Nfl Betting Spreads
How to Use the Odds Comparison Tool
Compare odds across legal US sportsbooks at ScoreandOdds.com to help you profit over the course of the NFL season. Find out how to use the odds comparison tool, along with other NFL betting tips below.
Get the latest betting odds & lines at BetOnline Sportsbook for betting on your favorite sport and snag a huge sign-up bonus. Analyzing NFL odds, lines and spreads, with football sports betting advice and tips around the NFL’s top football events. We also provide game-by-game expert picks and predictions to help you make more informed NFL bets and wagers. Get the latest NFL odds, spreads and betting lines from this week's games, as well as full coverage of the National Football League from USA TODAY. Easily the most popular type of betting for NFL football is “spread” betting or more commonly known as betting against the spread.Bettors who are new to NFL betting or betting in general may be a little confused with NFL spread betting, but it is pretty easy to understand once it is explained to you. Ready for Week 10 of the NFL season? Our staff is here to help you finalize your betting cards with their favorite picks for Sunday’s slate. Find out which spreads and totals they’re betting below, including cases for both sides of the 49ers-Saints spread. Raheem Palmer: Broncos +3.5 at Raiders. Kickoff: 4:05 p.m. ET More Game Info.
Are you in a state or traveling to a state with legal sports betting, such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Indiana? Our odds comparison tool is perfect for you.
Highlighting the best lines — spreads, totals and moneylines — from multiple sportsbooks across the legal US sports betting industry, you can outsource line-shopping in your betting process, saving you time and money in all of your sports betting endeavors. Simply click on spreads, totals or moneylines underneath Bet Type. The best line will be outlined in red, showing you which sportsbook you should use for each respective bet.
Additionally, all of the sportsbooks featured in our odds comparison tool will have a welcome promo, which might include free bets or deposit bonuses, for all new users. Be sure to take advantage of the offers by clicking on the bet you want and signing up!
Of course, if you are new to NFL betting, or sports betting in general, you will first need to understand what you are looking at in terms of NFL spreads, moneylines and point totals. A few complementary NFL betting tips never hurt anyone, either. Let’s get started.
NFL Betting Glossary & Tips
Spread – The most popular way to bet on NFL football is by betting on a team against the spread (ATS). You will either wager on the favorite or the underdog to cover the spread. The Favorite is the team giving or laying points (ex: Chiefs -7). The underdog is the team getting points (ex: Colts +7).
By betting on the underdog, the team does not have to win the game for you to win your bet. You need them to lose by less than the number of points they are getting. If they win outright, you will win your bet too. Example: If you bet on the Indianapolis Colts +7, the bet wins if the Colts lose by six points or less (or win outright), you push (no money won or loss) if they lose by exactly seven points, and you lose if the Colts lose by eight or more.
NFL Betting Tip: Be aware of NFL key numbers when betting, the two most important numbers being 3 and 7. It is more common for teams to win by 3 or 7 points than any other margin of victory. The third-most common margin of victory is 10 points. Often, you will find different point spreads across different sportsbooks. If one sportsbook has a team favored by 7 points, by using our odds comparison tool, you can quickly find out if another sportsbook has the spread at 6.5 or 7.5 points. Finding the best spread is arguably the biggest factor in making you a profitable bettor over the long term.
Money Line – By betting on the moneyline, you are only wagering on what team will win or lose. Large favorites require you to risk more money than you will win (ex: Chiefs -300, requires you to risk $30 to win $10). Conversely, betting on underdogs will earn bettors more money than they risk (ex: Bengals +300, a $10 bet will earn you $30 profit).
NFL Betting Tip: While it is important to take or give points when the team you like is on the right side of key numbers, what do you do if the spread is not on the right side of the key number? Maybe you love an underdog and even think they have a chance to upset the favorite but the spread is +2, not quite reaching that key number of 3. The moneyline might be more enticing here. Some historical data shows that break-even percentages on moneyline underdogs are better than that on moneyline favorites
Total (Over/Under) – When you bet on the point total, you’re betting on the total number of points scored by both teams. So if a game has a total (or Over/Under) of 49 points before kickoff, you can bet on Over or Under 49 total combined points between the two teams for the entire game. Points scored in overtime are included. There are also point totals for quarters and halves.
NFL Betting Tip: Try to spot teams who have changed things up, whether by adding a key player in the NFL free agency or identifying a generational talentbefore others do, such as Patrick Mahomes. During the 2018-19 season, in Mahomes’ first year as a starter, the Kansas City Chiefs went Over their respective point totals in each of their first three games. By the end of the season, Chiefs Over/Under record was 10-5-1.
Vigorish (vig) or Juice – The vig or juice is the cut sportsbooks take from bettors to place their bets. This is the house edge. Sportsbooks typically have a vig of -110 on both sides of a bet, meaning you have to risk $11 for every $10 you want to win. Taking into account the vigorish, you need to win not half of your bets but at least 52.4% to break even.
NFL Betting Tip: While -110 is most common, some sportsbooks are nicer than others when it comes to vigorish. You will want to use SAO’s odds tool to find which sportsbooks are charging the least amount for your NFL picks.
Other NFL betting Terms
Parlay – A parlay involves two or more picks, all of which have to win for your parlay to pay out. You have a three-team parlay, and two of your picks win but the last game loses? Tough luck, you lose the entire bet. Parlays are attractive to bettors because of their large payouts. Two-team parlays traditionally pay 2.6-to-1, three-team parlays pay 6-to-1, four-team parlays pay 10-to-1, etc. Though we refer to these as “two-team parlays,” parlays can consist of picks on the point totals and sometimes even props. Use our parlay calculator for your convenience.
