Understanding NFL odds

The NFL being the most popular sport from a bettor's point of view, knowing how to calculate the odds can only be a plus for every "sharp" sports bettor interested in wagering on NFL games.

Odds are the expression of the probability of a game-outcome. Besides being dedicated enough to spend a great many hours handicapping different games and paying attention to every single – humanly knowledgeable -detail of the NFL scene, a good bettor should also be able to read odds.

For that, one needs to start from the idea that the odds are handed out by the bookies and as such they're as well balanced as possible in order to make sure the bookie will not be shortended by the whole deal. For this he needs to make sure that the number of bettors on both sides of the bet is about the same.

Odds are expressed by spreads. Spreads are used by bookies and online sportsbooks to level the chances thus making sure both sides of the bet look tempting enough so that someone will have a go at it. Spreads are basically a handicap in score given to the team most likely to win and a plus given to the underdog. When one bets on the team that is most likely to win, the spread shall be subtracted from the final score of that particular team. If the team still wins with the spead already subtracted it means his/her bet has beat the spread, thus he/she can cash in.

The extent, the bookie needs to tweak the likely outcome, will give the bettor a good idea regarding how much of a fav the fav really is. A point spread given out for a particular matchup though, is not a constant for every future game the two teams shall have against each other. Spreads can vary widely because of a great number of factors that the sportsbook's handicappers constantly keep track of. ( injuries, home field advantages, weather are all such factors only to name a few). Big sportsbooks and land-based or online casinos have whole teams of handicappers working on the spreads, and they're tweaked down to the bone until even the most skilled of their in-house bettor can find no value in them whatsoever.

The other way odds are usually expressed is the money line. In this case one just needs to guess the team that wins the matchup, however bookmakers cant simply bury themselves by offering the same payout for both sides of the bet. Again they need to even things out somehow. The payout for the fav will be a lot worse than the payout for the dog. Risking 2 dollars to vin 50 cents doesn't really smell like an out-of-the-ordinary bargain either, but risking 2 to win 8 betting the dog has its downsides as well. After all these guys are the underdogs.... most probably they won't win. This way the bookie, again, manages to keep things under control, and if you think about it it kind of makes sense too.

Word has it, there's really nice value in NFL money lines. Betting the fav is obviously not an option here, because of the reasons presented above, so one needs to go with the dogs. Underdogs are underdogs because of the small probability that they're able to win the matchup in question, however really high-level thorough handicapping can supposedly discover cracks in the bookie's defence regarding these teams.

Sometimes there are things that escape the bookmaker's all-seeing eyes too, and sometimes these things are the very ones that make the underdog less of a loser than the bookie might reckon. All games aren't won by the favs now are they? Being able to discover the underdog that has a potential to pull an upset is the key here.

Written by James West