There are several different types of football wager you can place,
and two of them are significantly more popular than the others.
The most popular of all is the point spread wager, followed by
the totals wager. In this article, we’re focusing on the point
spread.

• How To Bet On Football And Win
• Football Betting Odds Today
• How To Bet On Football Sportsbook
• How To Bet On Football Odds

Parlays are wildly popular for football bets at the SportsBetting.ag Sportsbook. Parlays are a selection of two or more wagering outcomes involved with one bet. In a parlay bet, all teams bet must win or cover for the play to be active. If any selection loses, the entire bet is lost. For a bet on them to be successful, they would therefore have to win by four points or more. The Colts, on the other hand, will have 3.5 points added to their final score. A bet on them would be successful if. You bet on, the harder you’ll find it to maintain a high enough win percentage. And your win percentage is everything when it comes to betting football spreads. As we’ve already stated, you’ll mostly be betting. Key numbers for betting on the NFL You likely know that “3” and “7” are key numbers when betting football, particularly in the NFL, which has less scoring variance. How to use 'basic strategy' when betting 2-team NFL teasers One of the most popular betting options for pro football is the two-team six-point teaser.

Before you continue reading, if you’re interested, we have put together a short video to help you better understand point spreads.

If you have any interest at all in betting on football, then you
really should know how to bet the point spread effectively. It’s not
necessarily the “best” type of wager in terms of the potential for
winning money, but it’s relatively simple and does present some
profitable opportunities if you know what you’re doing.

On this page we teach you the basics of betting football point spreads. We explain how they work, and why
they’re so popular. We also explain the challenges involved in making money from them. Finally, we offer
some tips and strategy advice for placing wagers of this type.

Football Point Spreads: How They Work

The theory with point spreads is that a wager on either team to win a football game is as close to a 505/50
shot as possible. You’re not actually betting on which team will win the game, you’re betting on which team
will “cover the spread”. The favorite has to win by at least a certain number of points for a wager on them to
be successful, and the underdog has to lose by less than the same number of points for a wager on them to
be successful.

Another way to view it is that, for the purposes of the betting, the favorite has points deducted from their
score and the underdog has points added to their final score. The number of points varies, depending on the
gap in quality between two teams. If one team is much stronger than the other, the number of points can be
quite high (a big spread). If the two teams are more evenly matched, the number of points is low (a small
spread).

Here’s an example of a point spread that a bookmaker or betting site might offer for a football game
between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Bronco.

The +6 for the Steelers means that they’ll have six points effectively added to their score. They’re the
underdog here. The -6 for the Broncos means that they’ll have six points effectively deducted from their
score, as they’re the favorite. You can choose to bet on the Steelers with their points advantage, or on the
Broncos with their points deduction. The following outcomes are possible.

• A wager on the Steelers pays out if they win the game, or lose by less than six points
• A wager on the Steelers loses if they lose by more than six points
• A wager on the Broncos pays out if the win the game by more than six points
• A wager on the Broncos loses if they lose the game, or win by less than six points
• All wagers would push (stake gets returned) if the Broncos win by exactly six points

That, in essence, is all there is to betting football point spreads. All successful wagers are paid out at the
relevant odds, which are typically -110. The odds can vary, but they’re almost always fairly close to even
money. One further thing we should mention is that spreads will often include half a point. So, for example,
you might see a team at +6.5. This makes a push impossible.

Why Football Point Spreads Are Popular

It’s difficult to say for sure why point spreads are so popular, but there are probably a number of reasons. We
suspect that the following are the most relevant for the majority of bettors.

1. Betting on even money propositions is appealing
2. Point spreads are very simple
3. Point spreads make betting on “lopsided” games more interesting
4. The perception is that it’s easy to make money from point spreads

The first reason listed here applies primarily to recreational bettors. Those who are serious about their
betting don’t really care what the odds are per se, they are primarily concerned with whether value exists or
not. And value can exist in both heavy favorites and complete outsiders in the right circumstances. For those
that bet just for fun, though, the concept of value is largely an irrelevance. They just want to know that they
have a fair chance of winning their wagers, and that’s exactly what point spreads offer. Even if you just picked
teams at random you could expect to win close to 50% of your wagers over the long run.

The second reason is also an appealing one for recreational bettors. Although most of them do want to win
money, of course, they’re not generally bothered about having to think too much about their betting. It’s all
about the fun, and so wagers that are nice and simple are ideal for them. Point spreads are an easy way to
throw a few bucks on a game, without having to put in a great deal of effort.

