There are two similarly-labeled bets involving quarters for NBA and NFL games at many sportsbooks:
- The "Team to Win Each Quarter" bet requires the team to actually outscore their opponent in all four quarters individually.
- The "Winning at The End of Every Quarter" bet or "Wire-to-Wire" winner bets require the team to just lead after each quarter, not to actually outscore their opponent in each quarter.
The team to win each quarter bets are most often offered for NFL games. And it happens much less in the NFL than you'd think, because so many quarters end tied. The nature of football scoring makes it difficult for even big favorites to pull this off.
Here's an example where it did happen — the Dolphins outscored the Broncos by at least seven points in each of the four quarters in their historic 70-20 win.
NFL To Win Each Quarter Bet, Explained
Let's look at an example from the 2024 NFL playoffs. The Chiefs are a 4-point favorite in this game, so naturally, they're more likely to win all four quarters. They're priced at +1200; the Dolphins are +2200.
Because this is so difficult to do in football, you'll get big prices on these bets:
Waging on either team to win all four quarters is a longshot no matter the matchup, since the team actually needs to win all four quarters, not just "be winning" after all four quarters. That doesn't happen all that often in the NFL, as many quarters end tied, as well.
In this example, a $10 wager on the Dolphins to win every quarter would return $220 in profit.
If the Dolphins win the game 27-10 but win each quarter by the following score, you'd win your bet:
- 1Q: 7-3
- 2Q: 3-0
- 3Q: 7-0
- 4Q: 10-7
Some sportsbooks will also offer a quasi-inverse of this — Caesars used to have a "team to win no quarters" priced slightly lower, because in that case, you can tie.
Of course Buffalo to win zero quarters is priced at a significantly higher +1300, which is interesting because those odds are better than the Bills to win four. So it's more likely the favorite would get beaten in each quarter than score more than the underdog.
How NBA "Winning at The End of Every Quarter" & Wire-to-Wire Winners Work
Most sportsbooks offer something slightly different for NBA games — a "winning at the end of each quarter" bet, as FanDuel calls it, or a "wire-to-wire" winner, as DraftKings calls it.
Both mean that the team must be leading at the end of each quarter. They don't have to win each quarter individually.
Take a look at this example. The Bucks blew out the Celtics in January, taking a nearly 20-point lead after the first quarter and almost a 40-point lead into halftime. They did lose the fourth quarter individually, but it didn't matter for this bet. They were still leading at the end of each quarter.
In this case, a bet on the Bucks to win every quarter would have lost, but a wire-to-wire bet would have won.
For that reason, wire-to-wire winners aren't priced as high. In a game in which the 76ers are a 1-point favorite over the Kings, Philly is +265 to go wire-to-wire and Sacramento is +320.
