NFL Betting Systems: The Definitive Guide to the Top Strategies
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How big is the football betting market?
NFL Betting Strategy: How To Bet on Football Games And Win. NFL betting can be described in many ways. It’s a hobby, a passion, a profit opportunity, or just plain old fun. But the lure of the sportsbook is about much more than predicting which team will win the game on Thursday or Monday night. The NFL moneyline is typically listed based on the bet required to win $100 if betting on the favorite vs. The potential win for a bet of $100 placed on the underdog. In addition to current records and which team is at home, the starting quarter back typically has a big impact on NFL moneylines.
Moneyline betting is an equally common form of sports betting as spread bets. The difference is that with moneylines, bookmakers will set lines representing the favorite and the underdog. Let’s go back to this Chiefs-Steelers matchup. Let’s say the Chiefs have a favored line of -150 and the Steelers have an underdog line of +125. Here’s How the Moneyline Works in Sports Betting. Although the point spread tends to be favored by sports handicappers when it comes to NFL betting, there are sites that will offer both point spread and moneyline wagers. With the moneyline, you wager on one of two teams and whichever team wins outright is the one that pays off.
Forget baseball.
America’s favorite pastime is football.
The proof is in the pudding. And the Vegas sportsbooks. Football is by far the most bet on sport in the United States. To be specific, the Super Bowl.
This past year alone, the American Gaming Association estimated bettors to have wagered upwards of $4.7 billion dollars on the nation’s most-watched sporting event.
Despite an ongoing federal ban on sports betting outside Nevada (and sparingly in certain other states), the majority of that money comes from illegal bets placed outside of the Sagebrush State.
That’s right.
Only $132M of that $4.7B is considered legal.
And yet, betting for the sport continues to increase with each passing year. According to Jimmy Vaccaro, a prominent Las Vegas bookmaker, Americans wager upwards of $50 billion a year on NFL and college football combined.
That being said, the majority of bettors fail to turn a profit.
According to Dan Gordon, a top football handicapper and author of Beat the Sports Books(Cardoza Publishing 2005), throughout an entire NFL season, “fewer than one bettor in twelve turns a profit. Over the course of several seasons, the percentage of bettors who turn a profit is minuscule.”
Why do most NFL betting systems fail?
Well a standard bet requires bettors to wage $11 for every $10 they want to win. The extra $1 is called the juice.
Were it not for the juice, things might be different.
The average bettor might have a chance at real success. But as it stands, the odds and the money favor the bookmakers. A sports bettor has to select 52.4 percent winners simply to break even. But each year, the average Joe wins only 50 percent of the bets they make.
Treat NFL betting for what it is — a sophisticated network of constantly changing data points pouring through equally sophisticated predictive algorithms —
So it’s an uphill battle for most bettors dipping their toes in the waters of sports gambling.
The trick is to take things seriously.
Treat betting for what it is — a sophisticated network of constantly changing data points pouring through equally sophisticated predictive algorithms — and you might just have a chance at going from square to sharp.
But don’t be overwhelmed.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re a serious bettor looking to make some well-informed decisions to take your football betting to another level.
Before we get into the fundamentals of NFL betting, let’s first take a look at the basics of our very own predictive wager system.
Our Betting Methodology and System
The Simulator is built based on a predictive model created by a doctor with an extensive background in mathematics, psychology, and operations research.
This individual has worked with multiple professional and collegiate sports organizations, player agents, sports data agencies and a top-ranked fantasy website. His work with professional sports organizations includes optimizing scout travel, in-depth player analysis and lineup configurations.
Correctly predict the winning team 74.33 percent of the time (on average) as compared to the experts who were correct 68.67 percent of the time
Among his greatest innovations was the discovery of neural networks as a powerful tool for sports betting.
A neural network is defined as a computer system modeled on the human brain and nervous system.
Using this technology, the good doctor found that, “the best networks were able to correctly predict the winning team 74.33 percent of the time (on average) as compared to the experts who were correct 68.67 percent of the time.”
While the model was initially developed around NBA betting, it has since been applied to other sports — chief among them, the NFL.
