Legal Betting On Football

by admin
  1. Betting On Football Legal
  2. States With Legal Sports Betting
  3. Is Sports Betting Legal Federally
  4. Legal Betting College Football

Betting is a growing industry worldwide and FIFA estimates that the total global turnover from betting on football tournaments is worth billions. While this industry represents a source of funding. Depending on where you live, you may have more than one option for betting on football. Due to PASPA's repeal, state lawmakers are now allowed to pass their own legislation and determine whether to legalize sports betting in their respective state. Multiple states have already legalized.

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College football is currently ranked second in terms of the most popular sports in America, right behind the NFL and just ahead of the MLB. Legal college football betting pulls in billions of dollars in wagering revenue every single year, and it is just getting more and more popular. One of the biggest reasons that college football betting is so popular is that there has been an increase in the number of people wagering at legal sports betting sites instead of traditional land-based sportsbooks.

Legal online sportsbooks are easy, convenient, and chock-full of fantastic special member benefits for college football fans. This page will focus on all of the major aspects of legal college football betting. We will begin by addressing the question “Is it legal to bet on college football?” We will then examine some of the major laws that pertain to sports wagering in America. We will also tackle other important legal issues like whether you will get in trouble for betting on college football and what the age requirements are. We will then unveil some of the best legal sports betting sites for NCAA football available over the Internet.

Is It Legal To Bet On College Football?

Yes, it is legal for US citizens to bet on college football. The trick is to find a good online sportsbook that properly follows the law, which not all of them do. Legal sports wagering sites do exist if you know where to look. First off, in order to be legal, an online sportsbook cannot be based inside the US unless it operates inside of one of the handful of states that have currently legalized sports betting, in which case only residents of and visitors to those states can use them.

If an online betting site is based and operates from overseas, however, it is exempt from US betting laws and is able to function legally. Most importantly, there is nothing in any federal or state law that says an American citizen cannot legally bet on college football or any other sport by using these sites. Indeed, all existing anti-sports-betting laws address only operators and service providers related to the industry and that operate inside US borders.

Laws That Affect Sports Betting In The United States

In the United States, there are two federal laws that prevent sportsbooks from taking root. The earliest of these dates back all the way back to 1961, when the mafia was starting to get heavily involved in illegal bookmaking schemes. Due to this influx of mob activity, Congress passed the Federal Wire Act, which made it a crime to use a wire communications facility to transfer wagers or bets (or information relating to wagers or bets) from one state to another. Whether the Wire Act did anything to actually curtail mob activity or just drive it further underground is another story.

The next, and most restrictive, sports betting law came about in 1992. The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) – which was overturned as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in May 2018 – was the main reason why sportsbooks were banned practically everywhere in the US except for Nevada. Since Nevada already allowed full-service sports betting for years before PASPA was enacted, the state was exempted from the law. A few other states (Oregon, Delaware, and Montana) were given the option to make their own full-service sports betting laws but neglected the opportunity, leading to Nevada’s erstwhile monopoly on the pastime.

As if PASPA did not go far enough, fourteen years later Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA, 2006), which was in response to the growing popularity of Internet poker and betting sites. What the UIGEA did was to make it so a person cannot easily transfer money to or from an internet betting site, as the law went after any financial institution that “knowingly” processed such payments. The UIGEA is a heavily contested law, having been criticized for the sneaky was it was passed (it was attached to the end of a completely unrelated bill called the Safe Port Act) and also because some members of Congress did not have time to read the entire bill before it was passed.

The Wire Act and the UIGEA are still in force, but their combined effect in the industry is negligible, as there are sufficient legal workarounds to render them mostly moot.

Will I Get In Trouble For Betting On College Football?

No, you will not get into any trouble for betting on college football because none of the abovementioned laws applies to online sportsbooks that are based outside of the United States. The only thing these laws do is make it so sportsbooks cannot legally exist within the country except in the few states that explicitly allow them. These laws, however, do not prevent individual citizens from betting at an online sportsbook, nor do they criminalize such. In fact, there has never even been a case of any US resident getting into legal trouble for betting on sports over the Internet at offshore sportsbooks. If you sign up at any of these books, you have absolutely nothing to worry about – except, of course, growing your bankroll!

Legal Betting Age Requirements

The legal betting age can get a bit murky, especially in states that have vague or ill-defined laws. For example, states like California and Oregon have betting age limits that change depending on where you live in the state. Other states say almost nothing at all about the legal betting age. Most states, however, do have a set age requirement. The bare minimum is always going to be 18, no matter what state you are in, and it’ll never be higher than 21.

