Football Bets

Making football bets can be fun, and it can be easy if you know what you are doing.  Let’s take a look at the different ways that you can bet on football, plus some tips for beginners on how to get started making winning football picks.

Betting the Point Spread – The point spread is the most common way to bet on football, and also one of the easiest to understand.  Basically, the football odds maker sets a line based on what they think will be the most likely outcome of the game.  One team is favored, represented by a negative number, and one team is the underdog, represented by a positive number.  An example of a football point spread might look like:

Ohio State -10
Michigan +10

This line shows that Ohio State is favored by 10 points, which means they must win the game by more than 10 points to cover the spread.  On the other hand, Michigan is a 10 point underdog and will need to either win the game outright, or lose the game by 9 or less points to cover their spread.

Betting the Money Line - The money line is similar to the spread in that the favorite is represented by a negative number while the underdog is represented by a positive number.  In this case you would get something like:

Patriots +155
Steelers -145

With money lines you are simply picking who will win the game outright at increased or decreased odds depending on who you take.  For example, a $100 bet on the Patriots would win you $155 because they are the underdog, where, if you bet on the Steelers, you would need to wager $145 to win $100 because they are favored to win the game.

Betting the Total - Put simply, betting the total is betting on the total number of points scored by both teams in a game.  The odds makers set a line and you choose whether the actual number of points scored will be more or less than that number.  These bets are also called Under/Over bets for obvious reasons.

Betting Parlays - Parlaying your football bets means that you are betting that all of your bets in the parlay will win.  For example, say you choose 3 bets that you like and put them in a parlay.  You would have to go 3-0 for the parlay to be a winning bet, while a 2-1 or 1-2 record on the day would mean your entire bet was a losing one.  Parlays pay better than regular bets, but that is because they are much less likely to hit than straight bets like totals, point spread, and money lines.

Betting Teasers- Teasers are basically parlays where the sportsbook allows you to buy points on all of the games you are betting.  The payout is reduced, but you also increase your chances of winning by buying points against the spread.

Now that you have a basic understand of placing football bets, you should be ready to get signed up with a football betting book and start making your own picks.  If you aren’t yet comfortable making your own selections on games, never fear!  We provide expert football picks from absolutely the best collection of handicappers in the industry.  Their picks provide you with free football betting advice each and every week to help you win and help you learn how to find winners on your own!

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