How to Bet on the NFL: A Complete Beginner's Guide to Football Betting
Spreads, moneylines, totals, key numbers, and the bankroll discipline that keeps an NFL season fun. Everything a new football bettor needs, with worked examples.
01The Main NFL Bet Types
Almost every NFL bet fits into one of five buckets. The point spread asks whether a team wins by more than the posted margin: Kansas City -3 means the Chiefs must win by 4 or more, while their opponent at +3 can lose by up to 3 and still cash. The moneyline is a straight bet on who wins, priced with odds instead of points. The total (over/under) is a bet on the combined score of both teams against a posted number.
Beyond the big three, player props cover individual stats (passing yards, anytime touchdown scorer), team totals isolate one side's scoring, and futures pay out on long-range outcomes like the Super Bowl winner. Parlays and teasers combine multiple bets into one ticket and get their own guides on this site. If you are new, master the spread, moneyline, and total before touching anything else, because every other market is a variation on one of those three.
02How NFL Odds and Payouts Work
NFL spreads and totals are usually priced at -110 on each side: bet $110 to win $100, or bet $100 to win about $91. That gap is the book's commission, and it sets the break-even line: at -110 you must win 52.4% of your bets just to get your money back. Anyone claiming a long-term record below that number is losing money, which is why we publish our record with the prices attached.
Moneylines move away from -110. A favorite at -150 asks you to risk $150 to win $100; an underdog at +150 pays $150 profit on a $100 bet. To find the implied probability of any price, divide the amount you risk by the total return: -150 implies 60% (150 out of 250), and +150 implies 40% (100 out of 250). Comparing that implied probability to your own honest estimate of the game is the entire skill of betting, and our implied probability calculator does the arithmetic for you.
03Key Numbers: Why 3 and 7 Run the NFL
NFL scoring plays are worth 3 points (field goal) and 7 points (converted touchdown), so final margins cluster on those numbers and their combinations: 3, 7, 10, 14. A spread of -3.5 is a fundamentally different bet from -2.5, because the -2.5 ticket wins the most common one-score outcome of all, a 3-point win, while the -3.5 ticket loses it. The half point between them is called the hook, and it is worth real money over a season.
This is also why line shopping matters more in football than in any other sport. When one book posts -3 and another posts -3.5 on the same game, they are not offering the same bet at a slightly different price; they are offering different bets. Getting +3.5 instead of +3 on an underdog, or laying -2.5 instead of -3 on a favorite, changes outcomes on the games that land exactly on the number, and a meaningful share of NFL games do.
04What Actually Moves an NFL Line
The single biggest line mover in football is quarterback availability. A starting QB is worth several points to a spread, and when his status is doubtful the market can swing by a touchdown or more between the open and kickoff. Next come cluster injuries (multiple starters out on one offensive line or in one secondary), rest differences, and weather, particularly high wind, which suppresses passing and drags totals down.
Home field is real but it is no longer a flat 3 points. Books price it team by team, and quiet stadiums with travelling fan bases are worth less than the loudest buildings in the league. The practical takeaway: most of the information that matters is public before kickoff. Your job is to decide whether the current price already reflects it, not to hunt for secrets.
05Bankroll Basics for the NFL Season
We stake a flat 1 unit on every pick and size a unit at 1% to 2% of the bankroll set aside for betting. The NFL makes this discipline harder than any other sport: the slate is short, every game is televised, and the temptation is to bet all 16 games plus the island games on Thursday, Sunday night, and Monday. Betting everything is a tax on your bankroll, because the vig guarantees the book its cut of every ticket.
Set the unit before Week 1 and do not resize it after a bad Sunday or a hot streak. Track every bet with the price you actually got, not the price you saw on a preview show. A bettor who goes 55% at bad prices can lose to a bettor who goes 53% at good ones, and the only way to know which one you are is a written record.
06Common NFL Betting Mistakes
Betting your own team is the classic one: you overrate what you watch every week and underrate everyone else. Close behind is chasing on the Sunday night and Monday night games, where a losing day turns into a doubled bet on a game you had no opinion on at noon. Parlays as a primary strategy are third; they are entertainment products with a compounded house edge, not a route around the vig.
Two quieter mistakes cost just as much. Ignoring quarterback news until Sunday morning means betting into lines that have already moved. And betting the full-game spread when your actual opinion is about a slow start or a fast one leaves value on the table: first-half and first-quarter markets exist for exactly those reads.