Win More Using Our Complete Football Betting Guide

How to Bet on Football for Beginners

One of the first tips for betting on football is to select an online sportsbook with the largest variety of choices. You’ll want one that has odds on all the football games, from NFL and XFL to the NCAAF divisions and conferences.

Whichever online sportsbook you choose should be easy to navigate, give you selectable odds (American, decimal, or fractional), and provide you with additional information that can help you make an informed decision about a particular game. For instance, at BetOnline, you can navigate to the site’s odds on NFL games with a few clicks, or you can simply scroll to the bottom of the sportsbook home page and click on the link for “NFL Football.”

Until you’re feeling more confident and knowledgeable about the team you’re betting on, stick to the simple moneyline wager. This is a bet on which team will win the game. Clicking on the moneyline bet for your chosen team will open a betting ticket window where you can enter the amount of your wager. Once you’re satisfied with your wager, simply click the “Place Bet” button to, um, place your bet. Yeah, it really is that simple.

If there are other NFL games you’d like to bet on, simply scroll down through the available games and repeat the above process. The sportsbook will keep track of all your wagers.

Understanding Football Betting Odds

Most futures odds for football games default to the American odds format (also called moneyline odds). For example, say the moneyline odds for a Cincinnati Bengals v. Atlanta Falcons game has the Bengals at +210 and the Falcons at -250. This means a winning $100 bet on the Bengals would net you $210, while winning the $250 Falcons bet nets you $100.

Just in case you prefer your odds in other formats, here’s an underdog/favorite spot-check:

• American Odds: a number preceded by a minus (-250) is the favorite, a number preceded by a plus (+210) is the underdog.
• Decimal Odds: 2.1 is even money. Anything over 2 designates the underdog, a number less than 2 is the favorite.
• Fractional Odds: The favorite has odds where the denominator is larger than the numerator, such as 2/5. The underdog is reversed, with a numerator larger than the denominator, such as 21/10.

Types of Football Betting Wagers

Any good NFL betting advice should stress the importance of understanding that while moneyline wagers are the most common in football, they are not the most profitable, nor are they the most popular. Let’s take all the ways you can wager on a football game.

Moneyline

If you’re unfamiliar with how to place a bet on football, the moneyline bet is the place to start. Moneyline bets are simple wagers that a particular team is going to win a game. These wagers become available within a week or two of the game itself, so they are usually placed in advance. The odds are fixed at the time of the wager; while moneyline bets are available for live betting, the odds can change dramatically.

Also, always bear in mind that the sportsbook has a built-in house edge on all bets you place, so you need to take into consideration this edge when you calculate which wagers are worth placing.

Point Spread

Also called the line, the spread is one of the most popular types of football betting. The spread is the bookmaker’s way of balancing the amount of betting action both teams receive. You can bet the spread for either the favorite or the underdog. Betting a spread of -3.5 on the favorite requires a final score of at least 4 points more than the underdog. Betting an underdog spread of +3.5 requires the underdog to either win or finish the game two or fewer points short of the favorite’s score.

Totals

These are wagers on whether the total score (the sum of the scores of both winning and losing team) will be over or under what the bookmaker predicts. At an online sportsbook, you usually find this type of bet in the Total column, usually identified with a simple “o” or “u” and a negative number signifying the juice you pay on the bet (-110 is most frequent, meaning you’ll bet $110 to win $100).

Parlays

The parlay is another of the more popular football betting types. If you’ve ever bet the daily double at the racetrack, you’ve already got experience betting a parlay. This is simply a wager on a combination of two or more games or contests. The more complex the parlay becomes, the less likely it is to win—and the bigger the payout if it does. All wagers in a parlay must win for the parlay to win.

Prop Bets

Proposition bets are wagers that don’t concern the winning or losing of the game. For instance, at the time of this writing, BetOnline is taking bets on what the next name of the Washington NFL franchise will be.

Prop bets vary from sportsbook to sportsbook. Many will be long-range, such as if the Arizona Cardinals will make the playoffs. Others are literally coin-flip wagers, like which team will win the coin toss to receive. As much fun as these wagers can be, if they are simple 50-50 bets, it’s best not to indulge.