Making lopsided games more interesting is a clear advantage of the point spread, to all types of bettors.
Without this type of wager, there would rarely be much fun or value in betting on games where there is a
very clear favorite. Backing the favorite would offer very low odds, to the extent that it probably wouldn’t be
worth it, and the underdog would be so unlikely to win that there’d be no point in backing them either.

The final reason mentioned here is actually not a good reason to bet football point spreads at all. Many
people do believe it’s a relatively easy way to make money, but the reality is that it is not. We’ll now explain
why.

The Challenge of Football Point Spreads

Seeing as we’ve said that you have a roughly 50% chance of winning a point spread wager even if picking a
team at random, you could be forgiven for thinking that with even a little bit of knowledge you should be able
to make money from this type of wager. You may well be able to, but it’s certainly not easy. There are two
main reasons for this.

1. Bookmakers charge vig
2. Bookmakers are very good at what they do

If you’re not familiar with vig, please read our article on how bookmakers make money. Very briefly though,
vig is basically a commission that bookmakers charge. It’s effectively built into the odds, which is why point
spread wagers typically are at odds of around -110. You’ve got to risk $110 to win $100, which means you
have to win more than half of your wagers just to break even.

And winning more than your half of your wagers is tough, because the bookmakers are generally very
accurate when setting their lines. The spreads they publish are consistently very close to reflecting what
actually happens in games. This makes it very difficult to regularly predict which team is going to cover the
spread in a game.It’s certainly rare that you’ll see games where the outcome is obvious enough that you can
genuinely state with real confidence that one or the other team is going to cover.

Tips & Strategy Advice

There is an argument to say that there is little strategy involved in betting football point spreads these days.
This is primarily because of what we’ve outlined above, in that the lines are set so tightly by bookmakers that
football point spreads are basically coin flips. However, our view is that they can be profitable with the right
approach.

For one thing, bookmakers are not infallible. Although they’re very good at what they do, they still get it
wrong from time to time. And, even when they don’t, it’s still possible to get a high enough win percentage to
effectively “beat the vig”. It’s not easy, but it can be done.

We round off this article with some tips and strategy advice that may help you to get better results when
betting football point spreads.

Learn how to handicap football games

This advice applies to virtually any form of football betting really. If you’re going to make money, then you
need to need to understand what’s involved in handicapping football games.A lot of bettors don’t bother to
learn about handicapping, often simply because they believe it’s really complicated. It’s not. There are some
complicated aspects to it, yes, but the fundamental concept is relatively straightforward.

In fact, there’s a very good chance that you’re already handicapping games without even realizing it.
Handicapping doesn’t have to involve using amazingly advanced scientific systems, it can be as simple as
taking into account a few factors that are likely to affect the outcome of a game and then working out where
the value lies. There’s obviously a bit more to it than that, but that’s basically what it’s about.

Please take the time to read our article explaining how to handicap football. We can almost guarantee
that it will teach you at least some aspects of football betting that you’re not aware of.

Ignore a team’s ATS record

Statistics can be very valuable when betting football spreads. There are certain statistics in particular that
canreally help you compare two teams and make informed judgements about how they are likely to perform
against each other. However, there are other stats that are relatively useless. This doesn’t stop some bettors
relying on them though.

One such stat is a team’s ATS (against the spread) record. This basically refers to a team’s performance
against the lines set by the bookmakers, rather than their actual results. Let’s look at some hypothetical data
to explain this further. Here’s a team’s results of the first six games of the regular season, along with their
spread for each of those games.

In the first game, the team was -3 on the spread, so technically “should” have won by three points. It lost, so
it failed to cover the spread. It won the next game, but only by five points when it was -6 on the spread. So,
again, it failed to cover the spread. In the following game it won by 12 when -7 on the spread, so it did cover
the spread here. In the following three games it failed to cover the spread again, despite winning two of them.

Now, a lot of bettors would read a lot into this. The team has only covered the spread once in six games,
despite a record of 4-2 on the field. The seemingly obvious conclusion here is that backing this team on the
spread is a bad idea. This is not necessarily true though, for one simple reason.

That’s right. The ATS data for a team is one of those instances where the numbers really do lie. The fact that
a team has been failing to cover the spread for the majority of its games means absolutely nothing in terms
of how likely it is cover to the spread in the future.

You’ll hear advice contrary to this, but please ignore it. Relying on ATS data to make future predictions is a
big mistake.

