NFL Betting Strategies

NFL betting is by far the most popular type of sports betting in the world today. People love to bet NFL football on Sundays, Mondays, and the occasional Thursday and Saturdays as well. As we look at NFL betting on a weekly basis, what are some of the best strategies we can use to make our NFL betting more profitable?

If you have looked at NFL betting for any length of time you are going to see an endless amount of systems, trends, statistics, and matchups. I could go on and on about a bunch of them but for the most part they are not worth the paper they are printed on. There is no strategy that will work for NFL betting every single time. There are some that may have a great week, a great month or perhaps even a great year, but none of them are going to work every single time.

One strategy that will keep you out of trouble and should make you a profit over the long-term though is a very simple one when it comes to NFL betting. Take the points. That is about as simple as it gets when you talk about NFL betting. Since NFL betting is so popular we know that the public is going to be driving up the betting lines every week. One undeniable fact about NFL betting is that the public bets the favorites far more than the underdogs. I think this goes right to the general nature of sports gamblers, and that is to bet on the better team. The problem with that theory in NFL betting is that sometimes it is hard to determine which team is better, and there is the matter of the points involved. If betting the favorite worked every time, then sports betting players could have retired years ago. Betting the underdog and taking the points really works well in the NFL because of the “public factor” and because the NFL is parity driven. The NFL is very competitive each week because of the salary cap structure, unlike the joke of a system that Major League Baseball has where only the rich teams win. Since the NFL is a very competitive league, it makes sense to take the points.

Another strategy for betting NFL football that goes right along with taking the underdog is going against the public. This almost always involves taking an underdog, but in case you don’t want to play every dog, and most of us don’t, then going against the public is always worth considering. Sometimes when we go against the public it is as simple as going against a big line move, but very often it is more geared toward public perception. How many times do you hear every week of the NFL season how good a team is and how they can’t possibly lose this week? How many times do they actually lose though? It seems like a lot. It is very easy to determine these “public” teams because nearly every handicapper and tout in the world is going to be picking them. When that happens you know what to do. Go the other way. This applies so much more in regards to NFL betting than to any other sport. The biggest reason for this is the huge amount of public money that flows in on NFL teams. Very often the public money will outdo the wise guy money in terms of NFL betting. This makes going against the public very attractive indeed.

Another NFL betting strategy that is very similar to the first two is taking the road team. When you talk about NFL betting, three things that are very unpopular are: taking the underdogs, taking the points, and taking the road teams. Most of the time NFL bettors want to take the home team. It is just human nature to want to take the team playing at home in front of their fans. Since we know this, guess who else knows this as well? You are right, the linemaker knows. And he almost always builds in a little bit of extra value for the person that wants to go against the home team. In reality, he jacks up the line on the home team because he knows the public will want to bet them first. He does the same thing with the favorite, and with public teams. Now, if you get a home team that is also laying points and is a public team, you have extra value on the road team because they meet all three of our NFL betting strategies.

Betting NFL football is definitely extremely popular, but it is not always profitable. It is also not always easy to do, especially when we have a limited amount of time to do our handicapping. If we can narrow our focus a bit and not dwell too much on statistics, matchups, trends, and numbers, we may have a better chance for success.

When your time is limited, and you want to have a decent chance at success, concentrate on the three strategies we discussed and it should give you a decent starting place when it comes to NFL betting.