How-To
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How an NFL against-the-spread record is counted, what cover rate a bettor needs at -110 and at an even-money price, how favorites, underdogs, and home teams covered from 2015 through 2025, and why a team's ATS record says little about next season.
Definition: a team’s ATS record counts how often it covered the point spread, written as covers, non-covers, and pushes. A 9-7-1 ATS team covered nine times, failed to cover seven times, and landed on the number once.
The bar: at -110, a bettor has to cover 52.38% of spread bets to break even. On an even-money price, such as a 50% spread contract on Novig before kickoff with no fee, the bar is 50%.
League-wide: from 2015 through 2025, NFL favorites covered 48.4% of the time against nflverse’s lines and underdogs 51.6%, net of pushes. Road underdogs covered 52.1%.
Straight up vs. ATS: favorites won 1,993 games outright in that span, and 491 of those wins, about one in four, didn’t cover.
Repeatability: a team’s ATS record one season had almost no relationship with its record the next. Teams that covered 60% or more averaged 51% the following year.
ATS stands for against the spread. A team’s ATS record grades every game it played against the point spread rather than the scoreboard. A cover is a win against the number, a non-cover is a loss against it, and a push is a game that landed exactly on a whole-number spread.
Take a team listed at -6.5 that wins 24-20. It won the game but didn’t cover, so its straight-up record goes up by a win and its ATS record by a loss. An underdog at +6.5 that loses 24-20 adds a straight-up loss and an ATS cover. The point spread guide covers how the favorite and underdog notation works.
ATS records are written like standings: covers first, then non-covers, then pushes. A cover percentage is usually taken net of pushes, so a 9-7-1 team covered 56.25% of the 16 games that had a winner against the number.
Each game is graded against one spread, and a record is only as consistent as the line behind it. A record built on closing lines, the last spread posted before kickoff, can differ from a bettor’s own results if they took a different number earlier in the week.
Sources don’t always list the same number, and half a point is enough to change a result. On this site’s Week 1 odds page, DraftKings’ spread on Patriots at Seahawks was Seattle -3.5 as listed on Covers and Seattle -3 on ESPN’s game page. Seattle won 13-10, so New England covered on one number and pushed on the other. Two ATS records built from those sources would already disagree for both teams after one week.
The standard NFL spread costs -110 on each side, so a bettor risks $110 to win $100. That price needs a 52.38% cover rate to break even. A bettor who picks spreads at a coin-flip rate loses money at -110.
On a prediction market, a spread is a contract that pays $1 if the team covers. Novig charges no fee on either side of a pre-game straight trade under its published fee schedule, and a spread is a straight trade, so a spread bought at 50% needs a 50% cover rate. Novig lists full-game and first-half spreads on NFL games. Its prices come from other users’ orders, so a spread won’t always trade at exactly 50%. Novig requires users to be 21 and isn’t available in Arizona, Michigan, or Nevada. Its status in Ohio is unsettled after the state’s casino regulator sent it a cease-and-desist letter in October 2026.
Here’s what the same 100 spread picks return at each price, risking $100 a pick:
ATS record | Cover rate | At -110 | At 50%, no fee |
|---|---|---|---|
50-50 | 50% | -$454.55 | $0 |
52-48 | 52% | -$72.73 | +$400 |
53-47 | 53% | +$118.18 | +$600 |
55-45 | 55% | +$500 | +$1,000 |
A 52-48 record loses at -110 and wins at even money. For a bettor near 52%, the price decides the result. The spread shopping guide compares spread prices across sportsbooks and prediction markets, fees included.
Across the 2015 through 2025 seasons, regular season and playoffs, nflverse game data lists a spread for 3,028 games. Four were pick’ems with no favorite. Here’s how each group covered against those lines, net of pushes:
Group | Covers | Non-covers | Pushes | Cover rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Favorites | 1,427 | 1,522 | 75 | 48.4% |
Underdogs | 1,522 | 1,427 | 75 | 51.6% |
Home teams | 1,448 | 1,505 | 75 | 49.0% |
Road underdogs | 957 | 880 | 50 | 52.1% |
Home underdogs | 565 | 547 | 25 | 50.8% |
None of these clears 52.38%, so blindly betting any one group at -110 lost money over the period. Road underdogs came closest, and on a 50% price they’d have shown a small profit. Over 11 seasons and about 1,800 games, a two-point edge in one split is within the range that noise produces.
The size of the spread made little difference:
Favorite’s spread | Games | Favorite cover rate |
|---|---|---|
1 to 3 | 1,132 | 48.4% |
3.5 to 6.5 | 1,030 | 48.0% |
7 to 9.5 | 492 | 47.8% |
10 or more | 370 | 50.0% |
Favorites won 1,993 of the 3,024 games that had one, about two in three. They covered in 1,427. The other 491 straight-up wins, about one in four, came in under the number. That gap is why a team’s win-loss record and its ATS record can look nothing alike.
The spread already prices in how good a team is. A team that wins a lot gets bigger spreads, and its cover rate drifts back toward half. In nflverse data from 2015 through 2025, a team’s regular-season cover rate one year had a correlation of about zero with its cover rate the next, across 317 pairs of seasons. Of the team-seasons with a following season in the data, the 64 that covered 60% or more averaged 51% the next year, and the 67 that covered 40% or less averaged 52%.
A single season’s ATS records spread out about as far as luck alone would put them. If every team covered exactly half the time, about one in six would still cover 11 or more of 17 games by chance, which is about five teams a season. From 2021 through 2025, the seasons with a 17-game schedule, an average of 4.6 teams a year covered 11 or more. The 2024 Chargers went 13-4 ATS on nflverse’s lines, and the 2024 Titans went 2-14-1.
A strong ATS record is a sign the market underrated a team for part of a season. By the time it shows up in a published record, the spread has usually caught up.
Check the line: know whether a record uses closing lines and which source, and whether the playoffs are in it.
Count pushes: a record with several pushes on 3 or 7 can swing a full game on a half-point difference in the line.
Look at the margin: some sites list the average amount a team beat or missed the spread by. A team that covered by half a point five times is in a different spot from one that covered by 10.
Weigh the sample: 17 games is a small sample, and splits within it, such as home underdogs in division games, are smaller still.
Compare with the market: the public betting percentages guide covers where the money sits on each side, and the odds reading guide covers what each price implies.
This week’s lines are on the weekly NFL odds page.
ATS means against the spread. A team’s ATS record counts how many times it covered the point spread, failed to cover, and pushed, whatever its win-loss record.
At -110, anything above 52.38% covers beats the price. At an even-money price, such as a 50% spread contract with no fee, anything above 50% does. A full season of 17 games is too few to tell skill from luck.
Underdogs, slightly. From 2015 through 2025, underdogs covered 51.6% of the time against nflverse’s lines and favorites 48.4%, net of pushes. Neither beat the 52.38% needed at -110.
A push is listed as the third number, as in 9-7-1, and is usually left out of the cover percentage. It happens only when the margin lands exactly on a whole-number spread.
Sites can take their lines from different sportsbooks or at different times, and half a point can turn a cover into a push or a loss.
Bettors must be 21 or older in most states. Gamble responsibly: if betting stops being fun, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), and ncpgambling.org has more resources.
