The basics of NFL betting
What is NFL and why NFL betting may be interesting to you
NFL stands for the National Football League. Obviously, it is not the traditional European football which is called soccer in the United States. At first glance, American football may seem to a sports fan from Europe like rugby with helmets and pads on, but these two games are different in many ways. Some say that from the tactical point of view, American football is as complicated as chess. To someone who doesn’t know the first thing about this kind of football, it may seem like a brutal nonsense. However, this game is extremely interesting and intense. Perhaps it is the reason why the Americans love the Super Bowl, the grand final of the NFL season, no less than Christmas. If you aren’t familiar with this game, give it a try because it is not only fascinating but also quite feature-rich when it comes to NFL betting. Here you can place a wager virtually on everything, from the season’s winner to how many points the team will score in a given half. If you learn how to understand the game and analyze the NFL betting odds properly, you could make decent money on a weekly basis. But first, you would gain some insight into the different kinds of NFL betting. It will help you take a step towards becoming a guru of NFL betting in the UK.
Types of betting and NFL betting tips
Before placing any serious bets on the outcome of matches in the US major football league, you will have to learn about the types of betting, how to read the NFL betting lines and understand how the NFL betting odds are calculated. Let’s start with variations of NFL betting. There are six types of such betting: moneyline, point spread, futures, totals, parlay, teaser, and prop NFL betting.
The point spread betting is perhaps the most popular type of NFL betting among the punters in the United States due to the fact that it adds an intrigue to the game where the favorite will surely win against the underdog. The point of spread betting is to guess by how many points the stronger team will win or by how many points the weaker one will lose. For instance, if the NFL betting line shows the following: Denver Broncos +5/Miami Dolphins -5, it means that the Denver Broncos must win the game by five points or the Miami Dolphins must lose the game by no more than five points in order for the bet to be successful. The point spread NFL betting tip is to follow the developments in the game and, if you see that the team may score a bit more points than designated on your wager, purchase a half-point with the online bookmaker in order to increase the chances of winning the wager.
Moneyline NFL betting is conceptually the simplest type of betting. All you have to do it guess correctly which team will win the given match. There are only two betting options: win/lose because in this particular sport the teams can’t end the match with a draw. As for the NFL betting tips, you should always choose the website for NFL betting where you can easily switch between the US odds and decimal odd or even fractional odds. This way, you will be able to understand the NFL betting odds and lines much better.
Futures betting is the type of betting where the bettor has to correctly predict either the winner of the Super Bowl, the conference finals or the division. Such bets are usually made before the start of the season. The futures odds can change over the course of the season due to various factors, such as injuries or shuffles in the team roster.
Betting on totals means that the punter has to guess the total number of score points by both teams, instead of the team that will win the game. The bookmaker sets the game total and the bettor must predict whether the final score will be higher or lower than the designated number.
In the parlay betting, the gambler can combine bets on the outcome of several matches. It is similar to the football accumulator betting or the acca which is very popular in the UK. As with the acca, the wager is won only if all results were guessed correctly.
The teaser is similar to parlay as it allows combining up to ten bets in one ticket. The only difference is that in teaser betting the punter can buy additional points (up to 7 points) in order improve the chances of winning.
Prop betting is the kind of NFL betting for real football nerds as it offers the possibility of betting on almost every detail of a football game, like the number of successful passes in a quarter or the distance that a certain player will run. Here is useful NFL betting tip for the prop: find the Stats section on the official NFL website and conduct comprehensive analysis of a player skill, for instance, tackles. Focus your prop bets only on this particular skill.
Where to make bets on NFL matches?
All major online bookmakers in the United Kingdom offer the possibility of replacing the wager on NFL games. We would suggest the following online bookmakers:
- Bet365
- William Hill
- SportingBet
- 888Sport
- BetWay
All of them are more than suitable for NFL betting thanks to the user-friendly interface, good customer service, and secure payouts.