Most of you who are reading this are probably older than 21, but if you are younger and you are not sure what your state law says about the betting age, get in touch with a local government official and find out, because the consequences of underage gambling at an offshore site could be deleterious to your bank account. (As a point of clarification, all legal offshore sportsbooks merely require their members to be at least 18 in order to sign up and wager.)

Now that you know that it is legal to bet on college football, it is time for you to choose an NCAA betting site. Each of the online sportsbooks listed on this page embodies all the best qualities of Las Vegas-style legal sports gambling, with the added benefit of massive convenience. In addition, these books each come fully loaded with bonuses and rad features that will blow your mind! Of course, it goes without saying that these books are legal and legit, and signing up is always free. Indeed, we recommend that you join several such legal NCAA sportsbooks in order to shop lines and get the best bang for your buck every week of the college football season!

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There are multitudes of online sportsbooks on the Internet, but there is only one Bovada! For several decades, Bovada has been the premier betting site for both amateurs and professionals. Now home to millions of members all over the country, Bovada is one of the most popular and respected Internet betting sites in the world. Bovada offers college football fans a variety of wagering options, including NCAA moneyline odds, spread betting, totals, futures, and props. They offer dozens of different wager types, ranging from extremely easy to extremely difficult. You can be sure that when you join Bovada, you will not ever run out of fun ways to bet on NCAA football.

Placing a bet on college football at Bovada is very easy. Clicking on a game line will bring up your bet slip, into which you can plug in whatever numbers you want in order to figure out your risk versus reward. You don’t actually have to do much at all except play with the numbers, and the bet slip calculator does everything else. You can make all sorts of combination bets, including parlays, pleasers, teasers, etc. and combine different betting odds to maximize your potential payouts. Bovada makes betting on college football so easy, your great-great-grandma could do it. So quit procrastinating already and sign up for a Bovada account today. You will be so glad you did. And, with Bovada’s $250 Sports Welcome Bonus, you can be $250 richer, too! (Please be aware that Bovada does not currently accept new members from Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, or New York.)

BetOnline Sportsbook

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Betting on NCAA football is a popular pastime in the United States, with billions of dollars being wagered annually. One of the best places to bet on college football is BetOnline. It is a Panama-based online sportsbook that lets you bet on all your favorite NCAAF teams. BetOnline has been one of the top sportsbooks in the world for over 25 years, catering to sports betting fans in every state of the US. That’s right, players in all 50 states are welcome to join this amazing online sportsbook. There is no joining fee, there is no commitment, and there are no strings attached.

Once you become a member of BetOnline, you will gain exclusive access to a whole host of special features. These include bonuses that will save you gobs of money, payout and deposit methods that make transferring funds a quick and easy task (including support for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, and DASH), and extras like mobile betting, which transforms your iPhone, iPad, or Android device into a pocket-sized sportsbook. Other great things about BetOnline include great customer service and live in-game play, a revolutionary new feature that lets you bet on any game in real-time as all the action unfolds. Take advantage of these and other great special features by signing up with BetOnline today. You won’t regret it. Best of all, new BetOnline members who join now are eligible for the site’s 50% deposit match bonus, which is worth up to $1000 to put towards your favorite NCAA wagers.

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The next time you want to bet on NCAA football, forget about that trip to Vegas. Instead, sign up at SportsBetting, one of the biggest and baddest online sportsbooks in the world. Here, you will find the best odds and wager types, the most comprehensive funding methods (including American Express, Bitcoin, and a host of altcoin options), and deals and promotions. Trust us, Vegas has nothing on SportsBetting. In fact, in many ways, SportsBetting improves upon the venerated Vegas experience. There is the obvious convenience factor, of course, but SportsBetting also provides a better variety of customer options than what you would find at any of the big Sin City casinos.

Speaking of great customer options, you will love SportsBetting’s amazing 50% Welcome Bonus. When you sign up with SportsBetting, they will match your deposit by 50% up to $1000. That said, SportsBetting has tons of other great bonuses, too, such as their lifetime reload bonus, which matches each new deposit by 20% (up to $1000) for the life of your account. SportsBetting also offers a $50 Mobile Betting Free Play, which gives you a reimbursement of up to $50 if your first bet loses, and a $25 Free Live In-Game Betting bonus, which is similar to the Mobile Betting Free Play. With so many ways to save money, it is no wonder SportsBetting is one of the top online sportsbooks in the world!

