If you are a customer with bet365 Sport, or indeed almost any other top online sports book service, then you will likely be aware of NFL betting.
And with the new NFL season now underway after this past weekend’s first set of games, now is the perfect time to take a look at NFL betting markets.
That will include those NFL betting markets that you may not be sure what they mean. Or which markets could well prove to be the best for shorter or longer odds bets.
We’ve already covered NFL Futures betting in a previous article earlier on this year, so this article is going to focus on the bets you can make over the shorter term. Mainly those that can be made and decided within a typical game week.
But first, let’s give you a quick recap of how the NFL works and what you’ll be betting on.
How The NFL Season Works
- Pre Season
In addition to training camps, day to day activities and similar, each NFL team will play three or four pre-season games to warm up for the season.
These games tend not to feature the starter players very much and is often the time that back-ups will get a chance to play for a spot on the 53-man roster for the season ahead.
- Regular Season
The regular season is 18 weeks long and each team will play 17 games over the course of that time, with one week designated as a bye week for each team.
The league consists of 32 teams, split into two conferences of 16 teams, the NFC and the AFC.
Each conference then splits its 16 teams into four divisions. The North, South, East and West. Each of the four divisions in each conference has the same four teams in it every year. There is no promotion and relegation in the NFL.
Teams play the other three teams in their division twice a season, home and away, for six of their 17 games.
The remaining 11 games are played against teams from other divisions, rotating around each division over the course of four seasons. As well as teams that finished in the same position in the season previous.
Some games are selected as International Fixtures and are hosted in London, Germany and Mexico.
At the end of the 18-week season, the top teams in each of the four divisions, as well as the three teams with the best record that did not win their division, enter the Playoffs.
- Playoffs
The two divisional winners with the best record over their 17-game season earn the top seed spot and a bye through to the Divisional Round of the Playoffs.
There are four stages to the playoffs.
- Wildcard Weekend – Features seeds 2 to 7 from each Conference playing three games to decide which three teams from each conference progress to the Divisional Round.
- Divisional Round – The three winners of Wildcard Weekend, plus the top seed in each conference play the two Divisional Round games in each conference.
- Conference Championship – The two winners in each conference from the Divisional Round face off in the Conference Championship game to decide who will be the AFC and NFC Champions.
- Super Bowl – The NFC Champions face the AFC Champions to decide who wins the Lombardi Trophy and are crowned NFL Champions.
Popular Weekly NFL Match Betting Markets
So if you wanted to enjoy a bet on NFL games at the weekend, what are the most popular markets that punters bet on each week?
Let’s take a look.
Line Betting
In the Game Lines market, you will find three popular betting options. While now used throughout the globe, the popularity of these markets first took hold in the US but are now used across the world by punters in other countries too.
The three types of line betting are:
- Spread
The Spread bet is arguably the most difficult of the three line bets to understand. While there are just two options for each game, the chance to back one of the teams to win, you will notice for each team there is a positive or negative handicap.
This is known as the spread and essentially the spread of the team you back will be applied to the result of the game before the result of the bet is known.
The key thing to remember with this bet is that it is only the team you back that has their spread applied to the final score.
For example, on Sunday this week the Kansas City Chiefs are -3.0 to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, who are +3.0 currently with bet365.
If you back the Chiefs to win, then with their spread applied to their points total, it means the Chiefs have to beat the Jaguars by four points or more for you to win the bet if you back them.
Alternatively, if you back the Jaguars at +3, that means any Jaguar win, a tie, or even a Jaguar defeat by one or two points, would see your bet win once the spread is applied.
The spread is the number of points for or against a team that the match odds makers decide is the amount that makes it closest to a 50/50 game call, which is why all the odds are very close to even money for either team.
- Total
A Total bet is simply an over or under bet on the total number of points to be scored in the four quarters of a game.
This is a very similar bet to the Over or Under 2.5 or 3.5 goals to be scored bets you find in soccer games.
- Money Line
The Money Line is simply a bet on which of the two teams will win the game, without the addition of any points handicap as you get in a spread bet.
In essence, this is the same kind of bet as backing a football team or tennis player to win a match.
Other Betting Markets and Features to Consider
There are a vast range of other markets you can bet on for each NFL fixture and some of the most popular (and self-explanatory) are listed below:
- First/Last or Anytime Touchdown Scorer
- Player to score 2 or more or 3 or more touchdowns in the game
- Player to score a touchdown in the first quarter, first half or second half
- Number of Passing Touchdowns, passing yards and interceptions thrown by a named quarterback
- Scorecast and Anytime Scorecast bets
- Player passing, rushing and receiving yards bets.
- Player interceptions bets
- Defense interceptions bets
- Longest Pass completion bets
And many more besides based on what happens in any given quarter, or the first half.
In addition to the markets above, bet365 also has the Bet Builder option you can use to create your own accumulator bets on individual games.
Furthermore, you can also find a number of Bet Boost options every week of the NFL season which offers enhanced odds on certain selected betting markets for that week.
As you can see there are plenty of great NFL betting options to consider at bet365 Sport every week of the season so why not take a look and see what is available?