How to bet on football - the American style - part one

When one looks at sports betting one of the most popular sports to bet on is arguably the normal season, and the playoffs in the National Football League. Not to be confused by the soccer version of football. We can testify that the NFL brings a lot of action to the bookmaker’s week in and week out, and with ESPN building out their coverage in Europe and elsewhere this sport is growing in popularity all over the world. You too should learn how betting on football is done.

When one looks at football betting there are many variables that need to be considered. In this article we will touch on a couple of the important factors for betting on football american style. This is an online betting guide type of article aimed at the novice sports bettor and it is the beginning of series breaking down american football in detail.

Betting on football – the league setup

First we want to put focus on understanding the setup of the league. How can you bet football if you don't understand the basics, right? The NFL is made up of two main divisions, namely the NFC and the AFC. Each of these two divisions has four sub divisions, North, South, East and West. Each division has 16 teams and each sub division consists of 4 teams each. The season is played over 17 weeks with 12 teams in total making the playoffs.

American football – betting futures

Sports bettors betting on football have numerous betting offers to consider with regard to the season, as well as each particular game. The game particular bets we will not touch in this article. Long term bets for however is another story. They are also known as “futures”, and are quite popular among bettors. Sports books post odds in the pre-season on what teams they think have the best chance at winning their sub division, division, and ultimately the Superbowl itself. A Futures bet would look something like this.

Baltimore +250 to win the North

Baltimore +575 to win the Division

Baltimore +1500 to win the Superbowl.

Bettors have the chance to bet on the teams they like right off the hop. A bet of $100 on the Ravens here to win the North Division would return $350, the initial stake plus $250 in net winning.

Sports books will also offer Future betting odds on pretty much everything the sports fan could be interested in. One such betting market is how many games each team will win. For example the odds would look like this: Baltimore to win 10.5 games. The Over could for instance be -125 and the under +135. In this example the bookie feels that they will win over the field thus the line of -125.

Depending on the sports book there are plenty of other future type bets that are offered. Some are team oriented and some are player oriented. You might be able to bet on your favorite quarterback to throw for X amount of yards, or your favorite running back to run X amount of yards or score Y amount of touch down's etc.

Football betting - rounding it off

We hope you enjoyed this beginner article, and that you now feel comfortable with American football and the NFL in particular. We suggest you read our other articles on the subject and take a look at our NFL picks that our betting expert has worked really hard to bring to you. We wish you the best of betting luck!