What makes the Sports Analytics Simulator unique is that it relies not on data inputs (statistics) from previous seasons, but on continuous game-to-game updates.
The Simulator’s specific algorithms run through up to forty different stat categories to create the most efficient model possible.
From this model, we derive our picks for each game. And the best part is, our system is a living, breathing predictive model — it possesses machine learning capacities that allow to detect trends and potentials that we mere humans could only dream of finding.
For more information, check out this handy dandy video on how it works.
NFL Betting Systems
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about the fundamentals of NFL Betting. Essentially there are six different ways to bet on the NFL. Let’s run through them shall we?
NFL Spread Bet
The first and most popular form of NFL betting is spread-based. Which is pretty straightforward.
Bookmakers set a spread with a favorite and an underdog. In order for you to win on a bet of this nature, one team must cover the spread — so if the spread is -7 in favor of the Chiefs over the Steelers, the Chiefs must win by seven points or more.
Whereas in order for the Steelers to cover the spread, they must either lose by less than seven points, or win. To make it simpler, the spread gives the underdog a ‘head start’.
In this case, the Steelers have a +7 head start in points to kick off the game. Pretty straightforward stuff.
Now, if you simply want to bet on the winner of the game you’ll want to place a…
Moneyline Bet
Moneyline betting is an equally common form of sports betting as spread bets. The difference is that with moneylines, bookmakers will set lines representing the favorite and the underdog.
Let’s go back to this Chiefs-Steelers matchup.
Let’s say the Chiefs have a favored line of -150 and the Steelers have an underdog line of +125.
What this means is that in order to win a hundred dollars on the Chiefs, you must wage $150.
As for the underdogs, if you wage $100 you will win $125. So that’s that.
NFL Totals Bet
NFL totals betting is rather self-exploratory. Also known as over/under, this form of betting involves placing a wager on the total number of points scored by both teams combined in a game.
Let’s say bookmakers set an over/under of 55 points for the Chiefs and Steelers.
Your job as a bettor is to decide whether the score will be… over or under 55 points.
NFL Prop Bet
A prop bet is a special kind of bet that has nothing to do with the outcome or final score of a game.
Prop bets come in many different forms.
Some of them are player-based — how many yards or touchdowns a specific player scores. Some of them are based in live betting, i.e. if a team scores on a specific drive.
During the Super Bowl you’ll see all sorts of fun prop bets like coin toss wagers.
NFL Parlay Bet
You might have seen a parlay bet featured in the film, Silver Linings Playbook, (or read it in the book), wherein Pat Solitano’s father, Patrizio Sr., places a bet on the Eagles-Cowboys game and the judge outcome of Pat and Tiffany’s dance number in a local dance-off.
In order for Patrizio to win the bet, the Eagles must win their game against Dallas and Tiffany and Pat score 5 out of 10 in their dance competition.
This is what’s known as a parlay bet, wherein various games and outcomes are rubber-banded together into one single bet.
In order for the bettor to win the wager, all outcomes must unfold accordingly. This might involve a handful of other bets such as a totals bet and a moneyline bet.
In the NFL, this is a common form of betting to get more bang for your buck.
Moneyline Betting Chart
NFL Teaser Bet
A teaser bet is a form of parlay that involves a combination of two to ten NFL wagers in which you adjust the point spreads and/or totals in your favor in exchange for a lower payout.
When your teaser includes a point spread, you have the option to decrease the spread for the favorite or increase the spread for the underdog.
When you’re teasing a total, you can increase the under or decrease the over.
Like a parlay, winning the bet is dependent on all of the wagers winning.
Standard teasers are 6, 6.5 and 7-point. There’s also a sweetheart teaser, which offers you the choice to tease a line by 10 or 13 points.
It’s basically a parlay with a little bit of zazz.
The Most Important NFL Betting Stats
Now, knowing the forms of NFL betting is great but without the statistics to back up your wager, you’re S.O.L.
So what are the most important stats for successfully determining winners in an NFL game?
Well, it might not be what you think.
