Types of Football Bets
As you probably know, there are plenty of bets you can place. However, in football, there are only two extremely popular wagers people tend to place and a few others you should still know about:
- Point spreads
- Totals
- Moneylines
- Futures
- Props
Naturally, for all bets, there are specific odds. In general, you have a 50/50 chance to win, but the betting site will always price up the odds by giving you -110. This means that, for example, if you bet $110, you can only win $100 in addition to the $110 you bet.
The site, or a real-life bookmaker, will never give you the chance to win a full 100%, only 90%. It might sound unfair to some, but the bookmaker has to cover the cost of facilitating the wager, and they have to win something too.
Point Spreads
When you’re betting on point spreads, you’re not guessing which team will win but which team will cover the spread. In essence, you’re betting on a team to win by a specific number of points.
For example, a site offers you a point spread of +6 and -6 on a match between the Patriots and the Colts. In our example, the Patriots are the underdogs as they have +6, which means that they get six points added to the final score they make. The Colts are the favourites, which means they lose six points, hence the -6. In this case, you can choose to bet on the Patriots with their point advantage or the Colts with their point deduction.
If you bet on the Patriots, they need to win or lose by less than six points for you to win the wager. If you bet on the Colts, they need to win with a six-point difference or more.
Totals
Totals are also known as Overs/Unders as you are basically wagering on whether the final score will go over or under the number from the bet.
So, for example, using our same example from before, the totals for the Patriots vs Colts match is 43.5. This means that if you bet under, the combined score cannot be more than 43, and if you bet over, the combined score has to be 44 or more.
Moneylines
Moneylines are probably the simplest kind of football bets — you wager on a specific team to win the game and that’s all. The odds here tend to vary, and they depend on the chances teams have for any given match.
Going with the same Patriots vs Colts example, if you bet $100 on the Patriots to win and your odds are +140, that means you will win $140 plus the $100 from your stake. In this example, the Patriots are the underdogs, which is why the odds are favourable. If you were to bet on the Colts and the odds were -160, that means you have to wager $150 dollars to win $100, plus your initial bet.
Futures
Futures are long-term bets and are not connected to a specific game. There are many types of futures, but they usually revolve around how a team or player will fare in a single season.
Props
Props are very specific wagers, and they are created for each game in advance. Props can be a lot of things, like wagering on which team will be the first to score or what the distance from the longest touchdown will be, and similar things. It really depends on the game and what the betting site offers.
