Online Sports Betting on Football
If you play fantasy football, then you are already betting on football games. You are probably already watching the majority of these games with the various cable and satellite TV packages such as the NFL Redzone, NFL Network, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN. At least, you are following the players on your fantasy teams. Since you are already participating, you should give sports betting a try.
One of the fallacies of betting on sports is that you have to place $50 or $100 bets on each game. That's not true, you can bet $10 or less if you don't have the budget. You already know all of the matchups because you have been setting up your FFL team for that week. You should have a pretty good idea which teams that you feel comfortable betting on.
The #1 rule for betting on any sport (including football) is that you must be selective with the games that you bet on. First, before the week begins, you should rank out the 16 games (or less with the bye weeks) based on the confidence that one team will win. Then, pick one or two teams to bet on in the Sunday morning games and one of the Sunday afternoon games. These are the games that you will feel the most comfortable with your bet.
Based upon how you do in the early games, you can choose to place a bet on the Sunday Night or Monday Night games. Always remember, never chase good money after bad; if you do poorly, you should reassess how you did and wait until the next week.
Types of Bets in Football
If you are a beginner, there are only two types of bets that I would suggest that you attempt: Point Spread and Moneyline.
The Point Spread is the one that you will often hear referenced when the announcers or fans will tell you who is favored in the game. Unless there is a huge mismatch, you will usually see a spread between 1.5 points and 3.5 points. Anything more than 4 points is considered a large spread because most teams can keep a random NFL game to within a Field Goal going into the 4th quarter.
You will see the point spread represented in the following format: Detroit Lions (+1.5; -110) at the Cleveland Browns (-1.5; -110). In this example, the Browns are a 1.5 point favorite because they are playing at home. The "-110" represents the amount of money that you have to bet. You have to bet $110 in order to win $100; the difference is called the juice and is what gives the sportsbook an advantage.
What's with the half point? Most of the times, the spread is going to have a .5 or 1/2 because you can't score a half point in football. Therefore, there is no way that this bet will tie. There are some games that will have an even number in the spread; this allows for the wager to end in a tie. Most often, you will see a 3 point spread because that is the most common difference in the scores between two teams.
The Moneyline is a bet that is placed on a team to win outright. It doesn't matter how much or how little they win by. This bet will most often be seen in the following format: Detroit Lions (+110) at the Cleveland Browns (-120). This means that you will have to bet $120 on the Cleveland Browns in order to win $100 or you will have to bet $100 on Detroit to win $110. This bet can get out of hand if you have a mismatch between the two teams.
Other Types of Bets
One bet that I do not recommend if you are a beginner is the Totals bet (or Over/Under). This number is a bet whether the total number of points scored by the two teams will be Over or Under that number. It is also often a number with a half point. The lowest Total number that you will see is in the low 30's when two defensive teams are playing. The highest Total number that you will see is in the mid to upper 50's when two offensive teams and bad defenses play.
Prop Bets - A proposition bet can either be placed on a team or a player. This bet is won when a specific condition has been met. Team Props include "Which team will score first", "The first score will be (FG/Safety or TD)", the Total points for a single team, etc. The Player Props will include MVP odds, Most Passing Yards, Most Rushing Yards and Most Receiving Odds. There is also Player Props for a particular game including: QB will throw for more than 300 yards; RB will rush for more than 100 yards; WR will catch for more than 100 yards, etc.
Where can I bet on football online?
If you live in the United States, you won't have many options to choose from. I suggest that you check out Bovada Sportsbook. They offer a lot of different betting options such as Football Futures where you can bet on which team you think will win the Super Bowl. There is also college football betting as well.
If you live outside of the United States, you should check out will hill football betting. This is the best place to bet on games if you are from either Canada or Great Britain. However, you will only find betting options for the Money Line, Spread and Total Points offered at William Hill.
Legality of Online Sportsbetting
There are certain states in the U.S. that have laws prohibiting betting on sporting events online. The majority of these states can be seen as conservative. This includes several states in the South and parts of the Midwest and West. States like Nevada, New Jersey and California have completely legalized this. Most other states have not addressed this matter one way or another. Please check your local laws in your jurisdiction before you begin to bet on sports online.
For those bettors in other countries, the majority of the Western world have completely legalized and regulated sports betting.