How to Bet the NFL

June 7, 2010

If you’ve never done any NFL betting before, it’s easy to see how it can be confusing.  There are so many numbers and unfamiliar terms being thrown out that it’s easy for those of us within the industry to forget that there are tons of people out there that aren’t familiar with NFL odds and wagering.

What’s the point spread? NFL games are decided simply by who wins or loses, but betting works slightly differently.  The NFL sportsbook or bookie sets a line or point spread on the game based on many factors.  What they’ll do is make one team the favorite and one team the underdog.  Favorites will always be represented as a negative number (e.g. -3), while the underdog will be the positive number (e.g. +3).  What does that mean?  For favorites this means they must not only win the game, but they must win the game by more than 3 points to cover the point spread.  Underdogs, on the other hand, can either win the game outright or lose by less than 3 points to cover their spread.

Point spread betting is the easiest and most common way to get started.  There are certainly other types of wagers you can choose from, but instead of covering all of those, let’s focus on some NFL betting tips that you can use to learn how to bet on the NFL.

1.  Line Shopping: It’s very important that you have more than one option to place your wagers.  In the NFL a half point can be the difference between a win and a loss, so be sure to hold accounts with multiple books so that you can bet sure you are getting the best NFL lines.

2.  Ignore Last Week’s Scoreboard: Don’t put too much stock into last week’s scoreboard.  Turnovers in the NFL are huge (and largely unpredictable) when it comes to the final score.  Focus on how the teams moved the ball or stopped the other team from moving the ball.  Because all NFL teams (even the ones with really bad records) are still packed with very talented football players, you should look at each game as an individual contest and not put too much stock into how many points were scored/given up the previous week.

3.  Injuries: Don’t just pay attention to injuries, but focus on how good/how much experience an injured player’s back up is.  This applies to all positions, not just skill positions, which are the ones that make all of the headlines.

Hopefully that gives you an idea of how to bet the NFL.  If you are looking for free football picks from the top handicappers in the industry, we’ve got you covered.  No other site gives you a better selection of NFL predictions.

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Posted by Steve Janus · Filed Under Football Betting 

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