Football Betting System
Do football betting systems work? What football betting system is the most successful? How can you use a football betting system to increase your chances of winning money on a wager?
When peopple start learning about betting systems for football, these are the questions they want answers for. The fact is that wagering on any sport is a lot simpler and can be more effective if you tailor your betting system to a specific sport. There are different betting systems for basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, and of course football. The reason that betting systems differ between sports -- each sport has its own unique rules and schedules that change the way a smart bettor will wager.
Football Betting
Amateur and professional gamblers alike often say that the NFL is the most difficult sports league to bet on. For one thing, there is so much equality in the NFL from team to team that the outcome of individual games is not that easy to determine just looking at the two teams and their records. The old cliche than any team can win on any given Sunday is basically true -- it is far easier to bet that the Lakers will beat the Milwaukee Bucks than to say that the Dallas Cowboys will beat the San Diego Chargers. There's just too much money and too much talent around the NFL for a team to be truly dominant. There are plenty of exceptions to this point -- this year, teams like the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts (with one loss between them) have pretty much run the book on the sportsline. For the most part, though, it is difficult to draw a bead on an NFL game.
This league parity also affects bets against the spread -- sure, plenty of teams have losing records in the NFL, but many of these losses are close games, by about a touchdown or less. Bettors don't only have to worry that a team that looks bad on paper will outperform the "clear winner" -- they have to worry about close scores and betting lines.
Different Types of Football Bets
The most basic of football bets is called the straight bet. The team that the bettor wagers on must win by the declared point spread. With straight wagers the odds are almost always $1.10 to win $1.00. Games that tie are considered "no action" outcomes and the bettor's money is paid back. Remember to watch the spread -- if there's an injury, bad weather, or any number of other scenarios, that point spread can change at a moment's notice.
An over/under bet is an alteration of a straight bet. When you place an over/under bet, you're betting on a points total for both teams combined in a game. Just like with a straight bet, over/under bets will almost always cost you $1.10 to win $1.00.
Betting on the score at different quarters or at halftime is known as halftime wagering. In a halftime wager, a point spread, money line, or some combination of the two is the "line" offered to the bettor. Your wager only applies to the score at the end of the quarter or half specified.
The weirdest bets in football betting are the proposition bets, also called exotic bets. Any bet that isn't made through a traditional "wager" (like straight, over/under, etc) is an proposition bet. These types of wagers usually involve a specific event or statistical feat performed by a team or player.
Some popular proposition bets --
- Which team will be the first to score?
- Will either team score in the first (fill in the blank) minutes of the game?
- Will the first score of the game be a touchdown, a field goal, a safety, etc?
- Will either team score in the last 2 minutes of the first half?
These bets are traditionally only be offered on the "bigger" games on the betting board. Super Bowls, college championship games, and big rivalry games are all big times for proposition bets. Proposition bets are also found in office pools and sports watching parties around the country. A simple version of a proposition bet is the kind of bets you made with your friends when you were a kid -- "I bet you I can run faster than you from here to that tree", etc.
Some Basic Football Betting Strategies
Value betting is a simple system whereby you only bet on games that have a high cash value. If you can win a ton of money on a particular line (especially in a situation where a really dominant team is heavily favored against a weak team) you should consider placing a bet that runs against conventional wisdom. Gamblers will tell you that betting against the grain is a great way to earn value for your betting dollar. Rather than tossing money at games that you "think" you can pick, place bets on only the highest value bet opportunities.
Sandwich betting requires you to do a little of your own handicapping. A sandwich bet is a bet against a team that played an "emotional" game (against a rival, or a victory to seal a playoff berth) last week and has another important game this week. As a handicapper, you should look for these two games "sandwiched" back to back. If the team that had an emotional game last week WON that game and is facing another tough game, bet against them, especially if they are heavily favored. Professional gamblers claim a success rate between 60 and 65% with sandwich betting.
Betting against heavily favored road teams could have saved you a ton of money in the past few football seasons. For some reason, the line continues to favor plenty of teams on the road by greater than 7 points. Unfortunately for people who bet on road favorites, in the last 100 games that this has happened, only 39 of those teams won. If you'd bet consistently against the spread in this situation, you'd have a very decent winning percentage from this betting style alone.
Betting on a team after a bye week can be dangerous or lucrative. A lot of good guesswork is needed to predict a team's success after an off week. Then again -- some coaches and some team structures respond better to time off than others. If you know what teams are okay to bet on after a bye week, you can save yourself a bit of grief. The last ten seasons have been really rough on teams like Cincinnati (2-8 after bye week) and Seattle (3-7 after bye week). Avoid betting on those teams after bye week and keep some cash in your wallet.
