The NFL - A favorite for American bettors

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The NFL is the most popular sport in the United States. According to Gallup, 57% of people said they were football fans, and 37% said it was their favorite sport. This is leagues ahead of the next popular sport, basketball, with only 11% of people claiming it as their favorite sport.

So, it would only make sense for football to be the most popular sport in the country to bet on. According to a Statista survey, 77% of bettors place most of their bets on football. Let’s do some investigating to see why that may be the case.

Why is the NFL Good to Bet on?

Excellent Coverage

There are 256 games in the NFL season, so it can be pretty difficult to keep up with all of the games going on. Every single game is, however, televised live. Not only is it televised, but you can see close-ups and pundit analyses of the games. A standard live game takes around three hours to watch with all of the breaks in play and adverts. This is too much for the ordinary person to watch every single one, but if you record the games you know you’re going to miss, you can fast forward through the breaks to condense your watching time to about an hour. That way if you’re serious about investing your time and money into becoming an NFL betting whizz, the average person should have the time to fit in all of the games into their schedule.

The Culture of Statistics

Betting involves analytics. If you’re a serious bettor, you need to take your stats seriously. Placing a bet on a whim without knowledge of both teams and their previous performance is silly. To make consistently good money on betting you need to be thorough when investigating what you’re betting on. That way it becomes less about luck and more about being intelligent with your risks.

Football is a highly technical game, which has led to a culture of sports facts and stats. In every break in play, it is statistics that are ingrained in the coaches’ brains that perhaps are the biggest contributing factor helping them formulate tactical decisions.

Every football commentator whacks out the stats throughout the games, with infographics continually popping up. On top of that, every pre and post-game analysis is full of stats.

With such an emphasis on and ease of access to NFL stats, it makes football an attractive sport to bet on. Bettors have access to years’ worth of material on every player and team, so they can form their own calculations on how they think the game and different aspects of the game will play out. By taking a closer look at some NFL stats, you can truly expand your knowledge of the sport as well as game predictions.

The Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the biggest annual sporting event in America, and it has broken records as the most-watched television broadcast of all time. The fanfare and hype that surrounds it are simply unbeatable. That, of course, brings with it people looking to make some money from it with a well-placed bet. Even people who aren’t regular gamblers love to take a punt on who they think will lift the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

As you would expect, with it being the most popular sporting event, it is indeed the most bet on. It was estimated before the 2020 Super Bowl that 26 million people would bet over $6 billion on the event, setting new records – and that’s just the legal bets! There are currently 14 states where it is legal to bet on sports and that number is only bound to grow, with an additional 14 expected to legalize it as well.

Most Popular Types of NFL Bets

Another reason that the NFL is popular to bet on is the range of bets that you can place. Let’s take a closer look at the different ways that you can cleverly make yourself a profit.

Moneyline

This is the simplest bet that you can place. You pick who will win out of two teams and put your money on them. It’s a fairly safe way to bet, especially if you have a strong inkling that one team will win. The main drawback of this type of bet is that the odds are fairly low since there are only two real outcomes – unless there is still a tie after overtime.

Point Spread

The point spread is the most popular type of bet placed on NFL games. Here you bet on how many points a team will win or lose by. For example, the Patriots may be bet on to beat the Dolphins by a point spread of 4.5. This means that the Patriots need to win the game by five or more points in order for the bet to be won. Conversely, if the bettor bets on the Dolphins, even if they lose, they’ll take the money if they lose by four or fewer points.

Totals

Another popular bet is on the total number of points scored in a game. Some bettors prefer this method as they do not need to decide which team will win, just how many points will be scored. For example, if the point total odd is 54.5, you can choose for the points to be over or under that number. So, if you select “over,” then if 55 or more points are scored in the match, you win the bet. On the other hand, if you select ‘under,’ you’ll win the bet if 54 or fewer points are scored. The odds for totals bets tend to sit at around 110, and the bookmaker will shift the score depending on the match and the number of bets being made on both sides.

Prop Betting

Prop betting is where you bet on an event to occur in the match, such as the number of touchdowns, how many pass yards are conducted, etc. These bets often have better odds, so they can prove to be enticing for many bettors.

Futures

You can not only make bets on individual games but also on the league as a whole. You can choose who will be the Conference champion at the end of the season or the winner of the Super Bowl. These are often exciting bets to make at the start of the season as you can pick a team and back them on every game.

Final Thoughts

Here we can see some of the reasons as to why the NFL is the most popular sport to be on in the United States. Not only is it the most popular sport to watch that hosts the biggest single sporting event in the nation, but there is also plenty of analytics and statistics available for bettors to analyze. On top of this, there is a great range of betting types you can make on NFL games, making it the perfect sport for those who love to bet.