5Dimes Sportsbook

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Discerning sports bettors who know the difference between a high-quality and a low-quality online sportsbook choose 5Dimes every time. This is because no other site gives the player as much control over the action as 5Dimes does. You can choose from a list of dozens of the most popular sports and games, including college football. Odds types include moneyline bets, spread bets, totals, futures, and props. Wager types are extremely varied as well, and they include straight bets, parlays, pleasers, if bets, round robins, reverses, and more. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of 5Dimes’ excellent service is that the site allows players to buy points on almost any line, essentially giving them an infinite number of alternate lines to choose from! And when it comes to deposit and withdrawal options, 5Dimes has a method to suit your needs.

One of the areas in which 5Dimes really excels is customer service. You can contact 5Dimes any time, day or night, by calling one of their several phone numbers. If you do not want to talk on the phone, you can always email them or talk via Live Help on the site itself, which is extremely convenient. 5Dimes’ great customer service department only further goes to show how much they care about their loyal customers. If you ever have an experience to share, whether it is positive or negative, or a question, comment, or concern, 5Dimes will be there to listen and assist. The same cannot be said for most other Internet betting sites that you’re likely to come across.

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Fastest Legal College Football Deposits

There are a number of ways to fund your NCAA betting accounts, but the fastest legal college football deposits are unequivocally credit or debit cards (and in some cases, Visa gift cards that work for international purchases). However, these aren’t the best options if you wish to deposit more than a few thousand dollars at once, as their limits are quite low. For fast deposits of larger amounts, Bitcoin (and other altcoins like Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, and DASH where supported) is the way to go. These typically transfer in just a few minutes, and they come with no added processing fees.

For those who wish to use more traditional methods, you can fund your NCAAF betting accounts via cashier’s checks, money orders, bank wires, and even services like Western Union or MoneyGram. However, all of these have comparatively high service fees and take several days – sometimes up to a week or more – to show up in your sportsbook account.

Fastest Legal NCAA Football Payouts

Bitcoin is hands-down the fastest legal NCAA football payout method, as are other cryptocurrencies like those mentioned above. With crypto, you can have your money transferred to your personal account(s) within just a few hours on average, and there are no associated fees to worry about.

You can opt to be paid out via check, money order, or bank wire as well, but these withdrawal methods all take several days to clear, and you could be waiting up to two weeks to receive your winnings. If time is of the essence, you will definitely want to use a Bitcoin or altcoin solution when claiming your legal college football betting winnings.

Mobile college football betting is easily the most accessible and convenient way for the vast majority of gamblers and sports bettors to enjoy their favorite pastime. All you need in order to have full mobile access to your NCAA betting site of choice is a modern smartphone (iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc.) or tablet with a cellular data or Wi-Fi connection. Most of the top legal online sportsbooks are not geo-fenced, meaning that you can take your sports wagering on the go across the country, and you can access your betting site’s full suite of features from the palm of your hand. Keep your bookie in your pocket with mobile college football betting!

College Football Live Betting

In-game betting, aka live betting, is the newest, most immersive form of sports wagering you can get. Unlike traditional sports betting, college football live betting allows you to actually wager on dynamic betting lines during the games themselves! As the games progress, their moneyline bets, spread bets, and totals bets will all be modified on the fly to reflect the action up till that point, and odds will change frequently.

As such, in order to fully take advantage of college football live betting, you need to make sure you have a steady Internet connection and a computer or mobile device open to your sportsbook’s live-updating odds boards for the game in question. Just remember that, with live betting, you don’t set it and forget it – you have to be on your toes and make the play as soon as you see favorable odds, or you might miss out on the biggest payout of the day.

Ready To Bet On Today's College Football Games? Get Started!

In order to place legal bets at online sportsbooks for NCAA football, you need to sign up with a betting site. Check out several in the process, and join the one that is compatible to what you are looking for from and odds standpoint, as well as one that meets your deposit requirements, withdrawal requirements, and other factors. Sportsbooks will have all of this information available to you even before you commit to an account.

Different Ways To Wager On NCAA Football + Betting Options

Like the NFL, college football has as many ways to bet on the sport as any other sport or league out there. The nature of the sport and how betting odds are set up allow for this. As a result, there are many ways in which bettors are able to place a wager on college football, whether it's on a game, prop, futures line or a combination thereof.

