NFL First Quarter Parlays: The Tie Problem

An NFL first quarter parlay looks like a quick, clean way to bet favorites, but the tie quietly decides more of these tickets than any team does. From 2015 through 2025, the first quarter ended tied in 21.5 percent of regular-season games, and nearly half of those ties were 0-0. Favorites led after one quarter only 46.9 percent of the time. A two-leg ticket on close favorites both leading after the first quarter hit 19.4 percent of the time, a fair price of about +415. The Best Bet on Sports has built a verified $367,520+ in profit across all sportsbooks over more than twenty years by pricing the outcome bettors forget to count.

First quarter bets are popular for a simple reason. They settle fast. You do not have to sweat a fourth-quarter collapse or a backdoor cover, and the market feels like a pure read on which team comes out sharper.

The problem is that the first quarter is short. Fifteen minutes of game clock usually means two or three possessions per team, and that is not enough time for a better team to separate. One in five first quarters ends level. How your sportsbook treats that tie changes the math of every first quarter ticket you build.

This study measures how often each outcome actually happens.

How Was the Study Built?

We used the public nflverse play-by-play files, which log every play with the running score, and joined them to the nflverse game file for closing point spreads. The sample covers 2,891 regular-season games from 2015 through 2025, after dropping games that closed at a pick'em.

For each game, we took the score at the end of the first quarter and compared it to the closing favorite. Every game falls into one of three buckets: the favorite led, the game was tied, or the underdog led. We then grouped favorites by the size of the closing spread:

• 1 to 3 points (1,083 games)
• 3.5 to 6.5 points (988 games)
• 7 to 9.5 points (465 games)
• 10 points or more (355 games)

Fair prices in this post are the American odds that match the measured hit rate with no sportsbook margin. Real quotes will be shorter.

How Often Does the NFL First Quarter End in a Tie?

More often than almost any bettor guesses. Across all 2,891 games, the first quarter ended tied 21.5 percent of the time, with a bootstrap range of roughly 20.0 to 23.1 percent.

A 0-0 first quarter happened in almost one game out of ten. That alone is a fair price of about +936 on a scoreless quarter, and it is the single most common way a first quarter tie happens.

The total points scored in the first quarter cluster tightly too. The average was 8.85 points. Seven points was the most common first quarter total at 21.0 percent of games, followed by 10 points at 15.9 percent and 3 points at 14.2 percent. Just over half of all first quarters (52.2 percent) finished with 7 or fewer total points.

Ties barely moved with the game total. Games with a closing total of 41.5 or lower ended the first quarter tied 21.9 percent of the time. Games with a total of 50 or more did it 20.8 percent of the time. What changed was the type of tie: low-total games went scoreless after one quarter 12.9 percent of the time, while high-total games did it only 7.0 percent of the time.

How Often Do Favorites Lead After the First Quarter?

Here is the full first quarter picture by spread, as a share of all games in each band.

Look at the 7-to-9.5 row. A touchdown favorite, a team the market expects to win by more than a score, led after the first quarter less than half the time. Even double-digit favorites led only 56.6 percent of the time.

The tie column is the reason. It stays near 21 percent in every band. A bigger spread pulls probability away from the underdog-leads column, but it barely touches the tie.

Does It Matter Whether the Tie Is a Push or a Loss?

It matters enormously, and books handle it differently. On a three-way first quarter market, the tie is its own outcome, so a tie loses your favorite bet. On a two-way first quarter moneyline at many books, a tie is a push and your stake comes back. Some books also offer a first quarter spread of -0.5, which is the three-way bet in a different format: the tie loses.

Here is the same favorite lead rate measured both ways.

These are two genuinely different bets. A 5-point favorite to lead after the first quarter is close to a coin flip at plus money if the tie loses, and a solid -150 favorite if the tie pushes. Before you compare any first quarter price to these numbers, read the market rules on your bet slip. Our guide to how sportsbook settlement rules work covers how the same-named leg can grade differently from book to book.

What Happens When You Parlay Two First Quarter Favorites?

To test parlays without cherry-picking, we built every two-game combination from the same season and week, with both favorites in the same spread band. That is how these tickets are actually built: two games on the same Sunday slate.

The legs behaved close to independently. Squaring the single-leg rate for 1-to-3-point favorites (43.49 percent) gives 18.9 percent, and the real pair rate was 19.4 percent. That means each leg's sportsbook margin multiplies across the ticket rather than washing out.

On a two-way ticket where ties push, the same 1-to-3-point pairs graded like this: 57.6 percent lost outright because at least one underdog led, 5.4 percent pushed completely because both quarters were tied, and 37.0 percent won, many of them as a reduced one-leg ticket after one tie. A reduced ticket is not a loss, but it is not the payout you sized the bet for either.

There is also the reverse ticket. Some bettors parlay first quarter ties for the price. Two first quarter ties in the same week hit 4.73 percent of the time across 20,426 same-week pairs, a fair price of about +2012.

Is the First Quarter Leader Likely to Win the Game?

Less than the halftime leader. Across all games with a first quarter leader, that team went on to win 69.6 percent of the time. Teams leading by 7 or more after one quarter won 74.7 percent of the time, and teams leading by 1 to 6 won 63.5 percent.

For comparison, our study of leading at halftime and winning found the halftime leader won 77.8 percent of the time. The first quarter simply carries less information. That is why a "lead after Q1 and win" ticket on a favorite is so expensive relative to what it adds:

Read the last two columns. A 7-to-9.5-point favorite tied after one quarter still won almost 80 percent of the time, and one trailing after the first quarter still won 57 percent. A slow first quarter tells you very little about a good team.

