How to Bet on Football: A Beginner’s Guide to NFL Betting

Key takeaways

• American odds: a minus number is what you risk to win $100, a plus number is what $100 wins. A -110 line means risking $110 to win $100.

• Core bets: the point spread, the moneyline and the total cover most NFL action. Parlays, props, futures and live bets are built on the same odds math.

• The cost of betting: a sportsbook builds its margin into the price, so a bettor laying -110 on every bet has to win 52.38% of them to break even.

• Bankroll: a fixed betting budget split into small, equal units limits how much any one week can cost.

• Where to bet: state-licensed sportsbooks and federally regulated prediction markets both take NFL action, but they price it differently.

How betting on football works

Betting on football means putting money on an outcome of an NFL game, or a season, at a stated price. The price is the odds. They tell you how much you win if you’re right, and they also tell you how likely the market thinks that outcome is.

Most of what a beginner needs comes down to reading that price correctly. Once the odds make sense, every bet type on the board uses the same arithmetic, and what’s left to manage is how much you put down each week.

How to read American odds

US sportsbooks quote odds in the American format. A negative number is how much you’d risk to win $100, and a positive number is what a $100 bet wins. Either way, you get the stake back on top of the winnings.

At -150, a bettor risks $150 to win $100. At +150, a $100 bet wins $150. The same logic scales down, so $15 at -150 wins $10.

Odds also tell you what the market thinks the chances are, called implied probability. For a minus price, divide the odds by the odds plus 100: -150 works out to 150 / 250, or 60%. For a plus price, divide 100 by the odds plus 100: +150 works out to 100 / 250, or 40%.

The standard price on NFL spreads and totals is -110, which means risking $110 to win $100 (or $11 to win $10). Its implied probability is 52.38%. When a sportsbook lists both sides of a game at -110, the two sides add up to 104.76%. The extra 4.76 points over 100% is the vig, also called juice: the margin the book collects for taking the bet. That’s why a bettor at -110 has to win 52.38% of the time to break even, and why picking winners at a coin-flip rate loses money over a season.

The main NFL bet types

Every NFL game carries three standard markets: the spread, the moneyline and the total. Most other bets are combinations or slices of them.

Point spreads

The point spread is a handicap that makes two unequal teams roughly even to bet on. If Team A is -3.5 and Team B is +3.5, a bet on Team A only cashes if it wins by four or more. A bet on Team B wins if Team B wins outright or loses by three or fewer. Spreads usually carry -110 on each side.

When the spread is a whole number, such as -3, and the favorite wins by exactly three, the bet’s a push and you get the stake back.

Moneylines

A moneyline bet is a pick on who wins the game outright. The favorite carries a minus price and the underdog a plus price. With the favorite at -170 and the underdog at +145, $100 on the favorite wins $58.82, and $100 on the underdog wins $145.

Those two prices imply 62.96% and 40.82%, which add up to 103.78%. That extra 3.78 points is the book’s margin, the same idea as on a spread.

Totals (over/unders)

A total is a bet on the combined score of both teams. With the total at 44.5, a 24-20 final adds up to 44 and the under wins. A 27-20 final adds up to 47 and the over wins. Who wins the game doesn’t matter.

Parlay bets

A parlay ties two or more bets into one ticket. Every leg has to win, and the payout grows with each leg added. Three legs at -110 each pay about +596, so a $20 parlay returns $139.16 if all three hit, which is $119.16 in profit.

If each leg is a 50-50 proposition, all three hit 12.5% of the time, and a fair price for that would be +700. The gap between +596 and +700 is the book’s margin compounding across three bets, which is why parlays cost more per dollar wagered than straight bets.

Prop bets

Prop bets isolate one piece of a game. Player props cover individual stats, such as a quarterback’s passing yards over or under 245.5, or whether a given receiver scores a touchdown. Game props cover things like the first team to score. Most are priced like totals or moneylines, so there’s nothing new to learn about the odds.

Futures bets

Futures are bets on outcomes decided later in the season: the Super Bowl winner, a division winner, a team’s regular-season win total, or the MVP. A $20 bet on a team at +1600 to win the Super Bowl pays $320 in profit, $340 back in total. The price is locked when you bet, even if the team’s odds shorten to +400 by January. The money’s also tied up until the market settles, which for a Super Bowl bet placed in September is about five months.

