1. There is a number of betting markets offered in football betting, including the likes of double chance and both teams to score, but the fact is most successful bettors bet on straight win, goal line or Asian handicaps as these three markets are believed to be most easy to take advantage of. Straight win betting.
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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. In this market, you will be betting on whether a match will have over 2.5 goals (i.e. 3 or more to win your bet) or whether it will have under 2.5 goals (zero, one, or two goals would win your bet).

In our earlier beginner’s betting guides, we focused on what mindset is required to win at sports betting, and how finding value in your picks is the key to be profitable from placing bets. In this guide we cover how certain betting markets have better odds than others, and why it is better to specialise in some of the basic and traditional markets on offer.

With all these things shaping up nicely in your head, you are surely wondering what you should bet on and this too is a concept to be carefully considered. Most bookmakers will offer dozens of betting markets, especially when for big matches and major European football leagues, but one must be careful in the choice of bets they make.

Of course, not every bettor can be an expert in the same sport but the fact is that most European bettors who are successful bet either football or horse races, and these are two very profitable sports to bet. Choosing the right market to bet within those sports, however, is a whole other story.

What Markets Should I Choose?

There is a number of betting markets offered in football betting, including the likes of double chance and both teams to score, but the fact is most successful bettors bet on straight win, goal line or Asian handicaps as these three markets are believed to be most easy to take advantage of.

Straight win betting is pretty self-explanatory. The bettor gets three options, betting on home or away win or a draw, winning the bet if their choice turns out to be right. The big mistake bettors often make is betting the favorites at very low odds and this is simply not a strategy that will show dividends over time. If you plan to bet winners, you will want to find games where the odds are relatively even but you have information that suggests one team as the favorite.

Over/Under 2.5 Goals is another commonly bet market among the professional bettors as it is a market where long-term statistics of the teams and the league can play a significant factor, allowing for much statistical analysis to be done and plenty of edge to be had, especially if you are patient enough to analyze some of the smaller leagues.

The Both Teams To Score market is another popular market among some professional bettors and while it may not be very profitable at all in the major leagues where the stats are broken down very well by the bookies, the odds may be quite favorable for the bettors in some lesser leagues matches. For instance, scouring Dutch, Belgian or South American leagues for solid both teams to score opportunities has shown very profitable for tons of professionals.

The Asian Markets

In recent years most of the online bookies have introduced the Asian Handicap betting, which is also one of the most commonly bet markets among the professional bettors today. Asian Handicap is the type of betting where teams are brought closer to level by adding a number of goals to the final score before the match has even started. For instance, if the champions are playing the team set for relegation, the other team might “start” the match 2 goals ahead for the purposes of this bet.

The most basic Asian Handicap is 0. When there is a 0 Asian Handicap in play, your bets will win if your choice wins, they will lose if your team loses and your bets will be refunded when the match finishes in a draw. In this scenario, the drawn matches are completely left out and you can simply bet if a team will win or not.

Further Asian Handicap bets include +0.25 where you lose half of your stake if the match is a draw and you lose your entire stake if your pick loses, +0.50 where you only win if your pick wins and you lose in all other instances, +0.75 where you win the full amount if your team wins by 2 goals or more and win half the amount if they win by 1 etc.

Asian Handicap betting allows players to bet in a much more versatile way, predicting the outcome of the match with more precision while also protecting themselves in a way against some of the negative outcomes.

The real reason why so many professionals like to bet Asian Handicaps is because the bookies tend to pay out higher on these bets, making the odds better and making the bookie easier to beat. Basically in many cases it will be more profitable to bet Home Team +0 than Home Team on the 1×2 market, even though it is actually the absolute same bet.

The lower margins that bookies charge on Asian Handicap markets make these markets very popular among the serious bettors, while most casual punters will still place their money with the market they know better, thus losing out on the edge just by not being curious enough.

Conclusion : Choose Your Market Carefully

With so many bookies offering the different markets out there, I have seen instances where the same bet is offered in two different ways at two different bookies with quite different odds. This is why you as a professional bettor will need to train a keen eye and learn how to recognize such situations and capitalize on them the most.

It is crucial to keep in mind that picking the right market to bet and staying focused on that market, regularly doing research and improving your understanding of the market is what will bring you the most profits in the long run. As with all other things, it is important to specialize and become a master of your market, so you are able to utilize every slight edge that appears within it.

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. We will explain what betting against the spread means below.

What is Betting Against The Spread?

For each NFL game the oddsmakers set a number of points in which the favored team is favored by. Bettors can then either choose for the favored team to win by more than the number of points set, or bet on the underdogs to lose by less than the number of points they are underdogs by or win the game straight up. For example, the spread could be set on the favored team at 6.5 points. This would mean in order for a bet on the favored team on the spread to win they would need to win by more than 6.5 points (7 or more) in order to win the bet. It also means that a bet on the underdog team would win if the underdogs lost by less than 6.5 points (6 or less) or won the game outright.

Example of NFL Spread Bet

Below is an example of what NFL spread betting would look like:

Matchup

• TeamsSpread
• Dallas Cowboys -2.5
• New York Giants +2-5

The negative (-) sign indicates that the Cowboys are the favorites, while the positive (+) sign indicates that the New York Giants are the underdogs. With the spread set at 2.5 points, a bet on the Cowboys would mean that they would have to win by more than 2.5 points (3 or more) in order for you to win that bet. A bet on New York would mean that the Giants would have to either lose by 2.5 or less points (2 or less) or win the game outright in order for your bet to win.

Here is another example with a screenshot taken from 5Dimes.eu during Week 3 of the 2013 NFL season:

Here you can see that the Rams are +3.5, while the Cowboys are -3.5. So for this example the Cowboys are 3.5 point favorites, while the Rams are underdogs of 3.5 points. If you were to bet on St Louis you would need them to lose by 3 or fewer points or just win the game outright. If you were to bet on Dallas you would need the Cowboys to win by 4 or more points.

If the Cowboys were to win by 3 points, lets say 30-27, any bets on the Rams +3.5 would win. Even though the Rams didn’t win the game they covered the spread of 3.5 points.

Now if the Cowboys were to win by 4 points, lets say 31-27, the Cowboys have covered the spread and anyone who wagered on Dallas would win their bets.

Other NFL Spread Betting Information

You may often notice that the spread is sometimes set at an even number such as 3, 6 , 10, etc. In this case if the favored team won by the exact amount set for the spread the bet would be pushed, and all bets would be returned. For example, if the Patriots were 3 point favorites and they won by a FG (3 points) than this would results in a push, meaning no matter which side you bet on you would get your money returned to you.

The most common NFL spreads are usually set between about 2.5-10.5 points, but you will also almost always have games each week with spreads lower than 2.5 and higher than 10.5. In the event that the oddsmakers feel the game doesn’t need a spread, it would be set at 0 or what some call a pick’em (both teams are given even odds to win for this type of bet).

Betting On Football Games Online

The odds given on the spread are usually -110 unless otherwise noted. It is not uncommon to see one side of the spread being -105, with the other side being -115. If you don’t see any odds listed for each side of NFL spreads you are supposed to assume the odds are -110 on each. Not sure how to read NFL betting odds? Check out our Sports Betting Odds guide.

Football Betting Cards

Now that you know the basics of NFL spread betting you’ll want to check out our Sports Betting Strategy guide which has some great NFL strategy articles written by a professional bettor.