Don’t bet on every game

There is pretty much a 0% chance that you’ll be able to maintain a good win rate if you bet the spreads on
every single football game. Being selective is absolutely vital if you want to win consistently. The more games
you bet on, the harder you’ll find it to maintain a high enough win percentage. And your win percentage is
everything when it comes to betting football spreads. As we’ve already stated, you’ll mostly be betting at
around -110 and will need to win above 50% of your picks just to overcome the vig.

Trying to win a ton of bets each and every week is a recipe for failure. You need to be patient and wait for
the right opportunities. Unless you are an absolute genius (in which case you don’t need our help anyway),
at best you’ll find just a handful of games where there’s a good reason to bet the spread. There will likely be
some weeks where there are no good spots at all, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with saving your
money and waiting for better opportunities.

There are certain types of games that you should generally try to avoid too. These are as follows.

• Games between very closely matched opponents
• Games involving “hyped” teams or especially popular teams
• Games with double digit spreads (i.e. a spread of 10 or more)

Please note that we’re not saying you should NEVER bet the spread in games falling into the above
categories. Just be cautious of them. Games between very closely matched opponents are notoriously difficult
to predict, and games involving hyped or popular teams often have very misleading lines. Games with
double digit spreads are risky because there’s always a chance that the favorite will coast through a game
once they’ve all but secured the win. They may be easily capable of winning by ten or more points, but that
doesn’t mean they’re going to give it their all to do so.

Think outside the NFL

Many bettors focus solely on the NFL, and this is basically making things a lot harder than they need to be.
Finding value on NFL games is very difficult, due to the tight lines mentioned earlier, and when there is value
it doesn’t tend to last very long. This is because there are so many people looking for the right spots. As soon
as a bookmaker or betting publishes an attractive line, sharp bettors will be on it almost immediately. The
line will then be moved accordingly, and the value will disappear.

There is regularly more value to be had in college football and even the Canadian Football League, as the
bookmakers are not generally quite as expert on those games. This means there’s more opportunities to
find good spots. The fact that there are less people betting also means that those good spots don’t tend to
disappear quite so quickly.

Please note that we’re not saying it’s easy to win money betting on college football and the CFL. We’re just
saying that there’s certainly an argument that it’s not as hard as the NFL. You’ll need to make sure you know
as much as possible about the relevant teams and players though. That’s where you can potentially gain an
edge over the bookmakers.

Consider betting teasers

Many bettors focus solely on the NFL, and this is basically making things a lot harder than they need to be.
Finding value on NFL games is very difficult, due to the tight lines mentioned earlier, and when there is value
it doesn’t tend to last very long. This is because there are so many people looking for the right spots. As soon
as a bookmaker or betting publishes an attractive line, sharp bettors will be on it almost immediately. The
line will then be moved accordingly, and the value will disappear.

There is regularly more value to be had in college football and even the Canadian Football League, as the
bookmakers are not generally quite as expert on those games. This means there’s more opportunities to
find good spots. The fact that there are less people betting also means that those good spots don’t tend to
disappear quite so quickly.

You can find more detailed strategy advice for this type of wager in our articles on NFL teasers and college
football teasers.

Shop around

Many bettors focus solely on the NFL, and this is basically making things a lot harder than they need to be.
Finding value on NFL games is very difficult, due to the tight lines mentioned earlier, and when there is value
it doesn’t tend to last very long. This is because there are so many people looking for the right spots. As soon
as a bookmaker or betting publishes an attractive line, sharp bettors will be on it almost immediately. The
line will then be moved accordingly, and the value will disappear.

There is regularly more value to be had in college football and even the Canadian Football League, as the
bookmakers are not generally quite as expert on those games. This means there’s more opportunities to
find good spots. The fact that there are less people betting also means that those good spots don’t tend to
disappear quite so quickly.

Betting on football can be an extremely frustrating, and costly, pastime with many people wondering how to bet on football and win.

Whilst there are success stories of punters who won thousands from a 50p stake, most punters know the sinking feeling of a last-minute goal ruining their accumulator or the team at the bottom of the table picking up a surprise victory over the defending champions.

Some people continue to place the same type of bet week after week, with the hope that one day their ship will come in.

However, to win at football, punters must follow a few certain rules.

Research Before Betting

Rule number one of football betting is that the punter must gather as much information as possible before placing a bet.