Teasers

Most sportsbooks offer teaser wagers, a type of parlay that allows you make it easier for teams to cover the spread by reducing it while accepting lower odds on the win. Usually between two and six games can be included in the teaser, but some books allow up to 10-game teasers. The modified spread needs to be covered on all games for the teaser to win.

Pleasers

Not as commonly found as the teaser bet, pleasers are the exact opposite of teasers (because of course they are). The pleaser bet increases the spread, thus lowering your chances of winning but increasing the payout accordingly.

For instance, if the modified spread on Atlanta to win over Cincinnati is -14, then the Falcons will need to win the game by 15 points—and all the other picks on your pleaser parlay will need to cover their individual spreads, as well.

Which Football Leagues Can You Bet On?

The best NFL sportsbooks are those that offer the most wagering options on NFL games. Super Bowls come round but once a year, and most football fans don’t find a single bet every 12 months satiating. This means that your sportsbook should feature football games played at all levels and in all divisions.

Some states prohibit wagering on collegiate football game that involve in-state teams, but placing your collegiate football bets with online sportsbooks like BetUS eliminates this problem.

• NFL — National Football League
• NCAAF — National Collegiate Athletics Association, Football
• XFL — eXtreme Football League
• USFL — United States Football League

How to Use Football Betting Apps

The best football betting sites know that sports bettors are everywhere, not just where they can easily access their PC or laptop to check the prices on various match-ups. It used to be common that each sportsbook had a proprietary application that needed to be downloaded and opened each time a punter wanted to check or place a bet.

That ended, for the most part, with the advent of HTML5, which obviated the need for a proprietary football betting app. These days, the word “app” is mostly used to describe what are actually interactive web pages that evaluate your platform and display info accordingly. This allows punters to place a bet from their desktop, convert that bet to a four-game parlay on their iPad, then check the results on their Android device.

The best betting app for football is EveryGame. Accessed in your mobile browser, the site is undaunted by the limitations of a smartphone. It easily displays, for instance, a list of upcoming NFL games, then builds your spread wagers into a selectable slate of single wagers, parlays, and teaser bets. It’s almost as if the site could read your mind!

Is Betting on Football Legal in the US?

Of course it is. Which is good, because sportsbooks took bets totalling nearly $100 billion in 2022. But that’s not the whole story.

The laws governing sportsbooks are not identical from state to state, and the US is actually a mosaic of sportsbook-neutral states, sportsbook-friendly states, and states that will jail you for betting your sister that you can outrun her. That sounds draconian, but it’s not far from the truth.

Nine states prohibit sportsbooks entirely. Another 13 states prohibit wagering on games played by in-state college teams. If you want to bet on the Washington Huskies-Oregon Ducks game, an offshore sportsbook is your only real choice.

Worse, nearly half of all states (21) have prohibitions on prop bets on collegiate games.

Of the 34 states that do allow retail sportsbooks to operate, 10 only permit local online wagering via a proprietary app that requires you to be on premises of the gambling institution processing the bet (usually a tribal casino).

Very few states, however, regulate offshore sportsbooks, effectively rendering NFL betting online legal in most venues. And while there are plenty of US sports betting sites, you’ll want to check your own state’s specific laws on gambling and on sports betting in particular.

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Football Betting Tips and Strategy for Beginners

Predicting the future is not an exact science. That said, it doesn’t have to be a complete guessing game, either. There are tips and tricks to correctly prognosticating future outcomes with some degree of regularity.

That holds true with sports bets in general, and with NFL football bets in particular.

Here is some good football betting advice to help you develop your skills and become a successful football bettor.

Familiarity with the Game

Nobody is born knowing everything about football. Okay, maybe Ryan Fitzpatrick, but nobody else. In any case, it’s not necessary to know everything about football, because there are already plenty of people out there who know quite a bit, and are willing to share that knowledge with you, even to the point of providing you with sound NFL betting advice. Most of the top online sportsbooks have written how-to guides on the various types of football bets, and many, like Bovada, have an entire series of articles covering each type of wager, from props and teasers to round robins and buying points.

Until you’ve acquired your own skills at handicapping football games, use these experts. They’ll help you choose more likely wagers, and you’ll see more success—and faster—than you might have otherwise. As you become more familiar with the game and the teams, you can start making your own predictions.

