• Understanding Betting Odds
• Understanding Football Betting Odds
• How To Read A Football Betting Line
• Understanding Football Betting Lines
• Football Betting Lines Explained

What does 'plus' and 'minus' mean as a sports betting term? Odds expressed in terms of money, with $100 being the standard. If the odds are minus (–), then that amount of money must be wagered. Feb 03, 2021 So, if you learn to understand football betting odds, you should be prepared to read odds for basketball too. This is because odds are more about determining bets than they are specific to the sport. And, odds are trying to tell you the probability of a certain outcome. Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs Kansas City Chiefs. Understanding Football Betting. Posted on February 25, 2020 by Emma. The global sports betting market, according to Statista, makes up about 40% of the entire gambling market today. And the lion’s share of these bets is made on football games (the European Association game, not American Football. Fortunately, understanding football odds is really quite simple, and it is not nearly as intimidating as it can seem at first glance. To bet on football, the first thing you have to understand.

Vintage Monday Night Football broadcaster Frank Gifford used to slyly reference gambling while on the air. “This next play will mean a lot to many of our viewers,” Frank would say in the 4th quarter.

In those “underground” days the best way to learn how to gamble on football was to know someone with a personal bookie. But thanks to the internet, it’s now much easier to get oriented.

Football odds are easy to understand upon learning just a few terms. Here’s a quick guide to the vocabulary.

How To Bet On NFL & College Football Point Spreads

“ATS” or against-the-spread is simple to understand and popular with casual gamblers. Since it’s rare for 2 teams to be exactly, evenly matched in the eyes of bookies, the spread “spots” the underdog a field goal, touchdown or other point-margin. Point spreads can even be set by half, as in (+7 1/2) or (+7.5) points.

The favorite will have a “-” in front of their ATS betting line, as in (-3). That means they must overcome a 3-point deficit to tie, or “push” in betting terms. The favorite must win by 4 or more points for their ATS wager to win.

Payoff on an ATS bet is almost always 50/50 minus the “vig,” or fee to the house. But occasionally, casinos will promise a slightly higher % payout on a point-spread to encourage action on a given side.

Point spreads can fluctuate as bookies react to the action. If the New England Patriots happen to have a rare “+” next to their name, for instance, bettors will tend to pick the Patriots and bookies will be likely to tilt in the other direction. An ATS bet on perfectly-matched (on paper) opponents is called a “pick’em.”

Even though lines can change throughout the week, you are always locked-in to whatever the line is when you put your money down. That can be an advantage for those who do their homework ahead of time.

Money Line Odds & Over/Under Wagers

Another popular gridiron wager is point total, or Over/Under. You will often see these listed short-hand as “O/U.” The line simply reflects the total points scored by both teams. If the O/U line is 45 and Clemson is leading 42-0 with minutes to go, “under” bettors will hope Dabo Swinney shuts down his offense. Otherwise, the Tigers might score and push the point total to 49, or kick a field goal and make the wager a push with a 45-0 final.

Money line betting is popular among serious, stake-it-all gamblers. The favorite is once again listed with a “-” but this time it’s next to a 3 or 4 digit number, like (-225). That means you have to put $225 on that team to be rewarded a $100 win. The underdog is listed with a plus sign, such as (+175). That number would indicate that a $100 wager earns a payback of $175.

Football Betting – Parlays & Teasers

Another option is to combine your wagers into a parlay. A parlay means that all of your picks must win for the wager to pay off, but you receive a much higher payout when it happens.

Bookies know that making 2 or more successful picks at a time without losing once is difficult, so books offer “teaser” parlay bets in which the bettor can move the point spread a given amount to help their underdog or favorite win. Payoff is not as generous on teasers, however.

Understanding Betting Odds

Tips On Football Prop Bets

Props, or “proposition” bets are a wide-open category. As in other sports, a prop in football can be anything a casino thinks to offer. An example of a basic prop is “Will Matt Ryan pass for 300 yards or more on Sunday.” Matt Ryan would produce shorter lines and a smaller payoff for that prop than an unheralded QB, since an unknown is less likely to have a big passing day.

Understanding Football Betting Odds

As the Super Bowl approaches, prop-bet offers can get a little crazy. “Who will win the coin flip?” is an annual wager that involves no skill, but is still fun for those looking for a payoff before kickoff.

Try to pick out prop bets that are getting lots of “yes” action due to hype, and wager “no.” That will give you a 10% or 15% advantage on other cash players. For instance, if Cam Newton rushes for touchdowns in 3 consecutive games, the media will hype his effectiveness as a runner. That will drive up the payoff on a bet that Newton will not rush for a touchdown in the 4th game.

The many types of NFL betting can seem dizzying at first. But pick a type of wager you are comfortable with, and let the rest come naturally. You’ll find yourself spouting the lingo (and maybe even Googling “Super Bowl coin flip trends”) before you know it.

With parlays, instead of betting on the outcome of a game the bettor can predict the outcome of a group of matches on a single bet. In simple form, parlays are just several bets in one betting order or ticket.

Parlay bets can also be termed as combination bets.

It is the hardest way of betting and only risk addicts or professional bettors use it, but if used well they can be the best option to bet with, some sports books even forbid them as they know they favour the smart bettor.

How To Read A Football Betting Line

If the bettor manages to correctly predict the outcome of all the matches in that group or parlay he wins the bet, and a very big juicy purse that will make him rich for years. The payoff from a Parlay bet is usually much higher than the ordinary bets because the odds of the bettor correctly predicting the results of all the matches in the group are really low.

*An example at the end of how a $5 dollar bet in the NFL almost gave $100,000 dollars to a bettor

Consider a parlay of three matches, if the bettor were to correctly predict the outcome of two of these matches and then gets the third prediction wrong, he loses the parlay bet.

In short there isn’t any consolation prize at the end if you get one of the bets in the parlay wrong. If one of the matches ends up as a push (the game ends in a tie, no winner or loser) then the parlay will be lowered to two matches and the bettor can win the bet if he predicts the outcome of these two matches.

Football parlay bet example

Understanding Football Betting Lines

Let’s understand Parlay Bets better through the use of an example.

Consider a parlay of four matches between,

• Chelsea vs Manchester City
• Liverpool vs Everton
• Arsenal vs Tottenham Hotspur
• Manchester United vs Southampton

Here the bettor is predicting a victory for Chelsea, Southampton and Liverpool and a draw between Arsenal and Spurs. He is betting 1,000£ based on his predictions on this parlay.

If his predictions came true he will get in total a payoff = 1000*2.20*1.40*1.40*3.50 =15,092£.

For a bet of 1000£ the total pay off turned out to be 15x more = 15,000£

Now if he got one of his four predictions wrong then it is game over, and he can kiss his 1000£ goodbye. As with everything betting parlays carries its own set of risks. Some bettors prefer parlays knowing the little chances they got of getting it right. The final payoff can overcome several parlay loses.

The parlay pool can contain matches from multiple sporting events. A parlay pool of five matches can have two football matches on different dates, two rugby matches and one hockey match. Hence why this is the most complicated form of betting and only an experienced professional bettor can predict parlays without relying so much in luck.

But stories have been heard of bettors making hundreds of thousands of dollars having faith in their judgement. There is a fine line between luck and handicapping parlays as shown in the following real life case

Story of a $5 parlay bet on NFL that almost won $100,000…

Football Betting Lines Explained

Content Usage:
Photos and videos featured on this post are used under a creative commons license, free to use and edit – Wikipedia Commons www.commons.wikimedia.org and Youtube permission to feature under its TOS.