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NFL Betting Systems: The Definitive Guide to the Top Strategies
To bet on football can be a sport, a game all of its own. To “win the game” of NFL gambling, it’s not an opposing coach that you must out-fox, but rather the bookmaker - and often the public. One of the best features on the NFL Vegas Odds is the Open Line. This numbers consists of the first betting line received from one of our Las Vegas or Global Sportsbooks. The opening line varies depending on the sportsbook but it provides a clear-cut rating that the oddsmakers use.
How big is the football betting market?
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.
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.
Knowing the NFL and winning money betting on the NFL are two completely different things. And one of the biggest mistakes that average bettors make is to think that just because they follow pro football religiously that they will be successful betting on it.
Sports betting is a unique beast. Reading and understanding the market, interpreting secondary betting factors that influence each game, and knowing how to manage a bankroll are all things that are most public bettors don’t fully grasp. But those fundamentals are the foundation of the sports betting industry and are critical to success whether you’re betting $10 per game or $1,000 per game.
Professional handicappers like myself have a thousand tips and tricks to beat the NFL betting market. But here are some pretty basic ones that all NFL bettors should understand:
1. You Need Proper Money Management
Money management is the key to successful sports betting, regardless of sport. We use a standard 1-8 Unit System at Doc’s Sports, with each “unit” representing a specific percent of your bankroll. Your average bet should be around three or four percent of your stack. There will be exceptions and plays you like more than others. But even in those games, you shouldn’t commit more than seven or eight percent on any situation throughout the season.
If you have $2,000 in your account, you should be betting around $40 per game. I know it’s not as sexy as betting $200 or $300 per game. But that type of recklessness is for amateurs and tourists. Play within your means and you’ll stay in the game a lot longer. And if you do that, then you can eventually turn that $2,000 into $4,000, $5,000 or $10,000. Then you can be the high roller you always wanted to be! By betting around 2% of your bankroll per game, then you bet more when you are winning and less when you are losing.
2. Learn To Read The Lines
The sportsbooks aren’t trying to predict outcomes. They just want to post a spread that results in equal betting on each side (known as balanced action). To be a successful bettor, you should be a good oddsmaker. And that all starts with knowing how and why spreads are posted and why they move in the manner in which they do.
A fundamental NFL betting concept is that of “key numbers”. Spreads of 3.0, 4.0 and 7.0 are considered “key” because three, four or seven points decide an inordinate amount of games. As a result, sharp bettors understand the value difference between placing a bet on an underdog at 3.5 rather than 3.0 and getting a favorite at 6.5 rather than 7.0.
It is also important to be able to read line movements. Let’s say that more than 80 percent of the bets on a game are on the favorite. But instead of climbing, the spread actually falls away from the side the public is on. That’s called a reverse line movement and is an indicator that the professional bettors are on the opposite side of the square public. Also, it is telling when the books move the spread off a key number, and that can be a sure sign of professional or “sharp” money is coming in on a team.
The oddsmakers are a lot better at this than you are. You have to respect that. If a line looks too good to be true, there is probably a very good reason for it. Try to think like an oddsmaker and bet with the books.
3. Understand The Up-Down Theory
The public overreacts to everything that happens in the sports world. Media outlets like ESPN have built their empires stirring up the frenzy surrounding these games, and everything that happened five minutes ago is The Most Important Thing in the World. Nowhere is this truer than the NFL, where teams play just once a week. That leaves a lot of time for hand wringing and carnival barking about which teams are great and terrible based solely on the most recent game.
The Up-Down Theory suggests that teams that played poorly one week should be due for a regression the next, while a team that played above itself will come back down to earth. However, the market usually corrects the other way, assuming that a team that played poorly is a “bad team” and will be equally bad or even worse the next week, while a team that won will continue to play well or improve. When a team coming off a statistically anomalous “bad” game goes up against a team that played over its head the week prior, then you have a classic Up-Down situation.