According to a prominent Vegas oddsmaker, one of the most integral statistics for betting the NFL is… duh duh duh dahhh… pass yards per attempt.
Teams that are successful and efficient in their passing game tend to carry the edge over their less successful opponents
In a passer’s league this makes a lot of sense.
Teams that are successful and efficient in their passing game tend to carry the edge over their less successful opponents. Taking this little known or acknowledged stat into account in your handicapping will no doubt help you find success in your waging.
The other big stat to consider in placing your bets is turnovers.
Seems pretty simple.
The team who averages more turnovers per game is likely to give up more scoring opportunities and thus the whole game.
As we’ve said, the Sports Analytics Simulator utilizes up-to-date, real time game-to-game statistics to establish the most accurate predictions week in and week out. So it goes without saying that our model analyzes far more than just turnovers and passing yards per attempt.
Nonetheless, betting in any case involves a level of intuition. Therefore, even if you subscribe to the Simulator, it would behoove you to do your own research. Check out important stats. Take your time with each pick. Choose wisely based on time-tested methods and patterns.
Factors for NFL picks?
Aside from the aforementioned factors, you’ve got to consider other dynamics. For instance, what is the most pivotal quality of any team in the NFL?
I’ll give you a hint. It’s not a good quarterback. Teams with good quarterbacks flounder all the time in the NFL.
If an O-Line is good, the quarterback and running back will look good too. And you better bet your bottom dollar that an NFL team with a solid O-Line is far more likely to go the distance than a team with big holes and weaknesses in their front five
What really matters is the team’s offensive line.
Think the 2016-17 Dallas Cowboys. Sure, they failed to win a Super Bowl with a rookie quarterback and running back. But the majority of their success last season was owed directly to the strength of their offensive line.
If an O-Line is good, the quarterback and running back will look good too. And you better bet your bottom dollar that an NFL team with a solid O-Line is far more likely to go the distance than a team with big holes and weaknesses in their front five.
In order to successfully bet the NFL, you’ve got to consider these more understated and under-appreciated factors — such as a strong O-Line.
You’ve got to take it game by game and know that in this league, fortunes shift in an instant. There’s no perfect formula for effective betting.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t resources and numbers at your disposal to help you get the edge on oddsmakers.
With that said, let’s explore some of the biggest mistakes that squares (amateur bettors) often make when betting on the NFL.
Biggest mistakes with NFL betting
Money Management
The biggest mistake is money management.
If you have a $1,000 bankroll for the season, you should generally bet no more than $50 a game.
This seems pretty obvious but you’d be surprised (or maybe not) at the trouble amateur bettors have with this one.
It’s simple.
Don’t bet what you can’t afford to lose.
That means knowing what your bankroll is for a given season and being disciplined with your money. “Most people with an understanding of football gambling bet between 3 percent and 5 percent of their bankroll, increasing when they win and reducing when they lose,” says Jimmy Vaccaro. “If you have a $1,000 bankroll for the season, you should generally bet no more than $50 a game.”
Shop the Numbers
Another big mistake amateurs make is that they don’t account for a variety of numbers.
No sportsbook is exactly the same as another.
Lines, differentials, totals, spreads will all look different depending on where you look. In the NFL, you might not think that .5 points is a significant. But you’d be wrong. So shop the numbers.
Don’t say yes to the first line you see.
Shopping the numbers will give you a better idea of potential outcomes and allow you to make a well-rounded decision on your bets.
What else? Well, let’s start with something basic.
Bet the Underdog at Home
There is probably no better bet in sports than playing an underdog at home
You might think betting on the favorite is the obvious option every time but you’d be wrong. “There is probably no better bet in sports than playing an underdog at home,” says Morey “Doc” Moseman, a professional gambler and sports consultant with DocSports.com for nearly 40 years. “Teams play inspired ball at home.
Slim underdogs regularly win outright.
Big underdogs often find ways to cover the spread and they rarely give up toward the end of a game in front of the home crowd.”
To revisit a favorite example, the Chiefs tend to claim the edge in the majority of their home games, no matter their status on the betting lines.
