Push

A push is a bet that lands exactly on the spread or the total. The bet doesn’t win, doesn’t lose — your stake is refunded. Pushes happen most often on whole-number spreads and totals, which is why most modern lines use half-points (-7.5, 48.5) to eliminate the tie possibility.

How a push works

A few examples:

• You bet Patriots -7. Patriots win by exactly 7. Push. Stake refunded.
• You bet Over 48. Final score combines to exactly 48. Push. Stake refunded.
• You bet Patriots -7.5. Patriots win by exactly 7. Loss. The spread doesn’t push because it’s a half-point.

Why books use half-points

Books often use half-point spreads/totals (-7.5, 48.5) specifically to eliminate pushes. A push refunds money to the bettor and doesn’t generate vig — which is unprofitable for the book. Half-points guarantee a winner and loser on every bet.

When a book DOES post a whole-number line, they’re trading some pricing precision for the ability to extract more vig (often -115 or -120 instead of -110 on whole-number lines).

Pushes in parlays

A push leg in a parlay typically drops out — the parlay is recalculated as if that leg never existed. So a 5-leg parlay with one push becomes a 4-leg parlay, repriced accordingly.

This is bookmaker policy and varies. Most US books drop the push leg. Some void the entire parlay (rare). Always check your book’s parlay rules.

Pushes in same-game parlays (SGPs) follow the book’s SGP-specific rules, which are usually more restrictive.

Key numbers and pushes

In NFL, the most common margins of victory are 3 and 7 — these are key numbers. A spread of -3 or -7 (whole) carries materially higher push risk than -3.5 or -7.5. Sharp bettors care about half-points around key numbers because the half-point genuinely changes the win probability.

Buying a half-point across a key number (going from -7.5 to -7) typically costs more juice (more vig) than buying half a point across a non-key number — because the value of crossing 7 is real.

Push frequency

Rough estimates of how often a push happens:

• NFL spread on a whole number: ~3–4% of games push
• NFL total on a whole number: ~2–3% of games push
• NFL spread of -3 (whole): ~10% — high push risk because 3 is the most common margin
• NFL spread of -7 (whole): ~5–6%
• NFL total around 41 or 44: ~4–5%

Most other lines (NBA, NHL, MLB, soccer) have much lower push rates because their scoring patterns spread more uniformly across margins.

A push isn’t a win

It feels lucky to push instead of lose. But push isn’t a win — it’s a refund of capital you could have deployed on a winning bet. Tracked over a season, pushes are roughly bankroll-neutral but EV-negative because of the time-value cost of capital sitting refunded.