While traditional sports books such as Las Vegas and the Northeast are still the go-to places for NFL betting, the online world has given birth to a new type of wagering platform: spread point betting.
Also known as prop betting or parlor games, spread point betting gives sports bettors the ability to make wagers on the outcome of a sporting event without needing to select the winner or runner up. For example, a sports bettor could wager on whether the score of the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Seattle Seahawks will be greater than 17 points or less than that. This kind of wagering allows for more flexibility in terms of the bets that can be placed, as well as increased revenues, as fewer people are likely to leave a site with the perceived security of a sign-up bonus, especially when it comes to NFL games, where the spreads are incredibly volatile.
Why Spread Point Betting?
Traditional sports betting, as mentioned above, can involve a sizable amount of money, even in the form of in-game prop bets. Even those who are just wagering for fun can be subject to large winnings if they happen to catch a score that was heavily favored to push their total over the limit. For this reason, many people, including myself, frequently avoid wagering on parlor games and stick to sports betting, where the winnings are usually smaller and the variance is usually higher, making it a more stable form of gambling.
However, if you are a diehard fan of the San Francisco 49ers or New York Jets and you want to follow their games anywhere, the only available option is sports betting at a traditional bookmaker. With spread point betting, however, you can create your own lines and follow the outcome of the game virtually anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection and a device with which to log onto the site. Of course, you can also use mobile phones to place wagers from wherever you happen to be, which is convenient, as long as cellular connectivity is available.
How Do I Place a Spread Point Bet?
As a first-time user of a spread point betting site, you will be prompted to create an account. This is a fairly simple process, as you will be asked to fill out a fairly basic form, but it could take some time to verify that you are indeed a legal adult in the jurisdiction in which you are located. Once this is verified, you can begin to place your wagers. You will be bombarded with a plethora of statistics and information about the various sports teams and players, but, for the most part, all you need to know is how to make the right pick. In the next section, we will discuss the different types of bets that can be made with spread point betting.
Straight Up Wins/Losses
A common and, for the most part, a correct way of wagering is to bet on the outcome of the game. If you are correct, you will win the amount that you bet plus your original stake. If you are incorrect, you will lose what you bet plus your original stake. This is called a “straight-up win” for those betting on the outcome of the game.
On the other hand, if you are not sure whose team will win, you can place a “point spread” bet. Typically, these are the types of bets placed by sportsbooks when they take sides in a game. Placing a point spread bet means that you are wagering on whether the spread, or the margin of victory, will be greater than, less than, or equal to the original stake that you placed. Simply put, if you place a $100 wager on the San Francisco 49ers and they win by a score of 17-3, you will win $100 plus your original $100 stake, which amounts to a $200 profit, as opposed to the $100 that you would have made if you had chosen the Atlanta Falcons instead, as they are currently favored by many bookmakers to win the game.
Moneyline Wins/Losses
Moneyline bets are the simplest kind of wager to make, as all you need to do is select the team that you believe will win the game and place a stake on them. The bettor will then win or lose the amount of money that they originally staked plus what they win or lose on the selected team, with the latter being the case if they are selected by the bookies as the winner. For example, if Atlanta wins the game 5-3, you will win $100 plus your original $100 stake, as the line had them as five-point underdogs, meaning that you had placed a $5 wager on them to win.
On the other hand, if Seattle wins the game 6-3, you will lose the amount that you had staked plus the $5 that you had placed, as the line had them as three-point favorites, which is a gain of $95, compared to the $100 that you would have made if you had chosen the 49ers instead.
Over/Under Wins/Losses
Another popular type of wager among sports bettors is the over/under wager, which involves selecting an amount that you believe that the winning team will score and then placing a bet on whether they will score more or less than that amount. For example, if you believe that the San Francisco 49ers will score 20 points, you can place a $10 over/under bet, as oddsmakers will often offer promotions where you can get a percentage of your wager returned, as long as it is 10 or less, upon the winning of an under or over bet. In this case, you would win $90, as the score of the game ended up being 20-13, meaning that the over bettor won by $10.
Another way to look at this is that you would have made a $10 profit or loss, as you would have won $10 if the 49ers had scored 20 points or less, but you lost $10 if they scored more than 20 points.
Selections/Parlors
Finally, we come to the most popular type of wagering, which is selections or parlors, as these are the types of bets that can be made using spread point betting. Essentially, these are simply bets where you can wager on the results of several games at the same time, as opposed to making separate wagers on the outcome of individual games. For example, if you are an avid fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and you want to follow both their NBA games and the NCAA championships, you can create a parlor game where you can place wagers on both the Lakers and the University of California Golden Bears. While this might sound like a daunting task, especially making sure that you are following the scores of both teams, this is made easier because, as long as you are using a reputable spread point site, you can automatically win or lose the results of both games, as each team enters individually into the winner’s pool of the other, which is usually determined by the head-to-head results between the two groups. Selections and parlors are one of the most popular ways to wager for sports fans, as it gives them the opportunity to follow their teams in a number of different ways: through winnings and losses, through the individual scores of games, through the results of multiple games at once, and through the total accumulated score, among other options.
Making The Right Pick: The Ultimate Guide
To return to the original question at hand, how does spread point betting work for NFL games? The answer is that it works in a similar manner to traditional sports betting, but with a few key differences. First, you do not need to select a winner or a runner up, as you will automatically win or lose the spread, which is the amount by which the selected team is favored over the other. Next, you have to keep in mind that the point spread will change as the game progresses, so you will always want to check the current lines, especially at halftime and in the fourth quarter.
Unlike many other types of sports betting, where a bettor can win or lose the amount that is staked, spread point betting ensures that the latter always happens. This is because, if the selected team in question happens to cover the spread, then the bettor wins the amount that is staked, as this is a lay bet, which is always a safe wager to make. On the other hand, if the selected team does not cover the spread, then the bettor loses what is staked, as this is a bet on the underdogs.