Straight Betting On CFB Games - If you make a bet at a sportsbook on NCAA football where you place money down for one outcome on a single wager it is known as a straight bet. There are no adjustments, or other outcomes that come into play. There are many different kinds of straight bets, such as game lines, props, and futures.

College Football Parlay Wagers - The appealing aspect of placing a parlay on NCAA football is the potential to make a lot of money on the return. But the high reward comes with high risk. Parlays involve several different bets to hit ultimately for one large outcome. The trick is making sure all of those small bets within the parlay hit. If they don't, then the parlay is not a winner. Bettors can often form many types of parlays as a sportsbook.

NCAa Football Pleaser Bets - If a bettor doesn't like a betting line, they can essentially buy points to adjust it. Or in the case of a pleaser, it's almost like doing the exact opposite. A pleaser shifts a betting line to make it more difficult on the bettor to win. The point to do this though would be because the payout on the betting line increases. Bettors are making the wager harder to win for a bigger profit.

CFB Teaser Betting - This is the bet where bettors are buying points to make the bet easier to win against the spread. Teasers do the opposite of a pleaser, bringing the betting line and adjusting it closer. The plus side is that the bet is statistically easier to win. The minus is that a lot of the payout can be sacrificed. But the thought here is that a win is better than a loss.

Other Ways To Wager On CFB Games - When you look around at a sportsbook into some of the rules and things of that nature you will probably find out about the different bets that can be made. College football will have plenty of options. In addition to the ones that we've already talked about will be some other ones. Things like an if-bet, which is similar to parlay wager could available. Be sure to consult the sportsbook if you have any betting type questions.

We are going to separate college football lines into a few different categories. During the season bettors will be able to wager on games through the game lines formed at sportsbooks, prop odds, and futures wagers on conference and national championships.

College Football Game Lines - The game lines are broken up into three betting odds. They are a point spread, for which the favorite and underdog are established in order to cover a line, a moneyline, in which no spread is formed and the winner is bet, and a game total, which directly relates to the points scored in a matchup.

College Football Props - Team props, player props, and futures wagers also come along with betting college football. Props can be with games or relate to the season on the whole. Team win totals, and individual player performances are popular.

College Football Futures - In the case of futures bets it's all about the BCS Championship odds and who will win the national title. Other futures wagers includes conference and division betting lines formed prior to the start of each season.

College Football Betting Tips + Strategies

To help increase your chances of winning bets made on NCAA football, check out a few strategies that can be implemented into your betting, below. These are pretty basic, but a lot of times it's know what to look for and how to manage bets that can produce more wins

Of all the different resources and research materials at your fingertips, we suggest you consult betting trends if you are looking to be a game. Betting trends are very helpful for wagers made against the spread, and on the over/under point total. Trends are broken down into different categories, and can really help paint a picture of what you might expect and what trends teams are playing towards.

2. For Low Risk, High Return Wagers Try A Parlay

Parlay wagers are very popular because bettors can risk very little to win a lot. With that comes the lower chance of winning, but if a parlay is lost it won't be the end of the world. Bettors can often risk $5 and sometime profit thousands depending on the games chosen and the extent of the parlay. These wagers also make things exciting as they span many games throughout the day.

Bettors will have different methods and stick to them, and while that could work we suggest developing new strategies as you progress in your betting. Don't stick with one method until you've experimented with other possible ones to maybe find a better one. There are many different theories out there, and there are many that have a lot of merit to them. Don't be afraid to expand your horizons.

Football

As legal sports betting rolls out across the US, the biggest slice of the market is betting on the NFL.

Pro football is the most-watched sport in America, and that translates to it being the most bet-on sport as well.

NFL betting sites

Read on for more information about betting on the NFL in 2021 and the market for it in the US.

Where you can legally bet on the NFL in the US

There are more than a dozen states where you can legally bet on NFL football games currently. Here is the list of states where sports betting is legal, or where it has been legalized pending launch (click through to learn more about betting options in any of these states:

StateIs sports betting legal?Is online sports betting legal?
ArkansasYesNo
ColoradoYesYes
DelawareYesYes, launch undetermined
IndianaYesYes
IowaYesYes
MississippiYesYes, on-property only
MontanaYesYes
NevadaYesYes
New JerseyYesYes
New MexicoYes, at multiple tribal casinosNo
New YorkYesNo
North CarolinaYes, pending launchNo
OregonYesYes
PennsylvaniaYesYes
Rhode IslandYesYes
TennesseeYes, pending launchYes, pending launch
Washington DCYes, pending launchYes, pending launch
West VirginiaYesYes

Online betting is currently live in these states, which should be the largest markets for sports wagering in short order:

NFL betting in New Jersey

The second biggest market for betting on the NFL is New Jersey, and it will likely surpass Nevada in the near future — possibly in 2020 or 2021.