Did the Pattern Change Over Time?

Slightly. First quarter ties fell from 22.4 percent of games in 2015 through 2019 to 20.8 percent in 2020 through 2025, and 0-0 quarters fell from 10.8 percent to 8.7 percent. Average first quarter scoring barely moved, from 8.88 points to 8.82. The favorite lead rate held steady at about 47 percent in both eras.

Through the 2026 games played so far, running through the Week 7 Thursday game, the first quarter ended tied in 22 of 94 games (23.4 percent), with 10 of those at 0-0. Favorites led after one quarter in 43 games. That sample is too small to suggest anything has changed.

Why Do First Quarter Parlays Feel Better Than They Are?

Three habits drive the gap between the feel and the math.

• Forgetting the third outcome. Most bettors think of a first quarter bet as "my team or theirs." One in five times, it is neither.
• Scaling the spread down. A 7-point favorite is not a 1.75-point first quarter favorite in any useful sense. Scoring comes in chunks of 3 and 7, and the first quarter has too few possessions to smooth them out.
• Overrating the opening script. Teams do script opening drives, and the market knows it. The closing number already includes everyone's view of who starts fast.

To be clear about that callout: this study uses quarter-end scores and closing spreads only. It contains no in-game prices, so it cannot show that live markets are mispriced. The case for working inside the game is a structural argument, not a finding from these 2,891 games.

How Should You Bet First Quarter Favorites?

1. Check the tie rule first. A two-way first quarter moneyline and a first quarter -0.5 spread are different bets. Compare your quote to the right column in the table above. 2. Single legs beat parlays. Two close favorites both leading after one quarter is about a +415 ticket on the historical record. Any sportsbook margin on each leg compounds. 3. Be careful with low totals. Scoreless first quarters were nearly twice as common in games totaled at 41.5 or lower as in games totaled at 50 or more. 4. Do not overreact to a slow start. Good favorites tied or trailing after the first quarter still won at high rates.

For related tests of two-condition bets, see our study of scoring first and winning and our NFL winning margin parlay breakdown. Our 2-team parlay payout calculator shows how fast per-leg margins eat a two-leg return.

Why Does This Matter If You Buy Football Picks?

Because a service selling first quarter parlays should be able to tell you how it handles the tie. If the answer is a shrug, the picks are built on the feel, not the price.

The best football handicappers can explain exactly which market they are betting and why. If you are comparing football betting picks or deciding whether to buy sports picks at all, ask for that level of detail. For full-game sides, our NFL picks against the spread and weekly NFL picks show the same price-first approach. With the NBA season underway, our basketball handicappers apply it to the first quarter markets on the hardwood, where ties are rare and pace is the bigger question.

What Are the Limits of This Study?

• No real first quarter prices. There is no public history of offered first quarter odds, so this study compares outcomes to fair prices only.
• Rules vary by book. Tie handling and overtime rules for quarter markets differ. Always read the market rules.
• Closing spreads only. Favorites were defined by the closing line. Early bets at a different number carry different probabilities.
• Regular season only. Playoff games were excluded.
• Small 2026 sample. Current-season counts are context, not evidence of change.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How often does the first quarter end in a tie in the NFL?

From 2015 through 2025, the first quarter ended tied in 21.52 percent of regular-season games, or roughly one game in five. A 0-0 first quarter accounted for 9.65 percent of all games, a 7-7 tie for 7.40 percent, and a 3-3 tie for 4.05 percent. The tie rate stayed near 21 percent whether the spread was small or large.

How often do NFL favorites lead after the first quarter?

Favorites led after one quarter in 46.94 percent of games from 2015 through 2025. The rate was 43.49 percent for 1-to-3-point favorites, 46.56 percent for 3.5-to-6.5-point favorites, 48.39 percent for 7-to-9.5-point favorites, and 56.62 percent for favorites of 10 or more. The roughly 21 percent tie rate is why the number stays below half for most favorites.

Is a first quarter tie a push or a loss?

It depends on the market. On a three-way first quarter market or a first quarter -0.5 spread, a tie loses your bet on either team. On a two-way first quarter moneyline at many books, a tie is a push and the stake is returned. Read the market rules on your bet slip, because the fair price for the same favorite changes from about +130 to about -123 depending on the rule.

What does a two-leg first quarter parlay pay fairly?

Two same-week favorites of 1 to 3 points both leading after the first quarter hit 19.42 percent of the time, a fair price of about +415. Two 3.5-to-6.5-point favorites hit 21.08 percent, about +374. The legs behaved close to independently, so the sportsbook's margin on each leg multiplies across the ticket.

Does the team leading after the first quarter usually win?

Usually, but less often than people assume. The first quarter leader won 69.6 percent of NFL games from 2015 through 2025, compared with 77.8 percent for the halftime leader in our separate halftime study. Teams leading by 7 or more after one quarter won 74.7 percent of the time, while teams leading by 1 to 6 won 63.5 percent.

How often is the first quarter scoreless?

A 0-0 first quarter happened in 9.65 percent of games from 2015 through 2025. It was much more common in low-total games: 12.92 percent of games with a closing total of 41.5 or less, compared with 7.00 percent of games totaled at 50 or more. Scoreless quarters fell slightly from 10.8 percent in 2015-2019 to 8.7 percent in 2020-2025.

Are first quarter bets better as live bets?

Pregame first quarter prices are set before anyone sees the opening drives. Once those drives are played, injuries, play-calling and field position give information the pregame number never had, and live prices update quickly. This study measures outcomes and closing spreads only, not live prices, so it cannot prove a live edge, but it shows how little the first quarter result alone tells you about the final score.