Why?
Because there’s magic at Arrowhead.
There’s more to lose when you’re playing before 150,000 of your fans’ scrutinizing eyeballs.
Here’s a list of some of the other worst betting mistakes you can make:
- Chasing your bets
- Getting vindictive
- Trying to win back losses
- Go after big wins to recoup losses
- Overly-promising wagers.
It’s like a night of heavy drinking. It might sound tempting beforehand. But the next day you’re likely to have some regret.
Remember that betting is a mathematician’s game.
There’s no large place for emotion in this game.
When it comes to the NFL, upon which more bets are placed than any other sport in America, that goes double. The oddsmakers have one job — and that’s to know their shit.
The key to beating them is knowing yours too.
NFL money lines are have become commonplace over the years, after originally appearing in Las Vegas sportsbooks after Nevada legalized sports betting and as legal bookmaking came to prominence in the 1970s.
Today, NFL money lines are some of the most wagered markets in the world and are available at every pretty much every sportsbook in existence. Like every other type of NFL wager, such as Props, Totals, Parlays, Teasers there are ins and outs that bettors need to know before betting money lines.
What Exactly is a Money Line?
Money lines are odds given by the sportsbook with no attached pointAmerican Odds spread. If bettors wager on their team to win via the money line – they simply must win the game outright, regardless of the score line.
Money line odds can be called US odds or American Odds, depending on the bettor’s point of reference. Money line odds are the standard means of wagering for baseball and hockey bettors as traditional point spreads are not practical for these types of games.
Of course, there is a relationship between point spread and money lines as the money line odds will correlate to the point spread offered on the game. Meaning if a team is an +3 underdog it will normally have money line odds of around +160, but if the team is a +7 underdog their plus odds will then increase to somewhere around +280.
Examples of Money Lines
Understanding money line odds are simple because they use the same wagering format we are used to betting when odds are attached to a point spread and are based on the amount you can win on a $100 wager. Here’s an example of an underdog money line that a bettor would make a typical Sunday:
Pittsburgh Steelers +175
Now, if I were to wager $100 on the Pittsburgh Steelers to win their game, I’d be looking at a possible profit of $175. Since the Steelers are the underdog in this matchup, I’ll be able to risk less to win more in this money line wager. Let’s take a look at a money line bet with a favorite:
Baltimore Ravens -200
The Ravens are the favorite in this game. I’ll have to wager $200 to win $100 on the Ravens in this game. As you can see I’m paying a much steeper price for betting on a money line favorite than I am an underdog. Without a point spread, money line odds “even up” the two teams and offer bettors varying prices based their expectation to win the game.
What is the Bookie’s Edge on Money Lines?
To understand a bookie’s edge on money lines, it is best to read three of our in-depth NFL betting articles; where lines come from, and both implied probability and theoretical hold to understand how sportsbooks make a profit when offering these types of bets.
All books will have a “service charge” built into their money line offers that charges bettors from both sides. To figure out the vig or edge that a book has each money line bet, we have to figure out the implied probability of a typical NFL money wager. Let’s look at our above example:
NFL Money line
Pittsburgh Steelers +175
Baltimore Ravens -200
In this example, if we wager $100 on the Steelers we’re risking $100 to win $275. If we wager $200 on the -200 Ravens, we’re risking $200 to win $300. Since we can’t push, (except in the rare case of an NFL tie – which would be graded as no action) there are two possible outcomes and we can easily figure out the bookmaker’s vig with simple math.
$100/$275 = 36.36
$200/$300 = 66.66
Total: 36.36+66.66 = 103.02
This is very simple to do and just involves taking the amount we risk by the total payout. This information tells us that the bookies have just over a 3 percent edge on this bet and that it is a negative proposition for us. Still, 3 percent quite low for a bookie’s advantage on a wager.
Also, if I feel one side of the wager is a bit off, I may want to make a play. Remember, the numbers of 36.36 and 66.66 percent are the implied probability of each bet or the win probability with zero vig on the line.
What Does It All Mean?
Essentially, those are the numbers we need to hit to break even on the individual bet, plus the house’s vig.