That’s for several reasons:

Legal Betting On FootballFootball
  • It’s a more open market for online betting — you can register online from anywhere in the state
  • New Jersey is also interesting in that it has access to the New York City market; NY only has a few physical sportsbooks upstate. But New Yorkers can cross the river into New Jersey and bet easily.
  • Betting on the Giants, Jets and Eagles is popular among New Jersey residents.

There are no shortage of NJ sports betting apps:

  • BetAmerica
  • Hard Rock
  • Bet365

NFL betting in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is the biggest state that has legal sports betting apps. Population centers and football-crazy cities Philadelphia and Pittsburgh create a good starting based for legal sports gambling.

There are only a handful of apps in the state as of September 2019, but more are on the way.

  • Parx Sportsbook

NFL betting in Illinois

Illinois is the sixth most populous state in the US, while Chicago is the single largest metropolitan area with legal online sports betting. Sportsbooks are also keen to acquire customers now, while in-person registration is suspended.

There are already a handful of live apps in the state, including:

NFL betting in Colorado

Despite only launching in May, the Colorado market already has a wide range of sportsbooks for betting NFL.

The CO apps live today include:

Legal Betting On Football
  • BetMonarch
  • Circa Sports
  • ELITE Sportsbook
  • Smarkets
  • Sky Ute

NFL betting in West Virginia

West Virginia has two of the major players in online sports betting: DraftKings Sportsbook and FanDuel Sportsbook.

There are also a trio of physical sportsbooks. While betting on West Virginia University is huge, expect a lot of betting on the NFL teams in surrounding states as well.

NFL betting in Nevada

Sports betting has been around for decades in Nevada, and it’s the biggest market for NFL betting right now. Hundreds of millions are wagered on NFL games in Las Vegas and beyond.

While there are more than 100 physical sportsbooks, nearly all of them also have a sports betting app. While the tech in Nevada lags behind other markets, and you have to sign up in person for an app, they are still a good option.

Mobile betting accounts for more than half of all betting — NFL and otherwise — in Nevada.

NFL betting in Iowa

Iowa went live with sports betting in the summer of 2019, rolling out physical sportsbooks and online sports betting apps almost in parallel.

There are already more than a dozen sportsbooks in the state, along with apps that you have to register for at a casino and racetrack.

Legal NFL betting apps vs. illegal offshore apps

If you’re not in one of the states mentioned above, you are not betting at a site that operates legally in the US or in your state.

While many people believe that sports betting became widely legal in 2018, all that happened was the repeal of a federal ban allowing states to legalize sports betting.

So if you want to bet on the NFL, keep in mind where you’re betting. While individual bettors are unlikely to get in trouble for betting at a site that operates outside of the constraints of US law, the sites themselves do run afoul of federal and state law. Despite the fact that these sportsbooks will tell you they are operating legally, that is far from the truth.

If you’re in Nevada, New Jersey and other states that have betting laws, you have a number of regulated choices to choose from. Unfortunately for much of the country, there is no legal option. That includes large states like California and Florida. In New York, you can bet at some upstate sportsbooks but only in-person.

How much do Americans bet on the NFL?

Despite the fact that the NFL has the fewest games of any pro team sport, it’s by far the most popular to bet on.

With a handful of preseason games, 16 in the regular season and then a win-to-advance playoff system, there’s a premium on every game. That dynamic makes the NFL the most popular sport to watch on TV; the Super Bowl every year is the most-watched program on TV in the US.

All of that interest creates a robust market for betting on the NFL in the US, despite the fact that single-game wagering has only been legal in Nevada before 2018. People still find myriad ways of having a monetary interest on the outcome of games, from fantasy sports, to betting against friends, to using illegal offshore sportsbooks.

Gauging how much is bet on the NFL by Americans is tricky because of all that. The American Gaming Association says that 38 million adults will bet on the NFL in 2019.

If you include fantasy and social betting, the number is certainly in the hundreds of millions. If limited to offshore books, the number has been estimated from the tens of billions to $150 billion.

