With an attendance of 67,405 per game, the NFL is the world’s number one American football organization. It has the highest average attendance of all sports leagues worldwide.
Owing to its great popularity, a lot of money from bookmakers has gone towards creating interesting betting markets for American football fans. Find out which are the best places to bet on NFL games and how you can make some money by doing so.
The NFL, despite having the smallest size and influence among North American leagues like the NBA and MLB, enjoys an undisputed popularity status as the most watched sport in America.
The National Football League season is a regular season that lasts for seventeen weeks and involves thirty two teams competing for a place in the playoffs and eventually the super bowl.
The most prevalent sport globally is the Super Bowl. It is where the top National Football Conference (NFC) and American Football Conference (AFC) teams face each other for a show down.
When it comes to wagering on the National Football League, you have a number of options that may be as straightforward or as intricate. Some sportsbooks offer picks on point spreads and totals, while others concentrate on money lines, live betting props and futures.
This does not apply for football which does not have such a deep market. The reason behind this is that there are many more bets place in football.
All NFL decisions may be based on gambling to an extent. In order to prevent injuries, such as the ones in question from being insider information that can be sold to betters or bookies who are involved in NFL betting markets, for instance, league rules require that teams publish their injury reports to the public every week.
Talk of teams moving outside the USA has been accompanied by a rise in overseas games. This is done so that more fans can be included and also enables to put more potential wagers on stake, thus exploring outside North America will increase its popularity. The league will never say it directly but NFL betting is the main force behind this game and growth of NFL itself.
Not every NFL bet is accounted for as a huge fraction of it is run underground in the United States between players and illegitimate bookmakers. Still, based on what can be regarded as ‘legal’ activities over the internet and in Las Vegas, the game of football is very lively nowadays.
Having just seen another thrilling season and an amazing Super Bowl contested between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots, it is evident that football remains the most popular sport in America.
Each bookie that offers NFL bets provides point spreads and totals for every game. Here’s a sample of what one looks like:
Information on three different bets is contained in that board.
The first one is, the common goal difference is the most popular National Football League betting market. In such a case, Patriots are -2 and -120. It implies that in order for you to win your bet, Patriots have to win by three or more points and you risk $120 for every $100 won.
All bets are refunded in case New England wins by two at the end of the game. The game could be won by New York if they win it, lose it by a point or draw.
As for the second bet, it is a bet on the moneyline. With this type of betting you don’t need to think about the spread just choose one team that you believe will win. In case you decide to back New England expect higher risk in your stakes since they are considered as favorites.
Thus instead of paying $120 for each $100 that you wish to win, you place a wager of $145. If New England wins by any margin, the bet is won.
Now, the last column sums up to 54, in which case the over has an amount of $115 you will have to risk for a win of every $100. This bet is on the total number of points that will be scored by both teams. Should the combined score coincide with the quoted figure, all bets are void.
Places to bet on NFL games are plentiful because every other corner features a bookmaker. Many sportsbooks will accept the maximum stake of $1,000 on any kind of bet. Some bookies and gambling websites can accept huge bets. Bets amounting to over $100,000 are very common during Super Bowl with some Las Vegas bookmakers taking million dollar wagers or more.
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Predominantly, the reason for setting point spreads based on groupings of three or seven in American football is because that is how points are earned in the game. A team that is likely to control a game may be given an advantage of two touchdowns or fourteen points. It is common for a tight game to have a spread of three points. NFL betting spreads hardly ever come across as -8 or -5, which would imply that it is quite difficult for the game to finish at this winning margin.
Point spreads vary from a pick ‘em (no spread) to 21 points. There is the possibility for point spreads to go higher than this, although one almost never sees spreads that big in NFL play because there are hardly ever such lopsided matchups as would mandate wider spreads. For most games anticipated to be closely fought, the majority of the game’s spread will be less than ten points.
The sum varies from 35 to 60. This relies on the team in question, climates and pitches as well as how significant the game is. Playoffs are usually low scoring affairs where defenses step up their game while outdoor games before mid-January often have bad weather.
On average, there has been a slight increase in the totals as a result of recent changes in rules that have given much weight to passing game. These bets may still be affected by ongoing debates about kickoffs and other rules.
When you are placing a bet on the NFL, it is important to look for books that give you even money on point spreads. Check out some other bookies and see if your bookie has similar lines with others particularly when it comes to juice. If most sportsbooks have a line at -3 (-110) but yours displays -3 (-115) or -3 (-120), you may want to consider taking the underdog or finding another place to bet. Be careful of sportsbooks that always offer bad value on NFL bets.
Betting on spreads, moneylines, and totals for half-time, second half, or even individual quarters is available at many outlets. It’s a bettor’s paradise when you consider that each week can have as many as 16 games.
The live betting market has grown especially in the National Football League; henceforth, many nationally televised games feature live betting. Typically, live betting would only include spreads, moneylines and over/unders so far but there has been some innovative books offering props or other yes/no type of bets during live play.