The Steelers at +175 have a breakeven percentage of 36.36 percent. So, we need to win our bet at least 36.36 percent of the time to breakeven on our wager. The Ravens at -200 have breakeven percentage 66.66 percent. Obviously, since the Ravens are the favorite they will win more often, but how much more often is the key component when deciding if a bet like this has any value.
If we feel the Ravens are going to win this game 80 percent of the time, then this bet is a bargain for us. We have a massive edge on the oddsmakers if we are right. Likewise, if we believe the Steelers can win the game 50 percent of the time, then again we will have quite a large edge on the bookies, even with their just over 3 percent vig.
Obviously, the key here is calculating the bookie’s edge in a particular money line bet and then figuring out if we feel that they have made a mistake on one of the sides. The sportsbook’s built in edge on each NFL money line bet is around 2-3 percent on average. It is crucial to figure out the implied probability of each side in a money line wager to be sure you are not paying too much in vig on a bet. Some sportsbooks have much better odds than others and will shade certain numbers, meaning they will make one side of the bet worse odds than the other because it’s heavily bet by the public. They also may just simply offer poor odds.
General NFL Money Line Betting Tips
Money line betting is a different animal than spread betting, and knowing when to use it appropriately in NFL games can payoff big. A spot I always look to bet the money line in a game is when the underdog is getting less than 3 points. Only 7 percent of NFL games are decided by 1 or 2 points, and bettors will normally save vig when using this option.
For instance, say the Carolina Panthers are facing the Tampa Buccaneers and the Bucs are +2.5 (-110) underdogs. Of course, we can go ahead of bet Tampa Bay at -110 and get our +2.5 points. Alternatively, we can wager on Tampa’s underdog money line, which in this situation will be within the +120 to +140 range.
This is a much better option than wagering on the point spread and paying vig. While we might get burned in a close game occasionally, in the long run, it is a profitable play provided we get solid odds.
Bettors may also want to lean towards underdogs when wagering on NFL money lines. One main reason is that most NFL bettors are squares or recreational bettors, and they lean towards betting favorites.
Another key reason is because the breakeven percentage is much higher for large favorites. Any favorite above -230 has a breakeven percentage above 70 percent. This means that bettors must win around two-thirds of the time or more just break even on high priced favorites. Obviously, the reverse is true for a +230 underdog, bettors will only have to win one-third of the time to break even.
Nfl Moneyline Betting Strategy 2019
While I would encourage bettors to bet more underdog money lines than favorites, especially large ones – this is not always the case. If your implied probability is 70 percent, but you think the favorite has an 80% chance of winning the game, you should consider betting. Also, it is worth noting that underdogs will offer more variance than favorites because they will lose far more often. Bettors should remember that underdog money line betting will offer more fluctuations in their bankroll than wagering on money line favorites or just by betting the point spread.
Another common tactic that I like to use is betting my normal amount on the point spread and then making a smaller wager, maybe a half unit on the money line. This way, I can still profit if the game is close and if I’m right with my upset pick I can cash in big, while reducing some of the risk.
Best US Sportsbooks for Money lines
Moneyline Betting Strategy
There isn’t one book that is generally better than the others in regards to money lines, but it is always crucial to check the implied probability of a wager before betting to make sure the vig is not too high. As I mentioned above, some sportsbooks will just offer poor odds, and they should be avoided.
5Dimes Sportsbooks is usually the quickest to post money lines for the upcoming NFL week followed by Bet Online and Bovada. All are solid options.
How To Bet Moneyline
Final World on NFL Money Lines
I personally am a massive fan of money line betting in the NFL. Sometimes bettors just “know” that an upset is brewing, and instead of simply taking the points and looking for a cover – they want more. This is not only gutsier (that counts for something, right?) but also more profitable in most cases. Money lines are simply another form of buying points, which can certainly be profitable in the right situations.
Football Moneyline Betting
If you’re not making money line betting a part of your NFL betting strategies, you are not only selling yourself short as an NFL handicapper, but you’re missing out on some profits, as well.