Choose Your Bets Wisely

One of the best football betting tips is to understand the difference between rationalizing your wagers and justifying them. Before you place a bet, be able to justify why—with numbers and facts—your wager is likely to be successful. The better you get at this process, the more often your wagers will result in wins.

And don’t rationalize your losses. Instead, study the match-up and all of the factors that led to the failure of your wager. The more you know about why you lost, the less likely you are to lose in the future.

Lastly, don’t chase. Oddly enough, both winning and losing can contribute to chasing. The gambler losing money will often keep betting until the inevitable big win occurs, but the winning punter is just as likely to keep betting. Why? He’s on a roll! Gotta make hay while the sun shines, my friend. Get it while the getting’s good.

In both cases, of course, winning is not inevitable. In fact, winning streaks end abruptly. And losing streaks all too often end only because the gambler runs out of money.

So choose your bets wisely, knowing exactly why you have risked your money on this particular outcome.

Until you have educated yourself about a particular type of wager, the best NFL betting advice is this: place moneyline bets. Incidentally, unlike other sports, football does have some important numbers to take into consideration. Those numbers are three and seven—the scores associated with field goals and with converted touchdowns. Three points account for about 15% of all NFL wins.

Line Shopping

Once you’ve decided which team to bet on, the next step is to find that bet at the best price. This is called line shopping, and it’s a very good way to improve the profitability of your wagers.

All sportsbooks employ bookmakers who arrive at the odds on each game using their own proprietary formulas and algorithms. Each bookmaker has a different way of dealing with the various statistics involved. For instance, one might give more weight to fumbles recovered than other bookmakers do, and this difference slightly alters the odds given in a particular match-up.

If you’ve decided you want to bet the Baltimore Ravens in an upcoming game, which of these sportsbooks would you use to place your bet?

• Bovada: Ravens -135
• SportsBetting: Ravens -133
• MyBookie: Ravens -125
• Everygame: Ravens -130

Since we know a negative number means the amount we’ll need to wager to win $100, the best price above is at SportBetting. Naturally, no single sportsbook is going to offer the best price on all games, so shop around. Even if the difference is minor, these small advantages add up over time, and can mean the difference between breaking even and enjoying a profit.

Handicap Betting

Betting the spread is one of the most popular wagers in team sports, not only in NFL and collegiate football, but also baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer. Not only that, but parlays and teasers can turn small advantages into significant wins. Typically, the spread is six points between the two teams, but it can be less, and it can be more.

For instance, the spread on the Ravens vs. Commanders might be Ravens -1.5, Commanders +1.5—a three-point spread. To win a spread betting the favorite, the Ravens must win by a margin of four, while the Commanders must either win or not lose by three points. If the Ravens win with exactly a three-point spread, the bet is a push. One more thing: spread betting can involve more than just the final scores. It can also be on touchdowns, or other components to the score.

Additional Resources for Football Betting

We’ve just touched on the many components to wagering on football, but understanding each one takes more than a couple of paragraphs to explain completely. Many of them require some real skull sweat to work profitably.

Now that you you’re familiar with the cornucopia of wagers you can place on NFL football games, it’s time to focus on the ones you find interesting and potentially the most profitable.

To that end, we’ve put together a number of excellent guides to these. Here are a few of the best to get you started:

Sources

1. “Can I Bet on College Sports Where I Live?” Gaming Today
2. “What is an underdog in sports betting” The Athletic
3. “Point Spread definition, Examples” Action Network
4. “What is a Total or Over/Under Bet?” The Spread
5. “Teaser Bet” Investopedia
6. “US Sportsbooks Post Record Revenue” Sports Pro Media
7. “Interactive Map: US Sports Betting” American Gaming
8. “Key Numbers in Sports Betting” WSN

J.W. Paine

J.W. Paine is one of the most experienced writers at GamblingSites.com. He’s written for television and the printed media, and is a published novelist (as Tom Elliott).

Paine loves writing about Las Vegas nearly as much he loves living here. An experienced gambler, he’s especially familiar with thoroughbred horseracing, poker, blackjack, and slots.

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