Pushes, Ties, and Voids: The Bets That End Weird (and What Happens to the Money)

Every new bettor eventually hits a result that isn't a win or a loss and assumes something broke. Nothing broke, you just met the push.

The push: landing exactly on the number

Bet a spread at −3 and watch the favorite win by exactly 3? That's a push. Bet Over 40 and the game lands 23–17? Push again. The book returns your stake, no win, no loss, like the bet never happened. This is why half-point lines (−3.5, 40.5) exist: the half point makes a push impossible, which is exactly why books charge more to buy onto or off of whole numbers.

Ties: yes, they happen (especially in August)

NFL preseason games can end tied, there's no overtime hero ball when the roster spots are already decided. Preseason Week 1 of 2025 alone had two: Raiders–Seahawks at 23–23 and Dolphins–Bears at 24–24. A tie pushes moneyline bets at most books, grades the spread normally (a +3.5 side still covers in a 23–23 game), and counts the total as usual (23–23 is 46 points, an over at 44.5).

Voids: the bet that never was

A void (or no-action) bet is cancelled entirely and the stake returned, a postponed game, a scratched player on a prop, or a parlay leg that can't be graded. In a parlay, most books simply drop the voided leg and recalculate the payout from the remaining legs: your 3-leg parlay quietly becomes a 2-legger.

Why 3 and 7 rule the spread market

Pushes aren't randomly distributed, they cluster on the NFL's key numbers. Because touchdowns are worth 7 and field goals 3, final margins pile up on those two values: roughly one in seven NFL games ends with a margin of exactly 3, and nearly one in ten lands on exactly 7. No other margins come close. That's why a spread of -3 is a genuinely different bet than -3.5: at -3 you have a very real chance of a push, and at -3.5 that safety net is gone. Books know this cold, which is why 'buying the half point' on or off 3 costs more juice than the same half point anywhere else on the board, often 20 to 25 cents of extra vig instead of 10.

When paying to avoid the push is worth it

The honest answer: rarely, but not never. Moving a spread from -3 to -2.5 converts every future 3-point win from a push into a full win, and games land there so often that many sharp bettors consider the half point around 3 the only one consistently worth paying for. Buying from -7 to -6.5 is a distant second. Everywhere else, moving -5.5 to -5, or a total from 44.5 to 44, you're paying real juice to dodge a result that barely ever happens. If your league's treasurer has a choice of books, shopping for the better number free of charge always beats buying it.

How a voided leg reprices a parlay, with real numbers

Say your crew's ticket is a three-leg parlay of -110 sides paying +595, and one game gets postponed out of the betting window. The book doesn't kill the ticket, it removes the leg and reprices the remaining two legs as if that's what you'd bet all along, so your +595 ticket becomes a +264 two-leggers. Your stake didn't change; the ceiling did. This is also exactly what happens when a player prop leg voids because the player is inactive. The one scenario that feels unfair but is standard everywhere: a two-leg parlay where one leg voids simply becomes a straight bet at that leg's normal single-bet price.

What your league should do with weird endings

Decide before the season how pushes and voids are handled, most crews roll the week's wager forward like the bet never happened, which is also how LeagueLocks records a week where no money moved. The worst outcome isn't a push; it's a group chat argument about one.

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