NFL Betting Tip: Remember, NFL lines are extremely efficient. In fact, the NFL is arguably the toughest sport to beat over the long haul. Parlays require perfection, making it even more difficult for you to win on Sunday.
Teasers – Like a parlay, teasers require more than one pick, and all picks in your teaser must hit. NFL teasers are a popular way of moving multiple point spreads (or totals) to bettors’ advantage. Since the points are adjusted in the bettor’s favor, teasers do not have as large of payouts as parlays
NFL Betting Tip: Generally speaking, teasing football point totals does not raise your win rate enough to make teasing advantageous. This is especially true in college football, but even in the NFL, it is much sharper to focus on teasers that move point spreads through key numbers like 3 and 7.
Live Betting – Live betting occurs after a game starts. Did you sleep in or forget to place a bet, missing the kickoff of an NFL game you wanted to bet on? Most US sportsbooks will have live lines available for you to bet on while the game is still in progress.
NFL Betting Tip: Live lines are not as efficient as closing lines in sports betting. Watch games closely, take in the extra information available, and use live lines to your advantage, especially if you notice something that you believe sportsbooks’ live algorithms are not accounting for.
NFL Games & Records
Handicapping and betting the NFL preseason, regular season and playoff games is far from easy but the VegasInsider.com NFL Matchups certainly helps you with your homework. The NFL Matchups are divided into three different segments for bettors that take place over a six-month period.
Preseason (49 Games)
Regular Season (256 Games)
Playoffs (11 Games)
The NFL Games played in the preseason are 49 exhibition matchups spread out over five weeks and are conducted in August. The regular season usually begins in the first or second week of September and lasts until the end of December or early January. There are 256 total games played and they are divided into a 17-week period. The NFL Playoffs always has 11 games on tap, which includes the Super Bowl and that’s always plays on the first Sunday in February.
The NFL Matchups page lists all the Games in order of Rotation, which are numbers generated and produced by the sportsbooks. Every NFL matchup has a designated Home and Away team and both are given a rotation number. The games are not necessarily listed in order of time, since some matchups are shifted around for television viewing purposes. All matchup times are listed in Eastern Standard Time Zone (ET) on this matchup page.
The NFL Matchups Records section provides the Wins and Losses for each team, showing the Overall Record and the Away or Home Record for each particular matchup. Every NFL team will play 16 regular season games and the Streak feature tells you how hot or cold a team is and is measured by Wins (W) and Losses (L). If a team wins three straight games, the Streak would read W-3. And if a team is slumping, losers in six straight, then you’ll see a L-6 in their streak column.
- Where to Bet:
Nfl Betting Spreads And Lines
NFL Betting Trends
If you like to follow or fade the betting public, then the Betting Trends on the NFL Matchups will be your best source for that information. Similar to other point-spread sports covered on VegasInsider.com, the Betting Trends for the NFL Matchups show percentages (%) up to 100 for three categories.
The NFL Betting Trends on the Matchups page are directly related to the Current Line and note the Open Line. Those are the betting odds for each matchup, which shows the favorite and ‘over/under’ odds. After a game finalizes, the Current Line is changed to the Closing Line.
- Spread (Point-Spread Bets)
- Money (Money-Line Bets)
- O/U (Total Bets)
The Spread percentage is for the point-spread while the Money is for money-line wagers and while other sports may see a heavy lean to the favorites in that category, the NFL has been known to see its fair share of upsets, even the spread is listed in the double-digit range. The O/U is the total and the Over is always listed on top of the Under in the last Betting Trend column.
The NFL Betting Trends are a great feature to use for Online Super Bowl Betting since it allows users to see who's wagering on the pro football finale every season.
Line Movement in the Super Bowl
As betting trends move strongly in one direction, there may be line movement to balance out the money on each side of the bet. Betting trends can be swayed by many factors, including injuries, weather, suspensions, or any other new information that could potentially impact the result. Also, as lines are released, the public could see one side as a great value and place heavy bets on that side. Sportsbooks will need to adjust to encourage more people to bet the other side or risk taking a big loss.
The Super Bowl has not seen much line movement so far, as most people see it as an evenly matched game and there have been no notable injuries to monitor. The game is taking place in Miami, so snow or heavy wind is unlikely to impact the high-powered offense of the Kansas City Chiefs and give an advantage to San Francisco's strong running game and defensive line.
NFL Matchup History
What’s great about the NFL Matchups is that VegasInsider.com shows all the data from previous games throughout the season. Plus, the Matchups page shows betting history on ATS results. In the sports betting world ATS stands for Against the Spread, which measures the profitability of a team for bettors in terms of the point-spread.
Nfl Betting Spreads Explained
Since the majority of NFL wagers are on the point-spread, the ATS outcome is important for bettors. The ATS column shows which team earned the Cover, plus it posts the Over or Under result as well. The Total result (Over-Under) shows the combined points scored in the game while the Cover result shows how many points the team exceeded the spread by. Along with Cover, you could see the word Push and that means that neither team won against the spread, rather they tied. The same result could occur if the combined total points landed on the exact closing ‘over/under’ betting odds.
Nfl Betting Spreadsheet
Along with the ATS history on the NFL matchups, you can also view Line Movements and Betting Trend movements for each game. Plus, you can get an informative Recap too. If you are in a state where sports betting is legal, please check out our online sportsbook directory to find the best and most secure places to make football bets.