 is 3%, and the 3-team torture should pay 37-1.

Bottom line, house advantage is about 50%.

[AvivaSimplex]

Of course, giving away 7 points is worth a lot less if you're going from +18 to +11, compared to going from +3.5 to -3.5. So it's more complicated, but I doubt even torturing only huge dogs and huge favorites is going to be +EV.

[Ken_AA]

A lot of books call this bet a Pleaser. And I believe it is usually 6 points and 6-1 on a 2 teamer.

Ken

[LLXC]

For the Eagles and Lions, would that just be like playing the ML?