Spread betting odds can vary greatly, especially following a major event like a ‘pick 6’ or fumble return for a touchdown. There is much risk in this high volatility of spreads but it may also be very beneficial.
NFL betting sites have different kinds of props. Many books have traditionally made available props for every regular season or playoff game and this has now extended to even pre-season games as well as the Pro Bowl. Prop bets were only associated with Super Bowl in old times, but that is no more the case following the advent of online betting.
In most cases, props are either ‘yes/no’ bets or ‘over/under’ bets. For example, you might see a bet on how many passing yards Eli Manning will have in a game, with the choice to bet that he will come in either over or under the stated total. Also, there is a possibility of betting on whether Eli Manning will throw an interception as yes or no option.
There are team props and individual player props.
For the Super Bowl, there usually is a little larger selection available – but then again, it’s the most important game of the year!!
Other props include wagers on the outcome of a coin toss, halftime show bets, television ratings related bets, wagers on commercials displayed during the game, betting on stock market action on the day following the game and even inter-sport wagers that could compare a player’s number of yards to a basketball team’s total points.
The imagination of the bookmaker is the only limit to what can be selected, and with every passing year, these betting websites become more imaginative.
The futures bets are wagers that are resolved sometime in the future – hence the name.
You can make these bets as far as a year or more in advance, or even two weeks after outcomes have been determined. Even before the NFL season commences there are regular season win totals and super bowl odds that are posted by various bookmakers with the knowledge that they will be settling almost a year later.
They have futures markets in division winners, conference championships and the Super Bowl on offer – usually long before these events. It is not difficult to locate a place for betting in next year’s Super Bowl and sometimes you can even bet on who will win championships two or more years from now.
Futures trading, sometimes charged more than normal juice when players do not know how to spot it. For instance, the Super Bowl’s odds on who wins will have all but one team with a line of at least +500 (5/1). The bookmaker has an edge over you despite those attractive odds but the arithmetic is more difficult.
The total number of teams involved in the NFL is 32, and if all the teams were bet on, one would be expected to lose almost everything because only one team eventually emerges as a Super Bowl winner. In principle, if every team was equal in terms of strength, ‘fair odds’ would be +3100 for each team. This implies zero juice and an equal likelihood for every team’s win. Nevertheless, some teams are stronger than others.
The odds will balance this out: The strongest sides can be pegged at values such as +500 or +600, while the weakest teams may offer around +10000 (or 100/1) and above. When we convert all teams’ odds into implied winning percentages and sum them up, we would have a figure greater than 100%, which gives the house an edge.
‘The trend is your friend’ just as in stock market investing. What this saying implies is that you should remain with what is functioning until it doesn’t. This could be an on the field alteration such as a backup QB coming in and playing well, or something less obvious – like whenever a team keeps covering the spread when they play in prime time. You can see this again and again throughout all sports not just football.
In the past season, there was one profitable NFL gambling trend. It involved placing wagers on the Cleveland Browns to avoid covering spreads.
The bookies knew the team were terrible – they would end the season without a win, so they offered nice odds to compensate for this.
However, the Browns’ efforts were in vain as they ended up losing to the spread 4-12. Thus, bettors who placed their bets against them and were assigned points irrespective of the numbers would be rewarded.
Just as rookies or backups that come in to be the starters, for instant, a new quarterback can make a big difference in a team’s chances. Look at the quarterback play and see how much of an impact can be had by one position either way, which can be positive or negative, on the whole game. If you pick up on these trends early enough you might be able to exploit markets that have not yet priced in those shifts.
American football is a sport that is celebrated and watched extensively in the United States. There are several occasions which are very important and attract a lot of attention in relation to betting in NLF during the season. If you intend to bet on NFL, it is worth noting some of these key events and competitions that happen every year.
The Super Bowl is the largest event of the year for NFL betting. Millions and millions of fans, as well as non-fans, decide to watch this game with their families or friends either to wager on it, just for fun or check out what advertisements the big companies put on air during TV broadcasts.
Almost anything you like can be wagered on – from who will obtain victory in the match to who will win a coin toss, and lots of other things. The most common types of NFL betting include point spread wagers, money line bets regarding the winner, over/under and first touchdown scorer (MVP).
This is the NFL All-Star game, which takes place annually on the weekend just before the Super Bowl. Because it’s largely for fun, several of the bets available will be novel and interesting to many bettors. However, it is not easy to bet on this game with confidence yet wise gamblers often find a few profitable Pro Bowl betting markets.
The NFL begins its main season in early September and ends it in early January. The 32 teams of the NFL each play 16 games within a span of 17 weeks. After the end of the regular season, 12 teams go to the playoffs. That is why during Super Bowl time betting interest usually rises peaking at the final game of this season.
Whether you want to bet on the latest games of the regular season, forecast which teams will make it to playoffs or put your money on a team to win the Super Bowl, you’ll find the greatest NFL odds at our top-ranked sports book.