Study statistics, recent form, head to head information, and team news to give you as much of an advantage as you can have. Knowing all of this will help you take an analytical approach and work out which outcome is most likely.

For example, the second-placed team in the league are playing a team in the relegation zone in midweek. The higher team would be priced as a heavy favourite but there may be factors to take note of before betting.

Although most people would take the league positions as a good indicator of who will win, what if the second-placed team have an all-important match with the leaders at the weekend?

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There are chances they will rest players against the lesser team, to keep them fit for the bigger challenge. They may also take the midweek match lighter than usual thinking they already have the victory.

But, taking a match lightly against a relegation threatened side who also need the points can be a dangerous tactic.

Also, what if the so-called bigger team have failed to win in their last three matches against the team in the relegation zone? What if the last five head to head meetings have all been draws? What if the team in the relegation zone have hit a purple patch of form and won their last few games?

These factors can play a huge part in determining the outcome of a match. The favourites may not look such a banker now, with the chance of a draw or even a surprise victory for the underdog being much higher.

This is one of the many reasons why we provide team news to our members.

Remain Analytical

Betting on impulse, betting with your heart, letting your emotions take over, and betting solely based on the betting odds are all sure-fire ways of losing money.

Impulse betting is where a punter places a bet on whichever matches are available, regardless of their knowledge of the teams involved. It’s something which many online punters will do, and their win percentages from this type of betting will probably be extremely low.

Betting with your heart means backing your own team to win, or favourite player to score first, regardless of the opposition or form of the player. Whilst some punters may get lucky and win often if they support a big team, those who support a team struggling against relegation every year will lose more than they win.

Letting your emotions take over is a big no-no when it comes to betting. This is usually described as chasing your losses, when you are angry and frustrated after a bet fails to win. You then place more money on another bet you believe to be a banker, to try and regain the money you lost before. This is a slippery slope and could quickly lead to a bank balance of zero.

Betting based solely on the odds is another thing punters should never do. Whilst short odds favourites obviously have the best chance of being victorious, there may be mitigating factors which could weaken that chance.

Remain analytical and do not bet on a match unless you have gathered as much information as possible.

Profit is Profit no Matter How Small

Some punters look for the big, life-changing, win every week. They place a few pounds on bets which could return thousands, with the chances of these bets coming in being small.

Those few pounds every week may be small to start with, but done every week for several years will mount up to a lot of lost money.

Punters should always be looking to make a profit, even if it’s only a few pounds.

Would you rather place £10 on a single bet which returns a £12 profit, but has a 92% chance of winning, or place two £5 bets on sixteen-team accumulators which return £10,000 each, with a 1% chance of coming in?

Some people will say the second, but sensible punters will know that £12 profit every time soon adds up.

For more information on this you might like our post on focusing on losing less often.

There’s a big chance you have sat in a pub, or café, and overheard a conversation about how close someone came to winning £26,000 on Saturday or how one team let them down for £500. You never hear the punters who were £5 up talking about their win, although they are the more successful punter.

The best advice we can give when gambling is, your first thought should be how best you can avoid losing rather than how much you will win if your bet comes in.

Look for a small profit, which will help to boost your betting bank and may ultimately lead to a big life-changing profit over time.

Keep a Betting Record

Keeping note of your wins and losses can help you see how much money you’re throwing away, and can help you change the way you gamble.

In this record, write down the type of bet you placed, the stake, the potential return, and how much profit or loss you made from it. Also add any notes which will help you moving forward, such as which team(s) let you down.

At the end of a set period, such as every week, fortnight, or month, you should tally up your results to give you an overall profit or loss.

If you are suffering constant losses betting on accumulators with the promise of a big return, maybe change the way you bet for the next period. Consider backing less teams in an accumulator or placing single/doubles/trebles bets which return a small profit.

You can then see if your overall profit has gone up.

If you regularly see a + amount in the profit/loss section, it will be a big eye-opener that the way you were previously betting was wrong and you should stick to your new approach.

How To Bet On Football And Win

Remember, You Will Not Win Every Time

Football Betting Odds Today

If there was a fool-proof way of winning on football every time, bookies would go out of business and football betting would cease to exist.

However, there is no fool-proof way because football is unpredictable and shocks happen. The favourite doesn’t always win, everybody has off days, and punters will often be out of pocket. There are no 100% guarantees in football betting.

How To Bet On Football Sportsbook

In those times, you must remember to have fun, stay analytical, and follow our advice to give you the best chance of making a profit.

How To Bet On Football Odds