Live betting

Live, or in-game, betting lets you bet after kickoff on markets that update as the game moves. Markets lock during plays and reopen between them, and prices can change while a bet is being submitted. Live prices also tend to carry a wider margin than pre-game lines.

How to place a football bet, step by step

Whether sports betting is legal, and the minimum age to do it, is set by each state, so the first step is checking where sports betting is legal and what’s available where you live. After that, the process looks the same on nearly every app.

The steps from sign-up to settled bet

1. Open an account: sign up with a licensed sportsbook or a prediction market available in your state, verify your identity and location, and deposit.

2. Find the game: pick the NFL from the sports menu and choose the matchup.

3. Add a selection: tap the price you want, such as Team A -3.5 at -110, and it lands on the bet slip.

4. Enter a stake: type the amount you want to risk and check the potential payout the slip calculates.

5. Confirm: submit the bet and wait for the confirmation. Bets settle after the game, and winnings return to your balance.

What the bet slip shows

The bet slip is where a selection turns into a wager. A $55 single on a -110 spread reads like this:

Some apps have a setting for whether live bets accept odds changes automatically, and it’s worth checking before the first live bet. Adding a second selection to the slip may also turn two singles into a parlay unless you switch it back.

Bankroll basics

A bankroll is the money set aside for betting and nothing else. It should be an amount you could lose in full without it touching rent or bills.

The common way to size bets is in units, where one unit is a small fixed share of the bankroll, often 1% to 2%. On a $500 bankroll that’s $5 to $10 a bet. With flat units, a 2-6 week costs a few percent of the roll, and the stake doesn’t creep up after a loss.

A simple record of each bet, the price and the result shows whether a strategy is working faster than memory does. Chasing a loss with a bigger bet on the late game undoes the unit system in one wager.

If betting stops being fun or money is involved that shouldn’t be, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738).

Sportsbooks and prediction markets

A sportsbook is the house: it sets the line, takes the other side of your bet and builds the vig into the price. Sportsbooks are licensed state by state.

A prediction market matches bettors against each other. Prices are quoted in cents per contract, where a contract pays $1 if the outcome happens. A contract at 55 cents implies 55%, the same as about -122 in American odds, and 100 contracts cost $55 to win $45. These platforms are regulated federally by the CFTC as event-contract markets, and several states have challenged that in court, so availability can change.

Because the price comes from other bettors, a prediction market doesn’t have to add a vig to it. Costs show up as fees instead, which vary by platform and by bet type. On Novig, pre-game straight bets carry no fee, so a 50-50 game that a sportsbook deals at -110 on both sides can trade near even money there. The full comparison is in prediction markets vs. sportsbooks.

Small details that decide football bets

• Key numbers: three and seven are the most common winning margins in the NFL, so a half point on either side of them is worth more than most other half points.

• Line shopping: different books post different numbers on the same game. Getting -2.5 instead of -3, or -105 instead of -110, adds up over a season.

• Overtime: at most sportsbooks, overtime counts toward spreads, totals and moneylines unless the market says otherwise.

• Ties: an NFL regular-season game can end in a tie, and most books grade a two-way moneyline as a push when it does.

• Line movement: spreads and totals move during the week on injury news and weather. A bet is graded at the number you took when you placed it.

Football betting FAQ

What does -110 mean in football betting?

It means risking $110 to win $100, or any amount in the same ratio, such as $11 to win $10. It’s the standard price on NFL spreads and totals, and it implies a 52.38% chance of winning.

What does +7 mean in football betting?

A team at +7 is a seven-point underdog. A bet on it wins if the team wins outright or loses by six or fewer. If it loses by exactly seven, the bet is a push and the stake is refunded.

What is the easiest football bet for a beginner?

The moneyline, since it only asks who wins. The point spread adds one step to that: the winning margin.

How much should a beginner bet on football?

A common approach is to set a fixed bankroll and bet 1% to 2% of it per game. On a $500 bankroll that’s $5 to $10 a bet.

Do NFL bets include overtime?

At most sportsbooks, yes. Spreads, totals and moneylines on full-game markets include overtime unless the bet states otherwise. First-half and quarter bets do not.