For example, in Week 1 of the 2013 regular season, Philadelphia blitzed Washington in a marquee road win. That same night San Diego played horribly in the second half while collapsing in a loss to Houston. The two teams played the following Sunday. And a spread that probably should’ve been 3.5 was inflated up to 7.5 because the assumption was that Philadelphia was trending up and San Diego was trending down. It was just the opposite. The Chargers bounced back (Up) while the Eagles slid back to reality (Down), and the result was an outright upset win for San Diego.
4. Situational and Motivational Factors Can’t Be Ignored.
The difference between the fifth-best team and the 20th-best team in the NFL is razor thin. So motivational and situational factors can play a huge factor in how games will develop. If Team A is on the road after a physical, emotionally draining rivalry win at home, then they are in a prime letdown spot. If another squad is a West Coast team flying across country for the second straight week for a 1 p.m. EST start, then you have to figure they will be at a severe situational disadvantage against their opponent. Things like that have to be considered when making any wager in the NFL.
Betting on a team coming off a bye week because they had “extra time to prepare” is actually one of the most overrated factors in NFL betting. But betting against a team that might be looking ahead to a more important game the following week – a Look Ahead Situation – is often underappreciated by the general betting public.
Also, momentum is a crucial aspect to any NFL season. Teams can get hot or go cold at any point. And, especially late in the season, these streaks can lead to teams playing above themselves on the field and at the window. Never bet against a streak. You are better off either jumping on the gravy train or staying off the tracks.
5. Pay More Attention To The Trenches
I will admit that the first thing bettors need to consider when putting money down on a team is the coach and quarterback matchups. But I also feel like too much focus is put on skill position players in NFL betting. At its core, pro football is a physical, violent game. And the team that can physically impose its will and dominate its opponent at the point of attack has a huge advantage.
You have to pay attention to how teams are set along the offensive and defensive lines. So many other aspects of the game are a direct result of how teams fare in the trenches.
Teams with poor offensive lines are more prone to sacks, turnovers and penalties, three things that can kill a good bet. Teams will strong offensive lines are better at running the ball and protecting leads. And how offensive lines match up with their defensive counterparts goes a long way to determining how a game will be played.
Fundamental handicapping is the approach that looks at basic matchup aspects of teams. If one team has a great passing game and they are facing a terrible secondary, then that is a fundamental advantage. In my opinion, the fundamental offensive/defensive line matchup is one of most important and undervalued aspects of NFL handicapping. Pay attention to it. And when you find an underdog with major advantages in the trenches, that is a bet you want to make.
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6. Beware The Shaky Road Favorite
Road favorites are rarely a strong play for NFL bettors. But there are some teams that simply should never be favored when they play away from home. You never want to lay points on the road with teams that have a track record of wild inconsistency – turnovers, penalties, late-game meltdown, poor special teams, etc. These teams are usually enticing because of perceived “talent” advantages. But if they aren’t consistent and fundamentally sound, you don’t even want to think about betting on them away from home.
The Detroit Lions, a perpetually overhyped team with a history of maddeningly inconsistent play, are a perfect example. They are a lower-tier NFL team. But they can be posted as favorites when they play other lower-tier teams like the Raiders, Browns or Cardinals. Stay away. Bad teams are usually never good bets when laying points. That is doubly true when those shaky teams play on the road.
7. Know Which Numbers Really Matter
Points-per-game average is not as strong of an indicator of team performance as yards per point. Third-down conversion rate is a more consistent indicator of a team’s offensive performance than yards per rush. Understanding which statistics are loaded with meaning (turnovers) and which ones are overvalued (total yards) is a key to becoming a sharp NFL bettor.
The average yards per point for the median NFL team is right around 15.5. So if a team plays a game in which they had a YPP of 24.0, then you can deduce that your team scored a lot less than they should have, and this could lead to a higher-scoring game the following week. And vice versa.
Further, statistics like total yardage differential (yards gained minus yards allowed), strength of schedule, and point differential are actually better indicators of team strength than win-loss record. Paying attention to those numbers can help you find overrated and underrated teams throughout the season.
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