The advent of legal sports betting outside of Nevada will increase all of these figures even more. The NFL, as the country’s most popular sport, will drive betting handle in most states.

When is NFL betting the biggest?

The interest in betting on the NFL usually follows a rhythm, starting out strong before hitting a crescendo in the postseason:

  • The first few weeks of the NFL season are usually the biggest in the regular season, outside of weeks that feature several top teams facing off and/or divisional rivalries. Everyone is excited to bet on the NFL when it returns, and that honeymoon usually lasts several weeks.
  • Thanksgiving is now a big time to bet on games. With the unidivided attention of NFL fans — at least before dinner is served — there are three games that take place on the holiday every year.
  • The end of the season is often a bit slower for betting on the NFL, from attrition of bettors to lack of interest as some teams fall out of the playoff hunt. But that resets as the playoffs begin, with huge numbers of bettors wanting to have action on wild-card games, divisional games and conference championships.
  • The Super Bowl is usually the single biggest day for betting at any sportsbook. Tens of millions of people will watch, and many of them have action on the game some way, whether through a sportsbook, a squares competition or a wager with a friend. But as sports betting rolls out in more and more states, expect there to be a lot of betting on the NFL.

Sports betting apps vs. physical sportsbooks for NFL

NFL fans love to watch games at sportsbooks. Nevada has long cashed in on the intersection of betting and lots of TVs, packing sportsbooks in Las Vegas and elsewhere with fans on NFL Sundays.

It is usually a good experience, except it can be difficult to get your bet down in-person on a busy Sunday. The lines to place bets in states with legal sports betting are usually extremely long; in states where online betting is legal, it’s far more convenient.

Here’s a bit of a breakdown:

Sports betting app advantages

  • Multiple ways to deposit and withdraw funds
  • Easier to place bets
  • Live betting options — betting while games are going on — is far more robust.
  • Convenient to bet from nearly anywhere (as long as you are located in a state where it is legal).
  • Deposit bonuses and odds boosts

Physical sportsbook advantages

  • Personal contact with a ticket writer
  • Can watch nearly every game at a sportsbook
  • Free drink tickets are sometimes given at sportsbooks

More about NFL betting odds and lines

If you are betting on the NFL, there are a variety of ways to do so. Here is a quick look at some of the ways:

  • Point spread: This is the most common way to bet on NFL games, and is generally the type of bet that sportsbooks see the most of. Here, the sportsbook sets a line that team X will win a game by Y points; for instance, New England could be a three-point favorite at home against the Philadelphia Eagles. If you bet New England at minus-3, you are betting that New England will win by four or more points. If you bet on the Eagles, you are betting that Philly will either win, tie or lose by two or one points.
  • Moneyline: This simplest type of bet, a bettor is just picking who will win the game. The confusing part for bettors not used to looking at moneyline odds. Here, a favorite will usually be assigned a negative number, and the underdog a positive number. New England could be a -148 favorite, meaning you need to bet $148 to win $100. Philly could be a +128 underdog, meaning you bet $100 to win $128. Favorites, therefore, return less money than underdogs.
  • Totals: Betting on how many points will be scored in an NFL game is another very common bet. Here, the sportsbook sets a line, and you bet whether the two teams will combine to score more or fewer points than that total.
  • Futures: There are a variety of ways to bet on future events for the NFL. The most common is to bet on the winner of the Super Bowl. You can also bet on conference champions, division champions, and regular-season win totals among other things.
  • Prop betting: Here, a bettor is betting on whether something will or won’t happen in a game. Will Tom Brady pass for 300 yards or more? Will Antonio Brown score two touchdowns? You’re betting on whether the number set by the book.
  • Parlays: A bet where you connect more than one outcome into a single bet. For instance, you could combine three point spreads into a single bet that would result in longer odds and an increased payout if the bettor picks all three correctly. These are generally profitable bets for sportsbooks because of the degree of difficulty for the bettor.
  • Live betting: Betting on a game while it is in progress is an increasingly popular way to wager. Most of the methods of wagering above are available while games are going on, including spreads based on the current score and time, what players will do during the game, etc.
  • Teasers: This is essentially a two-leg parlay that lets you move the point spread or total six points in your favour. For example you could tease two 8.5 point favourites down to -2.5. You normally pay -110 to -120 on a two-team teaser.

Note that all of these types of winning bets will include vigorish or a commission that the sportsbook charges on winning bets. More on sports betting terms can be found here. And that’s not an exhaustive list of bet types either.