How to bet on the NFL

Whether you’re an NFL pro but you’re betting knowledge isn’t quite up to scratch or you fancy a one-off bet on the Super Bowl, we’ve got you covered with a few of the many ways to bet on the NFL. 

Win

Like any other sport, you can bet for one team to win the game outright. This really is as simple as it sounds. For example, if you stake $10 on the 49ers to win, you’ll receive $20.40 return if the bet comes in.

Lines 

Money line bets are the most popular way to bet on the NFL. They’re a little more specific with bookmakers offering a (+) plus (head start) or (-) minus (handicap).

Firstly, take a look at how the plus (+) and minus (–) is positioned. The team most favoured to win will have a (–) sign before it. The team most likely to lose will have the (+) sign before it.

The easiest way to explain money line bets is by example: 

If you were to go for San Francisco 49ers, you could simply bet on them win the game, however with the +1 line, you can sacrifice a little bit of your potential payout so that you’ll still get your money back if they lose the game by 1 point. 

In this case, Kansas City Chiefs are the favourite, you would have the option to get a slightly higher payout if you’re confident that they will win the game by more than 1 point.

Side note: Sometimes you may see a .5, this is just to make sure there’s no draw result. 

So, the tactic when betting would be:

If you think an underdog team has a chance to upset the favourite but you’re not entirely confident, then sometimes the line is a safer then backing them to win.

And vice versa.

If you think a favoured team can win by more than the (-) handicap you will receive higher odds.

Side note: overtime counts!

Over/Under 

The clue’s in the name! Over Under, or ‘Game Total Betting’ is the second most popular way to bet on the NFL

The bookmaker will decide a number of points in which they think both teams will score in total during the game. In this instance 53.5.

• If you bet over, you would need a combined 54 or more points in the game to win the bet.

• If you bet under (you got it) you would need a combined 53 points or less in the game to win the bet.

Sometimes, when the total offered is an even number the combined score will turn out to be exact with neither team going over or under. In this case, your bet will be refunded. 

Side note: the number will always be the same for both sides.  

Multi 

A multi, or an accumulator, is a bet where you combine several single bets into one big bet. 

Each bet is known as a ‘Leg’, so five single bets combined into one is a ‘Five Leg Multi’.

Eg: $2.00 x $2.00 x $2.00 $2.00 x $2.00 pays $32 for a $1 investment, rather than 5 single $1 bets which would return $10.

So, the reward is much greater but all legs have to win so there is greater risk involved.

You can also combine racing and sports into the same multi! If one or more of your legs involve horse racing but you don’t know much about that market either, check out our ‘How to Bet on the Horses’ guide.

Or if you fancy involving the NBA in your multi, you can also get the low down here.

Happy punting!